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Mission Challenge: Notes from Angela, with a Crème Fraîche Recipe

We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up—and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never too late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.

DAY 66 - I think this puts us at two-thirds of the way through the diet. To be honest, in my imagination, I’m already looking back on the Mission Challenge experience with a feeling of nostalgia - and it isn’t even done yet.

While we were renewing our site, Angela, who cancels her cable TV in the summer, sent in some really interesting notes. First up, she did her home accounting - and came up with some numbers that blow away the argument that local eating isn’t affordable for the average family.

Thought you’d also be interested to know that I totalled my grocery bills for this month and I’m exactly where I used to be, which says a lot because Mike used to eat out for most of his lunches at work and he’s no longer doing that. So if you work the savings of his not eating out into the grocery budget, we’re probably ahead by about $200! That offsets the $600 extra we spent the first month. I don’t think things have gotten cheaper, I think we’re learning to cook and eat differently. Plus now everyone realizes how much work and effort goes into putting that food on the table and that really effects how much you eat and more importantly how much you waste!

Of course, you have to be smart about how you spend. My earlier blog gave some general principles for local eating on a budget, and below, Angela gets down to specifics on some of those recommendations.

Just a little cost cutting tip for all you local carnivores. I only buy organic meat and organic steak is sooo expensive. But if you buy a cheap cut of steak like a blade marinating steak, you can marinate it in buttermilk along with some local salt, herbs, and garlic. Let it sit anywhere between two hours to overnight. It is so tender it’s like cutting through butter, so much cheaper than the expensive cuts of grilling steaks, and in my opinion much more flavorful. So what are you waiting for get grilling! Hopcott in Pitt Meadows will frequently have it on sale for $3 a pound…so don’t tell me you can’t afford local, organic meat!

And here’s another tip - with a recipe - based on the important local eating rule, DO NOT WASTE FOOD.

The longer I’m on this challenge the more I’ve come to realize that much of the food we eat is actually a by-product of something else. Now I know this doesn’t sound appetizing, but give me a second and your wallet will have a completely different opinion! Butter was difficult to find and when we did find it, it wasn’t organic and cost $5.29 a pound. So I bought some organic whipping cream at about the same price and popped it into my trusty mixer on low and walked away. About 10-15 minutes later what do I have…butter, with a whole lot of buttermilk as a by-product! Now I have 2 lbs. of organic butter and it only cost me about $5 - a 50 percent savings. But what to do with all the buttermilk? Let’s see…use it in pancakes, marinate meat, make crème fraîche and cream cheese, what else? Never thought you could have so many uses for a mere by-product did you!

Then, the other day my mom gave me some Saskatoon berries. Let me apologize ahead of time to all you Saskatoon berry fans, but I thought they were awful! It tasted like a smoker had previously sucked on them and spat them back into the bowl. But being as frugal as I am I couldn’t waste them..what to do. I put them in a pot with some water with a bit of honey and boiled the stink out of them! The liquid was poured off and I mixed it half and half with apple cider. The transformation was amazing, I think it’s my favourite juice to date! Now I’m left with all the skins and pulp from the berries…can’t waste that (you’d swear I grew up in the depression) so I left about 10% of the juice in them, added a little more honey and popped it in the blender. Now I have Saskatoon berry jam with zero effort, and again it’s surprisingly good…yet another food item made from a mere by-product…I wonder how many more there could be?

Crème Fraîche

500 mls 10% or 18% organic cream
5 tbsp buttermilk

Pour room-temperature cream into a sterilized jar and add buttermilk, give a quick stir then let sit overnight at room temperature. That’s it! You’ll never go back to sour cream!

You can make spreadable cream cheese with the same recipe, but using whipping cream. When set, sit on a sieve lined with cheese cloth and let the whey drip off. The whey, yet another by-product, is great used in cream soups or fruit smoothies and is apparently really good for you.

Thanks, Angela!

