Trout is a local food!

I love that my husband likes to fish!

First Herbs of the season

I used these to make a cucumber relish to accompany the fresh trout! Yum!

Fill my plate...

Half full of fruits and vegetables!!!!













I am entirely too excited about the new USDA food icon for balanced eating!
What a better reason and opportunity to buy more of the local fruits and vegetables that are increasingly available at this time of year.

I wish Gillespie Farm was still producing strawberries. Shamefully, I ate every last quart I bought and didn't make any jam. I not only didn't freeze any fresh strawberries either, but also used the remainder of last years stock to make sorbet during our heat wave, which has made our usual bumper crop of red raspberries and blackberries tiny and water deprived. Sigh.

I must return to our latest sorbet churning on the counter - peach cherry. Yum.
Thank you Bangor Daily News for this great blog picture and your article.

Local Foodies Eating Locally

In lieu of my own personal stagnation, I figured I could re-post this article as it is fitting of all my endeavors. From the Portland Press Herald.

Natural Foodie: Two Portlanders chronicle their year of eating locally

By Avery Yale Kamila akamila@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

In foodie culture, eating local is all the rage. But few go as far as Luke Fuller and Cassi Madison. The recently engaged couple reached their one-year anniversary this week of eating a diet made up almost exclusively of Maine food.

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Luke Fuller and Cassi Madison prepare a chili using all Maine ingredients in their West End kitchen. Fuller, who is an artist, created the artwork above the stove. The piece on the left depicts the late Jim Cook, who founded the Crown O'Maine Organic Cooperative.

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Sweet and spicy tempeh salad with nasturtium garnish.

Fuller's work is included in a group show opening Friday at June Fitzpatrick Gallery, 112 High St., Portland. The show, "MECA Painters 10 Years Later," features artists who graduated from the Maine College of Art in 2001. It opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. during the monthly First Friday Art Walk festivities.

"It's been a long year," Fuller said from the couple's cozy apartment kitchen in Portland's West End, where a chili composed of Maine beans, tomatoes and tempeh simmered on the stovetop and stuffed squash baked in the oven.

"We started out being really strict," said Fuller, produce manager at Lois' Natural Marketplace in Scarborough.

But they relaxed a bit as the year progressed, allowing for the occasional coffee or restaurant meal. Fuller estimates they ended the year eating a diet made up of 90 percent local food.

On the first day of the local eating adventure, Fuller and Madison showed this isn't a deprivation diet. Their meals that day included a kale, onion, Gouda and goat cheese omelet with home fries for breakfast and a dinner of boiled lobster, roasted red beets and parsnips complemented by a wheat berry salad with delicata squash.

The recent popularity of eating local food has caused some to complain that only the rich can afford to eat local food. Madison is quick to bust that myth.

"The thing for us is, we don't have a lot of money," said Madison, a waitress at the Pepperclub Restaurant in Portland. "So we're doing the most we can with the money we have. We've also gone times without health insurance. The food we're putting into us is making up for it."

As with all aspects of life, higher quality generally comes with a higher cost, and the world of food is no different. Madison, who does the shopping while Fuller does the cooking, notes that a rooftop garden and a community garden plot helped stretch their food budget.

"We home-cook all our food," Madison said. "It's expensive when we buy scallops or lobster. It also gets expensive because we buy in bulk, but then we have local beans for months."

In addition, the couple has found creative ways to make their food dollars go farther.

"I traded a painting for a CSA share at Freedom Farm this year," said Fuller, who is also an artist.

The idea for embarking on a year of locavore eating grew out of an art show Fuller mounted in 2009 at the Arm Factory in Portland. The show was called "Local Rootz," and for 30 days in advance of its opening, Fuller ate an all-local diet.

He found the meals and the challenge of tracking down Maine products to be so satisfying, he decided to try it for a full year. Madison was game, so together they set about revamping their pantry and menus.

Right at the start, they made an exception for non-Maine grown herbs and spices they already had on hand. Since it would be wasteful to toss these items, they decided they could continue to use them, but they wouldn't buy more during the year.

