Catching Up With One Local Summer

I was sooooo excited to join the One Local Summer Challenge but the first few weeks of it became a little more challenging than anticipated! Between traveling and trying to save all my nickels and dimes (ie. not buying anything more than necessities) for costs associated with buying my condo in mid-July I wanted to use up all the food I currently have. Up until week 4 of the challenge I hadn't been able to make a whole meal with local foods but I've tried to incorporate what I have from my community garden plot or what I've been given each week from my fellow gardners.

So, here is what I've done so far for One Local Summer:

Week One: I was given a bunch of delicious lettuce from a neighbor at my community garden (3 miles from my home). I also bought some local rhubard to freeze and mix with strawberries in some kind of yummy goodness once our Oregon strawberries are ready! Week Two: I'm on vacation this week with my mom and we had some DELICIOUS steamed shrimp at a cute beach restaurant on Tybee Island, Georgia. The shrimp was advertised as being caught right off the beach in a boat owned by the restaurant for catching all their seafood. That's pretty darn fresh and local :) I've also never had shrimp where I've had to take their little legs off...not a big fan of that as it felt a little too barbaric.
Week Three: Still traveling for part of the week and while in Charleston we had local fried green tomatoes. Again, delicious, especially with the fruit salsa! I should have planted some green tomatoes in my garden as I really liked the taste of them! Next year :)Week Four: WooHoo...ALL LOCAL MEAL!! We are in the middle of a heat wave here in Oregon so fresh raw food sounded great!! Earlier in the day some friends and I picked berries at Krugers Farm on Sauvie Island and at their farm stand I also picked up some local red peppers, cucumbers, and nectarines...YUM!!! I topped off my meal (actually, meal"s" as I prepared enough for lunch on Sunday!) with lettuce and spinach I have growing on my balcony, radishes from my garden, and a couple of slices of Oregon's Local Tillamook Cheddar Cheese from Tillamook Oregon. This was a PERFECT local meal for a hot day!!I'm hoping by Week 5 I will have some zucchini and yellow neck squash ready in my garden...yum yum!

One Local Summer Challenge

This spring I checked out the book Plenty from my local library and I loved following the journey of a couple from the Pacific NW (Vancouver BC) dedicated to eating completely from a 100 radius for an entire year. Between their story, reading past blog entries from a flickr contact who did something similar, and knowing that I live in the middle of one of those most furtile farming valleys in the country I thought it would be fun to join the One Local Summer Challenge starting June 1st!

So far about 80 people are on the challenge to eat one meal a week with all ingredients except oil, salt, pepper, and spices being local from 100 miles of our homes or from wherever we are located that week. My main objectives for this challenge is to use my garden produce first, support local farmers for the remaining ingredients I need, adapt my meal planning to make conscience choices of what is in season and most readily available (products not creating a large carbon footprint to get to my kitchen), and try fresh recipes I have never had before! That last reason is why I planted eggplant in my garden. I've never tasted it but for some reason think I don't like it...that will change this summer as I'm determined to make eggplant a main ingredients for a few of my One Local Summer Meals!

It's not too late if you want to JOIN the challenge! And Mom, I fully expect you to participate in this challenge with me when we find ourselves on vacation to Savannah/Charleston in mid June! Maybe Paula Dean or her boys will make us a delicious local meal :)