–JBM

Mission Challenge: Pastry Recipe, and Nova Scotia

DAY 64 - How do you get enough 100-mile bran to make breakfast cereal? Johanna, Frances, and Cassie sent in a recipe that gives you (a) bran, and (b) an excuse to bake a pie.

Pâte Brisée

1 ½ c sifted freshly ground flour (reserve bran for cereal)
1/8 tsp sea salt
½ c cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
¼ cup ice water

Mix the salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the butter until it resembles coarse meal. Add the water and blend into the flour mixture. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and press large chunks of dough away from you with the heel of your hand. Gather the dough together into a ball and repeat. Shape the dough into a thick circle, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Makes a double crust pie or two single crust pies. It can easily be made in a food processor. Makes a light, crisp, easily handled dough. Note: Based on a recipe from Silver Palate Cookbook.

Thanks, folks. Now here’s a nice letter from Pamela in Bear River, Nova Scotia - the other side of the continent - that captures the way local eating changes, and changes a person, over time.

We started growing our own food 10 years ago, and our diet seemed to naturally simplify as a result of the lifestyle that goes with working from dawn till dusk. When you have worked outside all day, a simple baked potato tastes great. Add a few chives and a dab of butter and you have gone gourmet. There is real abundance here, we live on 25 acres in a rural community near the Bay of Fundy. We aren’t strict about the 100-mile diet but we are very conscious of buying in season, and not eating anything processed. Finding oils and condiments is the biggest challenge, but I find as we become more nourished by organic and whole foods, we don’t seem to be as afflicted by cravings. We still haven’t figured out the perfect set-up for keeping everything we grow, but that has instigated a lot of bartering. It’s all good, and it’s all evolving all the time.

-JBM

Mission Challenge: Bran Flakes Recipe, and More

DAY 62 - Yes, the site looks different today…a little more streamlined, and with some updated features, such as a map that can draw your 100-mile zone no matter where you are on Earth, and a search engine. Many thanks to our friends at Biro Creative. Now we can get back to blogging!

Alex sent in her increasingly famous breakfast cereal recipe, which, if you’re grinding your own wheat, is a great way to use up any bran that you sift out to lighten your flour. And remember: it’s blueberry season, and blueberries pair amazingly well with bran.

Bran Flakes Cereal

2 c bran
2 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 c milk
1/4 c oil or butter
1 tbsp honey

Combine dry ingredients. Make a well in the centre and add oil, honey and milk. Mix well. Divide into four parts and roll out as thin as possible on a greased cookie sheet. (Parchment paper works best as you can roll out the mix between two pieces and get it nice and thin). Bake in 350 F oven 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned and crisp. If dough is not completely dry, turn oven off and let it remain longer. Break into small pieces. Store in airtight container. Makes 1 lb of cereal. Note: If you want a sweeter taste drizzle honey on halfway through baking.

Thanks, Alex. That should tide us over until the local food revolution inspires some local farmer to sow oats…which reminds me of a message that came in from Stephen Jardine, a TV journalist who recently visited B.C. on a holiday. He’s a Scot who’s eating nothing but Scottish food from Burns Night to St. Andrews Day this year. As he says, “It’s hardly a hardship.”

-JBM

Mission Challenge: Tea

DAY 53 — A few days ago Alisa and I were in Lake Forest, WA, where Plenty was selected as a community book and where, I might add, they have what I consider the perfect combination: a bookstore with a farmers’ market outside. And a great farmers’ market at that, where we found local ginger for the first time and — get ready for it — oolong tea. With caffeine.

We didn’t drink any (caffeine does nothing good to either of us) or even buy any, but it goes to show (again) that what we can and can’t grow on the landscapes we live in is still being explored. I see new examples every year.

Until a few more agricultural adventurers start putting in tea bushes, however, herb teas and traditional tisanes offer flavour galore. Here, from Angela in Mission, is just one recipe:

If you love Earl Grey tea as much as I do here is a recipe to try that will have you jumping out of your seat.

