Defining "local"

When a person begins to source his or her food more locally, a question comes up: what is local?

People in the Bay Area of California often use a 100-mile circle as their definition of local, tempting others to use a similar definition. You would do pretty well with that definition in St. Louis -- there are several produce farms in Southern Illinois. Farrar Out farm where I get my eggs and chicken just fits inside that circle. But you would miss out on Ozark Forest Mushrooms and Sandhill Farm sorghum. I've found that I'm willing to use the 100-mile circle on the Illinois side, but I prefer to use the entire state of Missouri on this side of the Mississippi River. Among other reasons, that puts me in a kind of partnership with state programs like AgriMissouri.

Farmers Market purchases sound like they would all be local. But, for example, Summit Farms at the Kirkwood Farmers Market is more of a distributor, selling lots of California produce alongside locally grown produce in season. It's generally very good quality produce no matter where it comes from. I learned recently that if it weren't for Summit, the Kirkwood Farmers Market wouldn't be sustainable, so I'm grateful they are there. However, for my One Local Summer meals, I will do more of my shopping at some of the other booths.

I buy grains, including flour, and beans from Kimker Hill Farm at the Tower Grove Market. They don't grow all of the items that they mill or package, but Denise says she sources them as close as she can get. Since she is my only source for locally milled flour, I'm going to consider that close enough. Plus, I love her blog since it lets me know what to expect at her booth each Saturday.

If you're eating local meat, do you care what the animals eat? Do you want them on a 100-mile diet, too? Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food, convinced me that meat and dairy products are healthier for me if the animals are pastured. But, at the moment, I seem to have a choice between buying butter from pastured cows in Wisconsin or from cows who eat grain from who knows where, but do it in Missouri. Which is better? For One Local Summer meals, I'll use the butter from Missouri cows, but for some of my other meals, I'll probably choose the pastured butter.

People who have been buying organic for years sometimes have trouble switching to local foods because they suddenly have to choose between those two values -- do you buy organic apples or do you buy local apples that are not organic? Many small farms use organic practices, but they don't go through the considerable bother and expense to be certified organic. But, of course, that's not true for all local farms, and particularly not apple orchards in this region.

In the end, though, I find it really doesn't matter how I answer these questions. What matters is that I asked them and thought about the answers. That, in itself, has made a huge difference in how I think about my food and who produces it.

One Local Summer posts

The first One Local Summer posts are up at the Farm to Philly blog. The Midwest recap is very inspiring. A lot of folks, like me, relied on eggs and asparagus for our first meal. I think some of the salads may inspire my local meal for this week.

Chautauqua -- a summer cultural event

When I went to the Pike County Chautauqua in the summer of 2005, I wrote (in my Chautauqua Diary) these definitions of Chautauqua:

• a resort town in upstate New York
• a circuit of tent shows at the turn of the twentieth century, kind of a revival for the mind
• a present-day cultural and educational institution in Chautauqua, New York (like summer camp for adults)
• a modern phenomena of cultural and educational programming for summer entertainment, featuring scholar-actors portraying historical characters

I will again be attending a Chautauqua of the last variety this week. But, I won't be writing a diary -- I will be too busy as the stage director for the performances.

If you live in the St. Louis area, please consider attending. We will have Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Margaret Mitchell, and P.T. Barnum. If the weather is clear, and tomorrow is looking good, the show will go on at the Lions' Amphitheater in Kirkwood Park. The rain location is the theater at Meramec Community College, which is also a lovely venue. The full schedule is linked from the Kirkwood Public Library's website.

Strawberry season starts

Farmers Market logo courtesy of A Veggie Venture.

Strawberries are one of the poster children of eating locally and seasonally. In case you've never had a local in-season strawberry, learn this: strawberries are red and tender all the way through. They don't have a crunchy, flavorless, white core.

As I wrote mid-week, I found my first strawberries of the season at the Maplewood Farmers Market. I was correct that the Our Garden booth had them again at the Tower Grove Market on Saturday. I saw them and a long line so I did my other shopping first. By the time I got around to Our Garden again, both the line and the strawberries were gone.

I thought I had lost my chance at more strawberries, but when I swung by the Kirkwood Farmers Market for my chicken and eggs from Farrar Out Farm, I found that two vendors were selling strawberries by the quart. They weren't nearly as pretty as the ones from Our Garden, but the price was more attractive -- 2 quarts for $9 compared to 1 pint for $3.

Two quarts is enough to experiment with. I'm trying to decide if I want to freeze berry puree to eat later in the year. If I do that, it will be with berries that I pick myself at a very low price. The first experiment is strawberry sorbet, following the recipe that came with the ice cream machine I got for my birthday. Definitely a success.