At the start of the project, Fuller explained on his blog how as a landscape artist, he's witnessed profit-driven concerns destroy and degrade land. He wrote, "I have also noticed public demand to make everything faster, cheaper and easier take priority over what we once considered common sense environmental practices. It made me very frustrated watching humans' relationship with nature become more and more artificial and it really caused me to analyze the way I was living my life as well as my role as an artist in my community After much meditation and consideration I reached the conclusion that the most sustainable way for me to continue to habitate my environment was to live as locally as possible."

When the year of eating local began, Fuller posted an update each day at lukaduke.blogspot.com, along with the list of local food he and Madison consumed the day before and often a picture or two of a meal.

"Once I got to 260 (posts), I got a little burned out," Fuller admitted. In June, Fuller switched to posting information roughly every other week about standout meals and farmers market finds.

"You see a different vegetable and we say, 'Let's try it,' " Madison said. Such openness to trying new things led them to sample squash blossoms and Saskatoon berries for the first time this year.

And the pair quickly learned what local stores carried which Maine-grown, -caught or -raised foods.

"Local eating is not one-stop shopping," Madison said. "You have to go to different stores."

Explaining the rapidly expanding range of Maine-grown foods, Fuller said, "We get corn flour, rye flour, sunflower, mustard seed and canola oils (from Maine). There's so much great stuff out there."

Of course, there are some things you just can't get from Maine. Neither hesitated when asked what foods they missed while eating a Maine-based diet. For Madison, it was chocolate; for Fuller, it was beer.

Fuller explained that while Maine is filled with locally brewed beers, almost all use ingredients imported from other states and countries. The only exception is Sebago's Local Harvest Ale, which is brewed using Maine-grown hops and barley malt. However, the popular brew is currently sold out and won't be available again until next fall.

Instead, the pair relies on wine from Bartlett, Sweetgrass Farm and Savage Oakes, the three Maine wineries that use local fruits in their fermentation processes.

Fuller and Madison are both former vegetarians who switched to eating seafood when they started this project because they recognized that eating an all Maine-grown, plant-based diet in the winter could be tough. As new pescatarians and long-time conscientious eaters, they are careful to make sure the seafood they purchase has been sustainably harvested. The Seafood Watch site is bookmarked on their home computer, and they check it frequently.

Madison said they've found Maine oysters to be one of the lowest-impact seafoods available in the state, because their harvest doesn't involve the pollution of fish farming or the overharvesting associated with drag-net fishing.

But for both Fuller and Madison, eating Maine food 24/7 really comes down to getting to know food producers and then putting their money behind enterprises they want to see prosper.

"It's all about creating a community and knowing the farmers," Fuller said. "Every dollar we have is a vote."

Artisan Cheese Tasting

While preparing for my mini lesson on cheese, we tasted a lot of cheese. Several evenings were spent indulging my turophilic nature, and clogging poor SPs already threatened veins. I do love him and care for his health and well being and would happily say farewell to meat for a life time. But give up my cheese? I think not. This particular night we sampled several artisan cheeses, both local and international.
On this cheese board are the remains of Vermont's Jasper Hill's bloomy Constant Bliss, some out of this world Bandaged Cheddar from Cabot VT (and aged at Jasper Hill's caves), the amazing delicious buttery Eleanor Buttercup from Hahn's End from coastal Phippsburg Maine. The final and most visually appealing cheese is this one. The gorgeous yet far from local Campo deMontalban, a true cheese from La Mancha! I was so impressed with the color and texture of the rind of this cheese that I took another picture. Isn't she pretty? Maybe it's just me, and I need to set up a support group called Turophiles Anonymous. In this economy cheese is one of the most expensive things to buy. But there is no stopping a Turophile, we resist recessions. I think you should do the same and go out and support your local artisan cheese maker!

Backyard Beauties from Backyard Farms!

Why has it taken me so long to realize that those beautiful vine ripened tomatoes at the market are locally grown!? Backyard Farms grows those wonderful tomatoes year round in the largest greenhouse in New England. They even have native bumblebees inside the greenhouse to pollinate each tomato flower. Bees are struggling these years so it is a win win situation for the bees who then receive their food from the tomatoes’ pollen. I wonder if they will make honey too? Their use of sustainable energy and rainwater reclamation round them out to be one of my favorite discoveries this summer. I do hope that they will not fall prey to the late blight, because I just might have to rely on these beauties for my upcoming tomato sauce project! And better yet, they have recipes on their website! Thank you Backyard Farms for all that you do!