Nana’s Earl Grey Fooler
2 sprigs bea balm
1 sprig rosemary
4 French lavender buds

Cover with hot water in a tea pot and let steep for 5-10 minutes. You can put milk and honey in it if you’d like and it’s fantastic…so good I don’t know if I’ll ever drink the real thing again! If you prefer your tea with lemon, add a sprig of lemon verbena into the mix. If you can’t get used to the pale color of this tea you can simmer some onion skins in some water and use that to steep your tea with — it will look exactly like the real deal. Enjoy!

For more Mission Challenge blogs, including the rules, click here.

—JBM

Mission Challenge: Celebrate 50 Days with a Caramel Recipe

DAY 51 —Wait a minute: Did the halfway mark of the Mission 100-Mile Challenge just slip past? This calls for a celebration, and Angela has sent along just the thing — a recipe for caramel.

But first, my last blog was about local eating on a budget, and I received a lot of thanks from locavores across the continent for writing it (I also added some new tips from readers, so check out the update). Then, to show the proof is in the pudding, I got this message from Angela in Mission:

Thanks for saying happy birthday to Kaity. Her party was a hit! We had 60 people and I managed to do it on a budget of $130…including the cake! We had many types of salad, honey garlic wings, hot wings, marinated mushrooms, and home made pop and iced tea, to name a few. There wasn’t a single complaint about missing chips or candy…it just goes to show you that as a parent, if you take the time to lead by example your children will follow when they don’t see it as a hardship for you. It’s quite surprising to see how fast the local eating becomes the norm, even to young children. Anyway, I just want to put it out there that it is totally possible and really fun to entertain a large group of people 100%, 100 mile. I challenge you to try and let us know how it goes, maybe we could all share tips to make it even easier next time.

Sixty people fed on totally local food for $130! I’m a big believer in local eating being affordable, but I have to say that blows me away. Angela: You’re a legend.

And here, by popular demand (that is, I’ve been bugging her), is her recipe for a celebratory confection…

100-Mile Caramel

1/2 c local honey
1 c 18% cream

Heat the cream until very hot. Put honey in a deep pot on medium high for about 5-8 min (you’re looking for the honey to turn a deep rich brown). Once it looks dark enough, slowly add the hot cream. Be careful, as it will spatter a lot. Stir continuously until the sauce reaches its desired thickness (remember it will thicken more as it cools), then pour into a clean jar and let cool. Put whatever you don’t use in the fridge; it keeps for quite a long time. *Tip: if your milk isn’t the right temperature and the caramel goes lumpy, simply cool it, give it a whiz in the blender until it returns to a smooth consistency, and then continue to thicken on the stove. (You wouldn’t want to waste all that yummy honey the bees worked so hard to make for you.)

We use ours drizzled on top of warmed apple cider topped with whipping cream (we’re suffering sooo badly on this challenge!). This drink helped ease my severe coffee cravings so instead of a caffine buzz, I got a sugar buzz. It all worked out in the end. Enjoy, it’s killer.

Thanks, Angela, I’m trying that tonight. For more Mission Challenge blogs, including the rules, click here.

—JBM

Mission Challenge: Local Eating on a Budget

DAY 46 — The cost of eating locally comes up a lot. There’s an assumption that going local is only for people with time and money to spare. Somehow we’ve forgotten that cooking your own meals and putting away food for winter used to be considered thrifty things to do - and the fact is, they still are. Local eating does have its costs, but it has its savings, too.

Below is my all-time list of ways to deal with those costs and look for those savings:

First: Are local foods really so expensive?

1. Do a fair comparison. Farmers’ market foods often have a higher sticker price. But wait - that head of lettuce is much larger than the one at the supermarket, and it’s organic. Compared pound-for-pound with supermarket foods of similar quality, farmers’ market foods may actually cost less. Also, some so-called luxury foods (often foods that don’t keep or transport well, such as basil and artichokes) can be far cheaper at the farmers’ market than the supermarket.

