The Latest

Mailbag: 100-Mile Projects Far and Wide

OCTOBER 10, 2007 - The range of ways that the 100-mile diet and local eating are being used now officially boggles the mind. Here, we include just a few of the recent examples: inspiration for others who are planning their own innovations.

From Carrie in Eastern Ohio:

At A Taste of Ohio, the 100-mile diet is our bread and butter. We sell locally produced foods to grocery stores, university food programs, and local shops and promote the concept of buying local, the stories behind the products, and just how good Ohio-made foods can taste.

And here’s Joyce in Shropshire, England:

Great to hear about you. I am building a farm shop to sell all local produce (I farm,too). We will have a cafe using local produce and a visitor centre for the Battle of Shrewsbury, which was fought on my fields in 1403!

Right, so Joyce’s farm is older than Canada- by a long shot. And now some big news from Marie in Gainesville, Florida:

January 2008 will be “100-Mile Diet Month” in Gainesville, starting with the community green markets and office of sustainability at the University of Florida. We are going to encourage as many people as possible to take the challenge and shop at our local farmers’ markets and cook from there. Winter is a fabulous month for local produce in northern central Florida and we have local dairies, meat and cheeses. There’s no reason it can’t be done. We will keep you posted.

Please do, Marie, and we don’t doubt it can be done. We’ll be imagining Florida’s winter markets as we wander our own in the wet, cold Vancouver winter… Last but not least (for today, anyway) is Barbara in Meaford, Ontario (note that the link also connects to local food resources for the whole Grey Bruce region):

The grand opening of the 100-mile market, a new store in Meaford, was held on October 4th. The store philosophy is “buy local for global change.” Besides the 100-mile diet movement, the market also grew out of the success of the municipal farmers’ market that started this year. When consumers started asking how they would get locally grown products after the end of the farmers’ market season, David Harper and Barbara Kay of Stoneyfield Elk Farm rose to the challenge. They decided to open a year-round store that allows consumers the choice to buy and eat in-season foods grown, processed and manufactured within their local region. They have compiled a list of local products that includes meat (beef, elk, bison, goat, lamb and pork); honey and maple syrup; organic grains and flours; organic yogurt and ice cream; smoked fish; fair trade roasted coffee; jams, jellies and chutney; dried beans and soup mixes. Vegetables and fruit will be available when in season.

It’s going to be a good winter for eating in Meaford…and Gainesville…and Shropshire…and Eastern Ohio…and where nextt?-JBM

2007: Canadian Thanksgiving in Haiti

By Esther

Here’s us in Port au Prince, Haiti, celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with poul peyi (that’s Haitian chickens), roasted carrots and turnips and sweet potatoes, hydroponic lettuce, Locojo’s potato muffins, cocoa-avocado fudge/mousse, and pumpkin pie with Haitian almond honey crust and a little Prestige (Haitian beer on the side). I love Haitian food but this was something else. Thanks to Locojo and the Haitian farmers!

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

OCTOBER 9, 2007 - So, Canadians, how did 100-Mile Thanksgiving go? Don’t forget to share your stories.

Here’s what we ended up with at our place. For salad, nothing more than fresh, sliced yellow tomatoes (why get complicated?). Then, huge artichokes - my mom, it turns out, had never eaten a fresh ‘choke - dipped in orange tomato and butter reduction, and as simple as that sounds it absolutely exploded in the mouth. Then there were Locojo’s Potato Muffins topped with honey-sweetened homemade cranberry sauce (why buy it when it takes barely five minutes to make?). Finally, poached pink salmon from the mouth of Vancouver Island’s Conuma River served with dill and white wine cream sauce, with white wine filling our glasses. We finished with Alisa’s absolutely incredible no-spice pumpkin pie - a brand new invention that was the highlight of the meal - done up with whipped cream and slices of Asian pear. I’ll leave it to her to share the recipe…

The cooking, not including the pie, took only two hours even though I cooked alone; I didn’t want my mom to help, because a meal never tastes quite as good to the cooks as it does to a guest. Everything was local, right down to the salt, most of the ingredients were organic or biodynamic, and almost all of them came with memories. It was a feast and a celebration, and I want to share two things my mom (whom I haven’t seen a lot of lately) had to say about the whole experience. The first was this: “I wish I could shop with you guys all the time. You get things so cheap!” It caught me by surprise, because so many people tell us - without ever having tried it themselves - that eating locally must cost so much more thansupermarket shopping. It was good to have someone looking from the outside in on our world confirm what I strongly believe: that you can eat better, and more affordably, on fresh, local food. And believe me, my mom isn’t someone who takes the question of value lightly…

