08.30.05

Eat Local Challenge: Wrap-up or Rock On?

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:37 pm by trueepicure

The Eat Local Challenge (ELC) came at the perfect time in my gastronomic career. I recently found out that I am allergic to corn, and I have become an avid food label reader. I have to avoid all corn and products derived from corn. I can’t eat anything at the movie theatre, and almost all Kellogg’s and Nabisco products are on the no-no list. ELC forced me to really think long and hard about how I was going enter this new phase of my life – kicking and screaming or zen-like and willing to take on the, erm, challenge.

August was rough. The low desert region of Arizona becomes a dry dustbowl this time of year, with monsoon rains, just to spice things up. We’re in between two growing seasons and we’re all just hunkered down, abusing our air conditioning, trying to make sense out of living in a convection oven. Most of the plant life around here is waiting for the rain and cooler temperatures to start growing and producing fruit again. In other words, it’s not the best time to be trying to find food that is produced locally. Of course, this is a challenge and I am stubborn, so it is a match made in heaven.

My definition of local for this challenge was the State of Arizona. I planned to focus on organic or naturally grown food that is grown in Arizona. What I found, for the most part, is that you can find organic or local, but not so much produce that is both. When I couldn’t find local, I opted for organic, and fortunately there is quite a bit of organic produce available. I expected thing to be hard, and I wasn’t surprised when it was. But I was also pleasantly surprised at some of my successes, which will create opportunities for me in the coming months.

Successes

Finding Tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius)

Using eggs from my friends J and M

The luscious mozzarella cheese from Pane Bianco

A monster zucchini from Flagstaff

Eating out and some great local, independent restaurants, some of which have a long history of using local ingredients

I have also found some great sources for goat cheese at goat’s milk products, several local farms that sell fruit, and places to get pecans, dates, and pistachios. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but I will! I will be writing some back posts about my successes and future posts about potential successes, so stay tuned.

Challenges

There was no way to eat completely local in Phoenix in August. I’ve said it several times, and saying it doesn’t change it. Come winter, I probably will be able to eat completely local, or darned close to it. August has too much sun for me, let alone the veggies.

Misinformation from shop owners. The challenge is only as good as the information I have to do the challenge. I had several incidences where I was told that something was local, only to find that it wasn’t. Sigh.

CSA Problems - my CSA had some technical difficulties that I mentioned in an earlier post. Without my CSA as a primary source of veggies, I had to rely on the local health food stores and other local groceries. This was a big bummer, but it did force me to try new places and new things - a silver lining.

One of the questions that Jen asked us to discuss was: “What did you deny yourself during August that you are dying to have on September 1?” I decided that my participation in ELC would not be about denial. I have too much denial in my life these days. I decided, instead, to augment as much of my diet as possible, and think of new ways to enhance my gastronomic repetoire.

My personal goals for the month were to:

learn more about the food where I live

eat a healthier, more diverse range of foods

learn new things about where I live

I will definitely be carrying what I have learned in this challenge forward. I hope that I am only at the beginning of a new phase of my life that includes healthier eating and more experimentation. I’m already looking forward to next August, when we’ll all be blogging about local food again as a group.

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