Mission Challenge: Pastry Recipe, and Nova Scotia
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 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
