Monkey Monday: “eat local” weekend food logs 23 April 2007 8:22 pm
Posted by Tracy in : America's Test Kitchen, CSA, anthropology, breakfast, cheese, convenience, cooking, dessert, eating, environment, eugene, hungry planet, local food, milk, monkeys, responsibility, school, seasonality, sustainability, tea, work , trackbackImportant finding number one: Quitting caffeine cold turkey is not for the faint of heart like me. I had a raging headache by around 2 PM Saturday and gave in and had some freaking tea already around 8 PM, after which sources report I was much less hellish to be around (and I will concede that it was much more pleasant to be me, oh yes). But! Aside from that tea and some salt and some cumin, everything else I ate this weekend was grown or manufactured in Oregon, with the exception of some russet potatoes from Washington, because I miscalculated the amount of spuds it would take to get me through the weekend. The single lamest part of the experiment (besides the whole wanting to kill everything for lack of caffeine) was that I got totally insanely possessive about my food, because there were so few things in the house that fit my (admittedly totally arbitrary) dietary parameters. The caffeine-withdrawal-induced crankiness almost certainly didn’t help with my food possessiveness, to put it mildly. Anyway. On to what I ate!
Saturday 21 April 2007
Breakfast was raw hazelnuts from Kronke’s Ranch & Elke’s Country Gifts, purchased at Saturday Market.
Second breakfast, shortly thereafter, was Nancy’s whole milk yogurt with rhubarb compote consisting of a stalk of rhubarb picked at the Urban Farm earlier in the day, and some pumpkin blossom honey from Reedsport, OR. I regret to report that neither breakfast took place until around 1 PM, after the trip to Saturday Market and two hours of Urban Farm work and another, more successful trip to Saturday Market and the Kiva, where at last I found some organic russet potatoes from Mike Noonan Farms in OR (my research suggests the farm is located somewhere around Klamath Falls, near the California-Oregon border).
I napped after America’s Test Kitchen (which I hadn’t seen in months because of the whole “usually I work on Saturdays” thing), then snacked on Kronke hazelnuts and carrots from Groundwork Organics (our CSA farm) until I realized it was time to start working on dinner.
Dinner was Sweet Briar Farms bacon and Groundwork Organics collard greens sautéed in the leftover bacon grease, and mashed russet potatoes from Mike Noonan’s farm with Umpqua half and half and butter, seasoned with garlic from the Lane County Farmers Market official farmstand, and briefly blanched organic asparagus, also from the LCFM stand (let’s hear it for being able to use a credit card because I was ever so very out of cash!)
Dessert was Gravenstein applesauce from a farm in Cheshire, OR — again purchased at the LCFM stand at Saturday Market.
Second dinner/supper was potato pancakes with the rest of Mike Noonan’s organic russet potatoes and Raynblest Farm “Happy Chicken” eggs and Walla Walla onion from Groundwork Organics, with more applesauce and also Umpqua sour cream. Also at this point I gave in and had some freaking tea already (either assam or Irish breakfast; I don’t rightly recall and it hardly mattered at this point).
Second dessert was honey ice cream made with more of the pumpkin blossom honey and Lochmead farms milk and cream, plus some Nancy’s yogurt for tartness (Peter was making stuff up like a champ! Go Peter! I’m sorry I couldn’t eat much of this on Saturday night but it was even better on Sunday when it had gotten a chance to freeze solid!)
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Breakfast/brunch was a spinach-garlic fritatta and home fries. The fritatta was made of Raynblest Farms happy chicken eggs, organic spinach from Groundwork Organics, garlic from the LCFM stand, Tillamook mozzerella, and Umpqua butter. The home fries were made with organic russet potatoes of unknown origin somewhere in Washington state, and organic Walla Walla onions from Groundwork Organics, and Umpqua butter. Nonlocal breakfast ingredients: delicious, delicious tea, and also Morton’s kosher salt of unknown origin.
I snacked on Kronke’s Ranch hazelnuts at various points throughout the day, and also some Groundworks carrots and more of Peter’s honey ice cream.
Lunch/dinner was nachos and refried beans. The nachos were made with Carmen’s corn chips, Groundwork Organics Walla Walla onion, and the last of the Tillamook cheddar. The black beans were from Regulus Associates of Elmira, OR and purchased at the LCFM stand. I cooked them with Groundwork Organics onions and LCFM garlic and cilantro, all sautéed in Umpqua butter and seasoned with mystery cumin and kosher salt. Since I don’t know the origin of the corn in Carmen’s chips, I would have been well within my “rights” to garnish the nachos with Emerald Valley salsa, whose ingredients are very much of unknown origin, but somehow that seemed like it was cheating too hard. So we stuck to Umpqua sour cream, and it was pretty tasty.
Monday 23 April 2007
This entry is rapidly stretching into the “only Mom will read this far” length, so tomorrow I will post today’s food log and compare it to what I ate over the weekend, and draw some conclusions and whatnot. My final report for this project is either due tomorrow or Thursday, and either way it’s pretty much writing itself; the only hard part will be keeping it down to just one page. Whee!
Comments»
I read progressive when you wrote possessive. Kinda funny.
Mom has read this far—–can’t wait till tomorrow.