It begins....a year of eating local

Oh where to start? I am feeling wistful and dreamy. Unlike the other night when I declared "the beginning" to my family. Uptight, betrayed and idiotic describes me Monday night. In my naivety I thought I could just lead the kitchen, as I do day after day, meal after meal, without any resistance or buy-in. How would this really effect the rest of the family anyway? They will eat great no matter what. They have me preparing their meals after all! So I wouldn't be dragging home yogurt in little plastic cups and bags of convenient kettle fried potatoes from the store. I might hear a squeak now and then, but I've made homemade yogurt and kefir before. My children don't REALLY care where their cultured milk products come from as long as it's in the fridge when they want it. Right?
Saturday I loaded my car with friends and drove up to the Boulder Farmer's market. Once again I was reminded why I am doing this. Fresh faced, happy, somewhat weary farmers and baskets and boxes of the most beautiful organic produce ever. I am in love with fresh farm produce. And just for the record if I wasn't already happily married I WOULD be running off to spend my days with a farm and the farmer who happened to live there. I left the market a few hours later with my canvas bags filled to the rim. Bags of freckled young romaine and mixed lettuces from Mr. Munson (apparently my squash farmer grows lettuce too), three foot tall young onions, garlic chives, sorrel, mustard greens, spinach, hydroponic tomatoes, broccoli raab, fresh basil, tat soi, and beautiful spring mushrooms. For those of you who do not like mushrooms, you are wrong. Just saying. Given that this was the Saturday farmer's market that fell closest to June 1st I knew I needed to go. All other farmer's markets in my area are not opening for another week or two.
For months now Dave and I have talked about making this year of local real. I've told him numerous times June 1st is when I wanted to start. We sat down to dinner on Monday night (officially May 30th, but it seemed like a good day to me since I had just been to the farmer's market) which was New York strip steaks purchased from a farmer in Buena Vista with farmer's market Tat soi greens, 3 ft tall onions and the entire pound of mushrooms. I left the greens raw but sauteed the onions -green and all- with the mushrooms. The mushrooms I might add where; king trumpets, lion's head, cinnamon tops and some other kind, I forget now. (note to self-take notes) The dinner was fabulous and then the announcement. Dun Dun Dun Duuuunnnnn. Cal made comments such as "this is a total human-kind downgrade, mom!" Of course, resistance from a 13 year old. What did I expect really? For months I have been preparing, reading, being inspired by others that have gone before me. The rest of my family have not been. In my mind even Dave turned on me. "Hun, maybe we should approach this differently?" If looks could kill..... Cameron, my ever supportive and encouraging off-spring, said "I'm in mom!". Everyone's shadow was present and accounted for. The only one with a remote voice of reason was Dave. I began to see that I would need buy-in from everybody, not just Dave. A different approach was attempted. I'm still in the midst of that attempt, by the way.
In my heart I was focused on the dreamy fairy-tale aspect of us all doing this and saving the world. I'm such an eternal optimist. Really. I really am scary in that way. I believe in the best, always. In that state I thought everyone was behind me. But how could they be? I'm the one that spends my hours and years with nose to the books reading about soil health and big business GMO monoculture, locavores and saving the small farm, the CSAs and the death of butterflies. My family has not the vast amount of information that I have accumulated in preparation for an event such as this. They have no idea why anyone would eat locally. Well, maybe they have a little bit of a clue. They are my children after all. They have been to Berry Patch Farms every year of their young lives to help me pick raspberries and strawberries and cherries. Followed up by hours of skin staining cherry pitting and jam making. They have eaten many a jar of the fruits of our labors. They have seen me many times out on my porch on Christmas eve in the freezing cold sorting three cut and wrapped butchered steer into 14 boxes for 14 families to share. They have been to the farms to see the cows that give us our raw milk. They know Tom the turkey. Because of this I was not quite as prepared as I should have been for THE RESISTANCE. I began to doubt myself. I do have a tendency to be a "all or nothing" kind of person. 0 to 100 NOW! That is me. I was thinking "perhaps this is me again practicing 'obsessivism'." In my somewhat maturing self I have tried to reverse this obsessive behavior in myself. In the moment of THE RESISTANCE I thought perhaps my self-monitoring filter had failed, once again. (old habits can be hard to break) But alas, a good local meal in my belly and some time to reflect and an AH HA moment was to be had. I love those. Of course resistance, of course! Why wouldn't I have in my home what nearly every home in the United States would have? I need the resistance. If I am going to create a working, how-to handbook from my experiences the first thing that must be addressed is THE RESISTANCE! And not just my family's, my own.