2. Consider a box program. Weekly local-food box deliveries, especially community-supported agriculture programs (or CSAs, in which you become a subscriber to a particular farm or set of farms), often offer excellent value.

Second: Shop wisely

3. Arrive at the market early, or late. The best-priced foods can sell out quickly. On the other hand, vendors will often sell end-of-day food (especially in bulk) for less, rather than ship it back to the farm.

4. Do a walk-around. Quickly check the farmers’ market stalls for the best deals. Earlier this year I saw the first salad greens for $11/lbs. I gave those a pass, and instead bought a huge bag of wild miner’s lettuce - a succulent seasonal treat - for just $2.

5. Buy in bulk, buy in season. Local foods are cheapest in the peak of their season. That’s the time to invest in your food and freeze, can, or dry some for later. The outlay of cash can be a big bite, but in winter your grocery bill will be close to zero. Some real-life examples from Alisa and my experience: nearly 50 peaches for $3 (that’s total, not by weight); organic tomatoes for $1/lbs; wild salmon for $4/lbs (in stores I’ve seen it topping $20/lbs).

6. Buy cheaper cuts and ugly food. It costs money to raise animals in humane conditions. Expect to pay more, but expect better-tasting meat, too; keep costs down by eating less expensive cuts, such as stewing meats, more often. With vegetables and fruit, it’s often cheaper to buy “uglies” - products with small blemishes or funny shapes - that taste just fine but can be hard for farmers to market.

7. Look into farmers’ market coupon programs. Many markets now offer specific discount programs for lower-income earners. Ask at your market’s info stand, or check the market websites.

Third: Do not waste food

8. Do not waste food. When new research indicates we throw out one-third of the edible food we buy, it’s hard to take seriously claims that food “costs too much.” Make plans to use the food in the fridge or freezer, including leftovers.

9. Use everything edible. You eat radishes. But do you also eat their greens, flowers, and seed pods - all delicious? Carrot tops are tasty, and so are cauliflower and broccoli stalks and leaves. In Africa, I’ve eaten whole dishes made entirely of bean or squash leaves. Ask your farmer or food producer for ideas on how to use every edible part of what you buy, or troll the internet for ideas.

10. Remember the stock pot: Much of what we throw away - bones, fish heads, vegetable trimmings - can be saved to make healthful soup stock. Many older people remember keeping stock pots (or still do); ask your elders about what works well in stock and what should go in the compost instead.

Fourth: Cook smart

11. Use fewer ingredients. Fresh foods have bolder flavours than bland supermarket foods. Use fewer ingredients and let their simple flavours shine.

12. Prepare smaller portions of meat, eggs, cheese etc. Everyone knows that most of us eat too much of these expensive foods, but it’s hard to replace them with bland supermarket fruit and veg. Fresh, local vegetables, on the other hand, earn their place at the centre of the plate.

13. Eat smaller meals. Many locavores report that, over time, their meal sizes shrink and they also do less snacking. That’s certainly been my experience. We can’t say for certain why this happens, but my guess is that local eaters are getting better nutrition through their fresh, whole foods. What I can say for sure is that it’s saving us money.

Fifth: Community comes with savings

14. Buy together, cook together. Making big bulk purchases, with even deeper savings, is easiest in groups. Having food friends allows you to share different kitchen tools and appliances - not everyone needs a dehydrator or a storage freezer. Carpooling or splitting the labour of seasonal buying saves gas. We’ve even watched groups come together and cooperate with farmers to decide the following year’s crops and explore the costs together.

15. Get to know your food producers. The baker’s dozen is alive and well on the rural backroads! We still frequently see “honour boxes” - unattended roadside stands with a coin box where you pay what you feel is fair for the food that you take. Alisa and I rarely make a farmgate purchase without receiving a little something extra, like a newly ripe melon or a few onions. This year, Alisa was invited to pick our canning strawberries for free, just because the berries were otherwise going to rot on the vine.