The second thing my mom said was simpler, and it came near the end of a weekend standing on farms and at fishdocks; if I remember correctly, she was helping me shell Goat’s Eye beans from the garden while Alisa loaded dried cranberries into a jar. Suddenly she paused, looked around her, and, sounding surprised, said this: “James, you have a beautiful life.”-JBM

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

OCTOBER 8, 2007 - Yes, Happy Thanksgiving Day to everyone in Canada, and we hope your local harvest feasts will be as abundant as ours (and we’ve had a wet, cool summer…it sometimes feels like no summer at all). I know when I sit down tonight with Alisa and my visiting mom, we’ll have tales to tell about every item on the plate. We don’t eat 100 percent 100-mile all the time these days (we peg our diet at about 85% local), but tonight it will be local to the last grain of salt.

And still, two years later, there are surprises. Some journalistic business took me out (with mom along for the ride) through a farming area just outside of Vancouver yesterday. When we passed a hand-drawn sign, “Mushroom Sale,” I hit the brakes and pulled in. The little parking lot was crowded, but we found a space and walked into the open door of a low shed. For a moment I thought we’d walked into a private party - everyone in the shed was Asian-Canadian, and there were flash-bulbs popping. But no, Golden Valley Specialty Mushroom Farms simply has strong support from the Asian-Canadian community, who were walking away with certified organic mushrooms by the crate-full: oyster, pioppino, honey nameko.

I walked away with some beautiful white shimeji mushrooms (yet another food I’ve never had before), as suggested to me by a young woman who had a large box of mushrooms balanced on her baby’s stroller. She planned to dry some, use some fresh, and send some to friends. “It’s best to buy them from the farm - best flavour,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the idea of buying them at the supermarket. How much does Asian tradition value a good mushroom? Some of the mushrooms on sale were carefully arranged in clay vases, as beautiful as any flower bouquet.

My friendly neighbour also pointed out the Asian pears - two varieties - and suggested one she finds crisper. Once again I was reminded that most of us have such a limited idea of what can be grown locally. As our society becomes more multicultural, including our farming communities, that idea will continue to expand. I took some Asian pears, too.

On the way home, I made one last stop to see Sheryl Williams of Mobetta Farm, whom I met on the book tour through the Kootenays. Her parents caretake a fantastic public park lodge nestled in Vancouver’s sprawling suburbs, and since Sheryl was coming for Thanksgiving anyway, she brought Alisa and I something special: organic orca and Jacob’s cow (a.k.a. Jacob’s cattle) beans. I’ve never tried either variety. But in local eating, variety is the spice of life (because yes, sometimes we do without spices…).

So many choices for dinner tonight! Tomorrow, we’ll let everyone know what I came up with…what successes, and what possible disasters. Meanwhile, don’t forget about other 100-milers Thanksgiving stories and recipes.-JBM

Thanksgiving Cranberries

OCTOBER 7, 2007 - We’ve been so busy we’ve had hardly any time to get ready for Thanksgiving…in fact, I still have no idea what I’m going to make. But that’s the way I like it. Tomorrow morning, I’ll open up the fridge and say, “Well, what do we have?” And that will somehow turn into dinner - a quiet one, shared with just Alisa and my visiting mom.

I know there will be cranberries, though. To me, those tart little berries speak more to the season than does turkey (which won’t be on our Thanksgiving table), especially in this part of the world. The Vancouver area produces 12 percent of the cranberries eaten in North America. Most of them, obviously, travel far. Not ours. We bought them at an annual fundraiser for a nature sanctuary, and all had come from nearby fields. We bought two huge bags and one small one - enough to share (or trade…) with friends with for the rest of the year. My mom and I filled 12 levels of a borrowed food dehydrator and still had plenty left to use right away or freeze fresh.

Local food is always a learning experience. “Make sure you wash them,” said one of the three volunteer salespeople shivering through a blustery day with rain falling in gauzy curtains. “You have to wash the Fraser River off them.” The fields are harvested by flooding, and the woman’s comment was a reminder of just how polluted and mistreated the mighty Fraser has become. I didn’t just wash those berries (which, you guessed it, are not certified “organic”) - I triple-washed them.

