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JULY 19, 2007 - So many people are writing (thank you!) that we're just going to fade into the background and keep dipping into the mailbag a lot over the next two weeks. We're really inspired by all the incredible ways people are using the 100-mile diet concept - just as the paleoecologist Richard Hebda says in Plenty/The 100-Mile Diet, it's evolving at the speed of ideas... Let's go to the Eastern Seaboard today. From Maggie in Maryland: We are a family of five with three children from eight to 14 years old. We have always eaten locally to some extent - all of our meats are from local farmers and we "grown our own" eggs. After reading your book, however, I realized how much of our food was not local and how many carbon miles it took for us to eat those prepared salad greens from California. So I built a potager in our front yard which is now just starting to produce lettuces, herbs, and baby squash. I'm also shopping at a wonderful farmers' market. Attempting the 100-mile diet with children is a challange! If we just had babies and toddlers it would not be so hard. Older kids have different issues, like what other kids eat in school etc. Our teenager was derisive of the 100-mile idea at first but I have just found out that she has a picture of our potager on her face page! So she must think it is actually cool, I guess I am just not supposed to know that... The Whole Foods store in our area has been a huge dissapointment. Their entire produce section is from California, even in late June in Maryland! What about our local farmers? Heck, what about our East Coast farmers?! Organic is good, local is better, knowing the farmers who produce our food is the absolute best. Our next project is a root cellar to store the harvest through the winter. Stay tuned... And from Brant in Morristown, New Jersey: I own an independent natural food store and have always been into local, but after reading your book have taken it to the next level - I'm posting signs on all local products with the exact distance the product was grown or raised from our shop (thank god for MapQuest!). I'm also inspired to put together a canning demo/seminar at the farmers' market so people can learn to keep the local bounty for the rest of the year. Any help on putting it together would be much appreciated! Well, folks? Our local farmers' market in Vancouver has an "ask the master canner" booth from time to time, and we think this is the best of all - a real person who can answer the questions that slip between the cracks of even the best books and websites. Every community has people with decades of canning expertise who no longer have many chances to pass along their knowledge. But I'm sure some other 100-milers know great books, websites, etc., too. Let us know, and Alisa and I will try to pull together a food-preservation toolkit before we get into serious late-summer harvest season.-JBM

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