16. Barter, trade, and work for your food. Some u-pick operations and other growers will pay you to pick for them as well as give you a good price on food you harvest for yourself. Some farmers appreciate offers to work for food (I used to do this weekly while in my mid-twenties). At farmers’ markets, some vendors will give free fruit or veg if you help set up or take down their stall. And don’t forget to barter and trade with other locavores with the extras of what you grow or preserve.

Sixth: Be a little more self-sufficient

17. Plant a garden. Even a small container garden can save you money on herbs, which are expensive at the shops. We focus on planting foods that are costly but easy to grow, like garlic, basil, herbs, and, this year, tomatilloes. We also also plant a winter garden, for fresh food when supermarket prices are at their highest.

18. Forage. Wild foods are free. And foraging doesn’t only happen in the wilderness - ask your neighbours about all that tree fruit they’re letting drop and rot on the ground.

19. Consider some livestock. Even in the city, rules and regulations increasingly permit people to keep bees, chickens, and — more rarely — goats or larger animals. Bantam chickens, for example, are small and can keep a family in eggs much of the year.

Finally…

20. Ask yourself - and your local politicians - why bad food is so often cheap and good food is so often expensive. Why does our system subsidize the producers who use tons of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, ship food huge distances, pay farmworkers the bare minimum, and treat animals as if they were machines rather than living creatures? Why not invest instead in a food system that is first and foremost local, organic, humane, and a decent place to work? Remember: If the food’s too cheap, it’s because someone else is paying.

Send me your own tips for eating good, local food on a budget. For more Mission Challenge blogs, including the rules, click here.

—JBM

Mission Challenge: Jam Season (in Music, Canning, etc)

We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up - and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never too late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.

DAY 33 - One-third of the way through the 100-day challenge, not that anyone’s counting, right? A few notes from the community mojo wire…

First, a big happy birthday to Kaity! She’ll be celebrating, I bet, with mom’s cake and fizzy drinks! (I’d forgotten which brand of club soda was made with local water; Frances let me know that it is Schweppe’s. So there you have it, fizzy-drink lovers.)

Now let’s get down to the serious business of…canning. Johanna had some good info for Mission 100-milers as the season begins:

For those wanting to make jams and jellies without the use of added pectin, now is the time to prepare black and red currant pectin and gooseberries, all of which have natural pectins. There is a good supply at the fruit stand on the north side of the highway on Nicomen Island at the Fire Hall road. If you are looking for canning jars, the Cottage (hospital auxillary thrift shop) on First has them on sale, buy one get one free and on Friday they still had a good selection. We made our first bread since June 1st and had it with strawberry rhubarb preserves. Yum! Now that we have a good supply of wheat available I can bake a loaf weekly. I also baked a great sponge cake.

Leda Meredith, an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she specializes in edible and medicinal plants, got in touch, too, to offer up some seasonal jam wisdom:

My favorite jam in the world is also one of the easiest.

Strawberries
Fresh currants (or gooseberries)
Simmer together until as thick as you like your jam, then add honey to taste. Yum!

Next up, Helen in Mission is the self-proclaimed Kitchen Witch for the Mission Folk Music Festival (July 25-27), and in the spirit of the 100-Mile Challenge is working to source local bulk and whole food ingredients (she also signed up for a 50-percent challenge for the 100 days, but is managing about 65 percent!). She had some question to put out there to the community:

(1) I am working on a resource list that goes beyond BC FarmFresh. I’m seeking lesser-known purveyors within the 100-mile ‘zone’ - vendors who are interested in being listed. If anyone has new info, please send it on to Marion Robinson or me. For example:
any professional growers of heritage garlic with last year’s stock
any grower/small farmer not listed in the usual directories
any lesser-known farmers/vendors who can help with good local protein choices

(2) Does anyone have info about locally grown, native, or wild-growing tea plants (jasmine and rose need blending; mint tea is getting boring)

(3) Is anyone planning to run a locally grown/100-mile food kiosk at the Mission Folk Music Festival?