But they’re beautiful, and going out for berries got us out of the house on a foul day…and lo and behold, we stayed out, walking the trails of the nature park, which wind through a bog landscape that, even 100 year ago, would have been typical of much of the area now covered with condos. We were astounded by the huge variety of wild foods and medicines in the bog, from Labrador tea and western bog-laurel to an incredible array of berries, and were reminded of how much we trade off for development. And guess what one of the most abundant wild foods in these wetlands would have been? That’s right: cranberries. -JBM

Looking for more Thanksgiving stories and recipes?

Ontario Chefs Take 100-Mile Challenge for October

OCTOBER 5, 2007 - Another exciting report from Canada as we prepare for this country’s 100-Mile Thanksgiving (with Alisa and I scrambling to come up with something to serve my mom…). Here’s a report of a restaurant revolution, sent in by Danielle from Stratford, Ontario:

In the spirit of the 100-mile diet movement, chefs in Stratford, Ontario, have agreed to take on the challenge in their restaurants. For the month of October they will create menus using only ingredients sourced within 100 miles of Stratford.

The biggest challenge will be not to use olive oil, as the closest supplier is in California, and salt and flour must be found locally. Fortunately, the 100 miles around Stratford provide a wide range of food: fish from three of the five Great Lakes, local organic pork, beef, Niagara wines, local Stratford pilsner, sheep milk cheese, orchard fruits, and vegetables. Stratford diners will now be eating the freshest food that has travelled the shortest possible distance.

The eat-local month kicked off at the Common Ground Festival on September 23, which benefitted the Mccully Centre for Rural Learning. “The Common Ground Festival is a wonderful opportunity for chef/producer relationship building, to help us all work towards more eco-friendly and sustainable cooking,” said Church Restaurant’s executive chef Amede Lamarche. “The 100-mile menu is a perfect platform to push our community’s professional kitchens to explore outside of their usual non-local suppliers and to force them to explore and understand the true concept of seasonality.”

October challenge participants include Church Restaurant, Pazzo’s, Bijou, Down the Street, Old Prune, Fellini’s, and Foster’s Inn. Suppliers include Monforte Dairy, Organic Meadow, Perth Pork Products, and Cave Springs Cellar.

Thankful in N.B.; Plus - Debate Local Eating Online!

OCTOBER 5, 2007 - With Canadian Thanksgiving just around the corner, we thought we’d feature a report on an inspiring feast from a corner of the country we don’t hear from all that often. Here’s Nik from the Beyond Factory Farming Coalition in Bouctouche, New Brunswick:

When over 120 people gathered in Bouctouche, a rural area dotted with farms, to celebrate local food production, the mouth-watering menu included bacon, french toast, maple syrup products, organic vegetables, fruit coulis, organic chicken and buffalo sausages, and hot apple pie. The bounty was enough to impress even the pickiest of eaters. “I never would have believed that we could produce all of this in our own back yard! We’re richer here than we thought,” one woman said.

While brunchers filled their bellies, they reflected on the fact that we are dangerously dependent on a fragile global food system. Imagine what would happen if we stopped buying local food and opted for the so-called “convenience” of buying global. Then imagine what would happen if there was a disruption in the global distribution system - grocery store shelves would empty out in 24 hours, and because locally grown foods would have disappeared, we would be left with nothing at all to eat. This becomes a question of food security.

And, sure, lamb that is raised in New Zealand and is pasture-fed will be better environmentally than that which is grain-fed in Canada. But what about organic pasture-raised lamb from Canada? Surely it is better than its industrially raised cousins! Local food is healthier for us. It is not just a matter of whether or not pesticide residues are bad for our health; it’s whether a tomato that travels from California is as nutritious as a vine-ripened one from the farmers’ market. You don’t need a biased government study to tell you that.

When it all comes down to it, locally grown food is soul food. As we feasted together in Bouctouche, we remembered that Marc had grown the zucchini, Guylaine had baked the bread and Serge had tended the grapes. These, our neighbours, friends, and family, blessed and nourished us with their work and we were deeply thankful. You would never see the CEOs of multinational food conglomerates celebrating the beauty of food and thanking those who produce it. To them, food is simply a commodity. To local food advocates it is much, much more than that.

Thanks, Nik - and Alisa and I do encourage people to check out the Beyond Factory Farming website (link above). Among other things, it includes a citizen’s guide to what to do when a factory farm wants to open up in your community, as well as a toolkit for taking action against the new meat regulations that are hitting B.C.’s small farmers hard.