Post submitted to the Farmers Market Fare carnival at Eat. Drink. Better.

A Good Wednesday

We had a perfect weather day in the St. Louis area yesterday--the first time in awhile that the weather story was how gorgeous the day was.




Our nephew, P, came to help with yard work. Now that we've decided that the yellowwood tree is rather special, we wanted to clean up the trees around it to give it some room. The evergreen that was planted too close to that ash is now gone, made into a separate pile of chips to provide an acidic mulch for the azaleas. One of the ashes was trimmed up and the next will be soon. We're going to put a bed around the two ashes and yellowwood -- probably just pansies for the fall and spring, but eventually a variety of shade perennials. We're concerned about the long term health of these two ashes and several more on our property because of the imminent threat of the emerald ash borer, but for now we're going to assume that they will be in the landscape for some time to come. R was thrilled with how much work he got done with a helper.




I discovered our first local strawberries of the season last night at the Maplewood Farmers Market. They were from Our Garden -- I assume she'll have them at the Tower Grove Market on Saturday, too. Biver Farms also had strawberries and will likely have them at one or more of their Saturday market locations, Tower Grove, Clayton, and Goshen Market in Edwardsville. I've been collecting strawberry recipes, but it looks like these won't last long enough to go in a recipe! The first strawberries are such a treat all on their own.

Lucy at the Claverach booth was selling small white Japanese turnips with the advice to try them in salads because they're so tender in the spring. I did and they add a nice mild bite, much less harsh than the flavor I normally associate with turnips. The turnips were also good at breakfast this morning, sauteed with some potato and fresh rosemary and topped with finely grated Parmesan.

Memorial Day flowers and trees

I hope everyone in the area did okay with the storms last night. Some of our new plants are looking pretty shredded from the hail we got, but I think they will all recover.

We wouldn't ordinarily go to the Missouri Botanical Garden on a holiday, but since it was an iffy weather day, we figured everyone else would stay home so we went. We had a burning question: What is this tree? It's in our new yard and, for the first time since we've moved in, we noticed it was blooming.

We took a sample of the leaves and flowers to the Plant Doctor desk at the Kemper Center for Home Gardening. The lady at the desk identified it for us immediately: yellowwood, Cladrastis kentukea. She did say that they are fairly rare, so it wasn't so surprising that we weren't able to identify it ourselves. We also learned when we looked it up at home that it only blooms in alternate years, so we didn't need to feel badly about missing the flowers last year -- we thought we'd been awfully oblivious to what was going on in our yard to have missed these long droopy flowers.

Of course, once we were at the Garden, we spent the next few hours wandering around, never mind that we were just there on Friday.

The peonies were pretty battered by last night's storm, but we found some that were still looking perky.

The most unusual find of the day came courtesy of a couple who had sat long enough in the English Woodland Garden to spot the foxes and pointed them out to us. We'd seen the sign that said "don't feed the foxes," so we knew they were in there, but had never seen them. We saw three running around today once we knew where to look.

OLS: Asparagus Scramble

Breakfast seemed like the appropriate choice for my very first One Local Summer challenge meal. The One Local Summer challenge is to blog about one meal a week made from local ingredients. The posts will be compiled by region at the Farm to Philly blog on Tuesdays, starting in just over a week. I'll link to the first Midwest Region report when it's up on the blog.

This is a one-egg breakfast with toast spread with soft goat cheese. Here's a diet tip I picked up from somewhere. I want cheese with my egg and I want something spread on my toast. By spreading cheese on my toast, I kill two desires with one serving of fat.




Asparagus Scramble with toast
Sunflower oil
5 spears of asparagus, sliced into rounds (Our Garden Farm, Maplewood Farmers Market)
1 tablespoon sliced chives (Silent Oak Farm, Clayton Farmers Market)
3 sprigs of thyme, stems removed (pot on my deck)
1 egg, lightly beaten (Farrar Out Farm, Kirkwood Farmers Market)
1 slice of 97% Local Bread
2 teaspoons of Ste. Genevieve cheese (Baetje Farms, Clayton Farmers Market)

1. Saute the asparagus in the sunflower oil over medium high heat until caramelized.

2. Meanwhile, toast the bread and spread with the cheese.

3. Turn the heat to low and add chives and thyme, cooking until fragrant.

4. When the pan is cooled somewhat, push the vegetable mix to one side and pour the egg into the other side. Gently push the edges of the egg in as it cooks, letting the uncooked egg flow to the pan's surface. When most of the egg is set, spoon the vegetables into the portion that is still runny and flip to cook the last of the egg around the vegetables.