Send any info and I will forward it to Helen (or contact her directly if you have the contact info). Actually, I have lots of ideas for #2: sage, nettle, strawberry leaf, raspberry leaf, cranberry, tarragon, fennel seed, lemon verbena, Labrador tea - for herbal teas, there’s no limit to the possibilities.

Finally, I just wanted to leave everyone with this story from Mandy in Springfield, Illinois, that captures the spirit of going local for the first time:

I started today. Actually, I started mentally a long time ago, but today I announced my intentions to my family (okay, my husband…my children are one and three so i don’t really know if they “got it”). But my children are my reason for doing this. Since they are so young, I figured if this is all they ever know growing up, this will become a part of their psyche, their make-up. They will do this without even thinking.With my youngest daughter in her baby sling, we set out for the farmers’ market. I went with $17 in my wallet and my reusable bags. I found tomatoes! You know, the things we ate before the salmonella scare. The “ugly” ones were cheap, but huge, so I bought two. Then I got tomato focaccia bread, butter greens, new potatoes, and green beans. I still had four dollars left in my wallet when I got home. For lunch, we had tomato salad with basil from our own garden. For dinner, roasted potatoes and green beans with the rest of the focaccia. My one-year-old could not eat enough tomato. My three-year-old devoured the potatoes. I don’t think anyone missed a thing.

My goal is to start slowly at first, eating about 50 percent of our food locally. Then, if and when our home garden starts coming in, that number will increase. I am going to start looking for local dairy farmers. I am studying up on how to make my own cheese, and possibly yogurt. Wish me luck!

For more Mission blogs, including the rules, click here.

-JBM

Mission Challenge: Stuffed Vine Leaves Recipe

DAY 41 - Steve P. and Johanna C. both requested my stuffed vine leaves (in Turkey, dolma; in Greek, dolmade) recipe, which I served to a few people in Mission last weekend. Here goes:

West Coast Dolmades

2 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
� tsp red chili flakes
1 cup wheatberries
small bunch cilantro, chopped
small bunch parsley, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tsp rosemary, crushed
2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)
� cup crushed hazelnuts
� cup dried cherries
25-30 fresh vine leaves
1 tbsp hazelnut oil

In a saucepan, melt the butter on medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and chili and saute until onion is soft. Add wheatberries and saute 1 minute more. Add half the parsley and cilantro, the other herbs, and stock. Bring to boil, then simmer approx 1 hour or until wheatberries are soft (you may need to add more stock) and all stock is absorbed. Meanwhile, blanch the vine leaves (choose tender grape leaves that are on the small side, but large enough for stuffing) in boiling water (or, for better colour, brine: 2 tsp salt per quart of water) for 3 minutes.

Cool the wheatberries. Toss with the remainder of the parsley and cilantro, crushed nuts, and dried cherries. Salt to taste. To stuff the dolmades, place 1-2 tsp of the mixture in the centre of a vine leaf with the point of the leaf pointing away from you. Snugly fold up the bottom lobes of the leaf to cover the filling. Now fold the middle lobes over the bottom lobes. Finally, roll the covered ball of filling toward the point of the leaf, which should wrap everything tight. Give the finished dolamde a light squeeze to press everything together. Brush with hazelnut oil. Serve with yoghurt mixed with chopped fresh mint and green onions.

(Note: I substitute wildly on this recipe. I use whatever onion/garlic form is in season - leeks, garlic greens or scapes, spring or fall garlic, green onions - and often prefer walnuts to hazelnuts, or other herbs to the ones listed here.)

For more Mission blogs, including the rules, click here. Coming soon: a search for off-the-beaten-track food producers.

Happy eating,
JBM

Mission Challenge: Cake Recipe Callout!