Our starting menu: (includes some food still in my possession that is not local)
Dinner-New York Strip steaks with tat soi and sauteed spring onions and mixed mushrooms
Breakfast-Spinach with eggs and farm cheese
Snack-rhubarb crisp
Lunch- Sauteed turnip greens and garlic chives, roasted new potatoes and farm cheese
Dinner- Sorrel and mixed lettuces with honey mustard chicken breasts and sauteed spinach
Breakfast-oatmeal
Snack-cheese and oranges
Lunch-Salad of lettuce, fresh basil, sliced tomatoes and olives. Hard-boiled egg or deer jerky
Dinner-Bottom Round roast, salad of broccoli raab, pickled turnips and my garden carrots

What I've learned:
1 buy more mushrooms next week,
2 it is okay to transition slow,
3 resistance can be good.

WHAT'S UP NOW

My children think I'm crazy, but that is nothing new for someone who has teenagers. Since December I have been reading and researching like crazy. Three things out of all that inspired me to get moving.

The first is permaculture. Some time back my friend, Katie, and I went to the Permaculture institute up in Basalt, CO.

CENTRAL ROCKY MOUNTAIN PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE

2001 East Cedar Drive • Basalt, CO 81621

Phone / Fax (970) 927-4158 • Email: Jerome@crmpi.org

Wow. Totally cool. That is when I first heard about this crazy idea of gardening like mother nature. She's such a know it all! I saw the beautiful soil. That was all the proof I needed. So, I have been turning large portions of my yard into gardens and layering in what is called Lasagna Gardening in order to build the soil. This year and in years to come I will plant. My continued inspiration and reading comes in the form of Bill Mollison. I have a few of his hard-to-find books on loan from my friend Wil. I know someday soon I will have to return them, but in the mean time I sleep with them hoping to absorb all they have to offer.

The second is composting. Okay, I've been composting for a decade now, but in the "throw it on the mound and eventually it will breakdown" kind of way. That is a very easy way to compost. I cared enough to not let my scraps end up in the land fill, but did not care enough to do ANYTHING other than throw it on the heap and let it breakdown. Now I am having a more hands on, conscious experience with my compost. Over winter break I carted my heavy-on-the-back-talking preteens up to a llama farm and then to a chicken farm with shovels and buckets. Who knew you could put so much poop and straw in the back of a volvo wagon? I drove around town buying up the last of the straw bales from the Christmas tree sales markets for a cheap-o price. I also sent my boys head first into massive recycling dumpsters to collect all the newspapers that my car would hold. It is no wonder that they think I'm crazy. Their mom collects what others want to get rid of. Well, as of spring break it is all layered in my newest garden now. With the help of our saw-happy wood working neighbor and all that I saved from last fall, we now have layers of newspaper, manure, straw, wood shavings, grass, leaves, compost and anything else I could come across. Thus far what I have learned? It takes A LOT of waste to create good soil. I still need sooo much more stuff. I've never been excited for grass cutting season to start, but I neeeeed those grass clippings now. Oh, and as a side project, I have two worm composting bins going. One at home and the other lives at my After School Care program. Start 'em early, I say!

The third, was a book called Plenty. One hundred mile diet. Eating only what comes from within 100 miles of where you live. WOW. Could you do that? We are going to try. Starting in June. Yikes. My children don't believe me. I don't blame them. I've done only a tiny bit of research as of yet. No chocolate, no coffee, no pineapple or coconut, no ginger, no soy sauce, NO RICE-we are gluten-free! I was actually sad to find out that we can get sugar from sugar beets. My boys were thrilled, but I was hoping we would get a break from everything but honey. There are a few things like ginger and lemons I think I might go crazy without. But I am resourceful, that much I know. I'm just sure that if someone is growing rice or ginger within 100 miles of my house I will sniff it out.

--I'll let you know how it's going.