Cheese - another way to keep it local

The Portland Press Herald published this article recently about the localvore simplicity of homemade cheese. I found this article through the blog of the Maine Cheese Collective. I recently published the recipe from Gourmet for homemade mozzarella cheese, but the uncanny timing of this article can't go unnoticed. I just returned from a week long trip to New York City, where I was able to dine on any ethnic food I could choose. From American to Italian to Indian to Brazilian and ending with an American Australian - my final meal one morning in Brooklyn was markedly the best. My daughter's Godmother and I ate in Greenpoint at Five Leaves and it was a treat to say the least. The cafe which opened 7 months ago was financially backed by the late Heath Ledger, another yummy favorite of mine. I chose for breakfast the Sage scrambled organic Eggs w/aged cheddar, which served on a roll but the swirly herbed eggs made the most beautiful sandwich I have ever eaten. But my friend's choice was even more stunning: house made ricotta with fresh thyme, chestnut honey, figs, Maldon sea salt and fruit bread. It was heaven in a bowl and an inspiration for the things to come. Before I move along to the point of this blog I must say that everybody should go and eat at Five Leaves. The experience I had at Five Leaves was a reminder that some day we will keep bees and I will make cheese. So when I returned home last night and read through the blog posts on my dashboard, discovering that the Portland Press Herald had written an article titled, "Another way to keep it local? Say cheese", I knew I had come full circle. So without further ado, here are the recipes.

WHOLE MILK RICOTTA

1 gallon whole milk, pasteurized or raw
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 teaspoon salt

In a large stockpot, combine milk, acid and salt. Heat to 185 to 195 degrees, stirring often. Do not boil.

As soon as the curds and whey separate, turn off the heat. The whey should look somewhat clear rather than milky. Let sit for 10 minutes. Line a colander with cheese cloth and place in a large bowl. Ladle the curds into the cloth. Tie the corners of the cloth together and hang for 20 to 30 minutes.

You can hang the cloth from a knob on a kitchen cabinet or use a wooden spoon through the knot to hang over a deep container.

Eat immediately or refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Makes 3 to 4 cups (11/2 to 2 pounds).

As a parting shot, and reminder to go to Five Leaves, my favorite part of the decor was the bathroom door which though baffling at first approach, turns out to be a recycled boiler door.

Related Websites

I am struggling to understand how to link my posts to other websites and how to find and subscribe to other blogs. I know I am not alone in what I am doing and, as they say, misery loves company!?

So here is a list of websites I keep finding along the way that are helping me discover the best way to lead a local and sustainable life:

http://100milediet.org

http://www.seacoasteatlocal.org/

http://www.localharvest.org/

Processing and Seafood

Several of my questions revolve around the processing of foods, such as corn and wheat, and the actual trapping and catching of seafood. Luckily enough, I am in close proximity to the coast, so I can eat some seafood. Unfortunately, most of it I do not like. I love tuna, but that is an offshore species. I am perplexed as to how to solve this dilemma. I found a fantastic website, as listed above, and it is the journey of a Vancouver couple to spend 100 days living locally, within 100 miles of their home. Their book will be added to my bibliography and I am sure I will reference their website more than once.

I know the purpose is to reduce fossil fuel emmissions, but isn't is also to support the local economy? So like King Arthur's flour, if the fish come further than 100 miles away, but are processed locally I am still supporting the local economy. I am perplexed as if I need to choose between the lesser of two evils, or else go without. It looks like I am not alone in finding the answer, so as to quote James and Allissa from their blog (http://100milediet.org/):

" Eating locally pushes you to think about the questions that come up. Why does all the processing and distribution have to be centralized? How do we weigh the benefits of that centralization against the costs? (Our coast is littered with ghost towns and “cannery rows” from the era when much of the processing and distribution was local.) Does the current trend toward ever-bigger cities make sense, or do we need to keep our communities closer to the carrying capacities of the landscapes we live in? Shouldn’t we be working harder to restore the local stocks that can no longer feed us? And what about more distant fish stocks? Is it even possible to fish them sustainably? (I’m reminded of the fact that the East Coast offshore fishing fleet was once powered entirely by sail–the legendary Bluenose was one of the boats–and that the sail fishers warned that power boats would spell the end of the stocks.)

Ultimately, though, I still haven’t answered the question, What is ‘local’ seafood?"