DAY 39 - Good people, we have an emergency. Little Kaity celebrates her birthday this weekend, and her mom, Angela, dreams of a strictly 100-mile cake. The problem is the family is trying a strictly local challenge, so she’s cooking without baking soda or powder. What’s more, there are allergies to consider, so the cake must not contain nuts and should not contain much egg. Can anyone out there help? If so, send a recipe. Quick!

Angela had hoped that an Australian apple cake mentioned from our welcome to Australian/New Zealander visitors would do the trick (”I still have a lot of local apples from a farmer that gave them to us from his personal supply…bless his heart”) but I did some research and the Aussie baker sneaked in some baking powder.

Angela also had this tip about good wines for Mission 100-milers:

I just read about local wines not really being local and I’ve also found that that’s true, but we just came back from Saturna Island and Saturna Island Vineyards does have a few fantastic wines made solely with their own grapes! I’m a big fan of red wine and I highly recommend a wine they call Vinsera, it’s their version of port. It’s absolute heaven in a glass! I also found a white (Gewurztraminer) that I love which really surprised me. I highly recommend the trip out as it’s so beautiful there and they truly do make an effort to be as local as possible.

Thanks, Angela. For all the Mission Challenge blogs, including the rules, click here. Coming soon: my dolmades recipe (by request), and…100-mile sausages.

-JBM

Mission Challenge: The Rules, Revisited

We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up - and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never to late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.

DAY 38 - Over the weekend, Alisa and I met with a core group of Mission 100-milers on the shores of Hatzic Lake. Our task was to nail down final, clear rules for the 100-day challenge. We’d heard rumblings that just leaving the rules to each person’s conscience was wreaking havoc in Mission, and I suspect our names had been used in vain more than once. So, as a group, we brought down the hammer. The rules we came up with are not meant to make the challenge ridiculously hardcore or uptight. Instead, the goal is to focus the spirit of the challenge and to push each of us to learn as much as possible from the experience (necessity is the mother of invention - gooseberry salsa, anyone?). I’m posting the rules here. They might be of use to other 100-milers in Mission or to people planning local-eating challenges elsewhere.

Rule #1: The Restaurant Rule
No meals at any restaurant unless the restaurant is either participating in the 100-Mile Challenge or is otherwise deeply committed to sourcing locally raised and produced foods.

Rule #2: The Traveller’s Rule
(a) When travelling, the 100-mile circle travels with you; that is, you must either bring local food from home or eat foods from within the 100-mile circle of your destination.
(b) It is not acceptable to make trips outside the 100-mile circle in pursuit of distant foods.
(c) When returning from a trip, it is acceptable to bring home a small amount of food not found within your 100-mile circle. Likewise, if friends come to visit, they are free to bring small gifts of local food from their home areas.

Rule #3: The 99-Percent Rule
(a) The foods that 100-mile challengers eat at home should be prepared using only local food products or products acquired under rule 3(b).
(b) Food products that are wholly local except for very small amounts of minor additives are acceptable. This is to encourage 100-milers to support producers who are dedicated to local foods but are not as exacting as participants in a 100-mile challenge. Such products might include wine made with yeast, cheese with added rennet, or salt-cured meat, but would not include wines made with large amounts of added sugar, cheese with added ingredients, or meats cured in nonlocal marinades or sauces.

Rule #4: “The Randy Rule”
(a) Under exceptional circumstances, 100-milers may break from the challenge rules. Real examples of exceptional circumstances included a conference gala, an uncle’s traditional pancake breakfast, and wines set aside for a 10-year anniversary. The 100-mile challenge is intended to build, not break down, a sense of community.
(b) If a 100-miler finds he or she is regularly making exceptions, he or she should should take on an additional challenge that helps deepen the experience, build the 100-community, or support the community at large.

That’s it, four easy rules. Now let’s get back to enjoying the local-foods revolution!

-JBM