Finally, if you’ve been hankering to weigh the pros and cons of local eating with a community of people who care, then Canada’s intelligent Walrus magazine is hosting an online debate on the topic.-JBM

100-Mile Thanksgiving is Coming

OCTOBER 4, 2007 - Have you planned your 100-Mile Thanksgiving yet? For those of you heading home for the holidays (Oct 8 in Canada, Nov 22 in America), why not make the most of your mileage and meld two 100-mile zones: where you live and where you’re going. Got avocadoes in Los Angeles, lobster in Maine? Wheat in Saskatchewan, oysters in Vancouver? Be adventurous and create new traditions!

For those stranded without wheat - that’s a lot of us, though small-scale grain growing is seeing a revival - a 100-miler named Jo sent a recipe for some cute potato muffins. We put them through a home-cooking trial. Verdict: delicious!

Locojo’s Potato Muffins

5 medium potatoes, cut in half
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp butter
1½ cups firm cheese, grated
4 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp herbs
salt to taste

Boil potatoes until not quite soft throughout. Cool, then grate. In a fry pan, sauté onions in butter until soft. In a large bowl, stir together cheese, eggs, herbs (e.g. basil, oregano, dill - use more than 2 tbsp for more herb flavour), and salt if desired. Add potato and onions. Spoon into a buttered muffin tin and bake at 350 F for 30 minutes or until golden brown on top. Makes 8 - 12 buns. Serve with apple sauce, gravy, or as a side dish.

Canadians: You’re up first! Write to share your Thanksgiving stories and recipes - your reports will help thousands of people eat locally across the United States, and inspire thousands more Canadians when 2008 rolls around. Americans, let us know your plans, web resources, and family-recipes-gone-local! Let’s make the second-annual 100-Mile Thanksgiving even bigger than last year, when community groups and families across North America revived the tradition of celebrating the local harvest.

Are you enjoying our daily updates at The Latest? We hope so. We pledged to blog daily from Easter to Thanksgiving as we criss-crossed the continent with our book tour and community events. Forward the link to your friends to savour the last six weeks.

Let’s eat,
Alisa and James

Toddler Thrives on Local Foods

OCTOBER 3, 2007 - I have just fininshed your book and found it very affirming and encouraging. I have been introducing my two-year-old boy to food for the past 18 months and it seems that he has a natural inclination for local and seasonal eating.

He turned his nose up at all veggies last winter and then, lo and behold, spring comes and his favorite activity is foraging for strawberries, huckleberries and blackberries - pretty much anything he can pick, pluck or pull from the ground. Fresh summer vegetables, no problem. Salmon, shrimp and fresh crab, no problem. B.C. fresh-pressed apple juice, no problem. (He thinks bananas are weird). Now the challenge will be to keep him connected with his food over the winter. I believe we all have a deep-seated, genetic understanding of “right food”. Why wouldn’t we?

-Carrie in British Columbia

Only In the Pacific Northwest

OCTOBER 2, 2007 - A few days ago after a speaking event, Alisa and I walked into a bar in SeaTac City, the highway strip that serves the airport just south of Seattle. Actually, according to a long-ago sign, the bar was technically in Tukwila, but it was all one long unchanging sprawl, and if there was a difference between SeaTac and Tukwila we couldn’t see it.

So…two locavores walk into a bar. We did our best to order local drinks and sat down, pleased to see that we’d chosen a place with what we find to be all-too-rare in America: a solid mix of Black, White, and Hispanic clientele. It was the kind of place where everyone seems to be able to shoot a double bank shot, veterans get a free pint, and nobody’s working too hard to live to be 100.

The kind of place, it turns out, where one guy might reach into a bag and pull out two big crabs and show them off at the bar. We watched as he wagged them to the bartender, then started to mess with the animals: he flipped them over onto their backs, legs wagging in the air; he pressed them face to face, trying to make them go at one another with their pincers.

Well, someone took offense.

“Hey man, stop playing with your food.”

Heads in the bar started to turn.

“My mama always told me, you got to respect the things you eat. You don’t play with your food. That’s life right there, man!”

Along the bar, people were picking sides. “It’s a crustacean, dude,” someone said, but a few seemed to nod along with the defender of the crab, while others just chuckled at the whole scene.

The angry young man walked over, gesturing at the crabs, flushed with anger now. “You got to respect that right there!” he shouted. “That is a living organism!” Then things got nasty and turned to name-calling, and from name-calling to threats, and then the young guy was getting dragged out of the bar and the bartender was dialing the cops and the man with the crabs was quietly tucking them back into a bag.

Just another Saturday night in Tukwila. You know: world views clashing, care and carelessness rearing their heads, even when you least expect it. -JBM