One Local Summer- Week 3: Mid-Atlantic Report

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Metaphorical Magpie has joined the OLS challenge this week with this scrumptious looking salad. Beets, radishes, ham, cheddar– this Jersey girl is off to a great start. The fixings came from the farmer’s market, her own veggie patch and even Shop Rite.

Danielle and family at Touch the Earth Farm enjoyed another zero-mile meal this week: pork tenderloin from a heritage breed of pigs they raise on their Maryland farm called Tamworth. Accompanying the pork was a just-picked salad of lettuce, spinach, green onions, turnips and homemade chevre. Couscous, flour, garlic and the vinaigrette for the salad were the only non-local ingredients.

Once again Philadelphian Chad has made the most of his local resources. Tapping the farmer’s market at Head House Square, his local meat source, Meadow Run Farm and his father’s herb garden he pulled together what must have been a delicious dinner: teriyaki-marinated ranch steaks served with sugar snap peas, fried artichoke slices, a colorful mix of fingerling potatoes and a dish of cipollini onion, golden and red beets with rosemary-skewered bacon.

Also hailing from Philadelphia, Pamela of Asterisms in the Stars’ Set Order, enjoyed a hearty, healthy meal of wilted beet greens and swiss chard with a side of Johnny cakes. The Johnny cakes were made from local cornmeal and spelt which she scored at her co-op. The veggies came from nearby farms.

Greens are a common theme this week. Mia over at Food on the Fire Escape enjoyed kale with green garlic courtesy of her CSA. She also had a mixed green salad with herbs and radishes from the farmer’s market and some Mergueza Lamb Sausage from the Catskills.

I too found myself with a wealth of greens from the CSA. For me it was arugula which I sautéed along with some Cape May scallops. I seasoned it with some of my own homegrown sage and then tossed it all with some pasta from Brooklyn. I served it with a simple salad on the side. It made for one tasty meal.

There’s no better way to enjoy a local meal than to toast it with a local wine which Meghan of Liberty on Tenth Street discovered this week. And New York has a lot to offer in that regard. Along with the wine, she enjoyed a local lasagna chock full of farmer’s market veggies and local Italian shop delicacies. For dessert she served grilled peaches with goat cheese (something I’ve got to try). And if that wasn’t enough, she also served up a local lunch this week: mozzarella, tomato and basil salad.

Tamar over at Studio Tamar had her sautéed greens (kale and chard) with a side of serious thinking. The locavore movement is not without its detractors, and it’s worth reading their side of the argument if nothing more than to further understand your own motivations for eating local.

The Purloined Letter welcomed Shabbat with a meal of Maryland’s best with farm-fresh hotdogs and spicy sauerkraut (also from the same farm), bread from a local bakery, a big arugula salad courtesy of their CSA and local strawberry ice cream. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also enjoyed breakfast the next morning: bakery challah French toast, farm eggs and milk, home-rolled oats (with nonlocal almonds) all topped with farmers market strawberries and local maple syrup. Sounds delicious!

Emily of The Shining Egg joined us this week with this beautiful meal.

Local beef, sautéed spinach, grilled summer squash and a tossed salad made for one lovely meal enjoyed, appropriately, al fresco.

Lauren of Philadelphia gave the classic stir fry her own local spin. She started with locally made tofu then tossed into the wok snap peas, bok choy, Napa cabbage and green onions from her CSA. Lancaster honey gave the dish added local flavor.

I’m utterly impressed by Robin of simple.green.organic.happy. who made mayonnaise this week. The homemade mayo went into a potato salad brimming with local goodness: potatoes (of course), homegrown parsley and spring onions. An appetizer of fresh mozzarella, homegrown basil and tomatoes got everything off to the right start. While boiled sweet corn has me green with envy, I’m weeks away from that!

-this section of Mid-Atlantic updated posted by Elizabeth of Seedling.
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Pennsylvania

Beany made her own yogurt and topped it with homemade strawberry syrup for a great breakfast treat.  She served it with local chicken and apple sausages, toast, and butter.  I’m coming to Beany’s house for breakfast - wow!

Naomi made a partly local meal of local chicken and broccoli with semi-local parsley and basil.  She also cooked up a tofu/kale/zucchini/snow pea/lemon basil/spring onion/garlic scape stirfry with non-local buckwheat noodles and seasonings.  Yum!

Buzz and Pat came up with three local meals this week! Meal one was onion and pepper turkey sausage with braised broccoli - which, sadly, didn’t live up to Pat’s expectations.  They got their hands on some buffalo and made two meals: buffalo stew using the first potatoes and onion from their garden, and buffalo burgers with a side of beets and sweet and sour stuffed peppers.

The lovely ladies from Philly Farmers made a big salad of spring mix, swiss cheese, and hardboiled eggs from their CSA and carrots from the farmers market.  And the apricots they served with it were gorgeous...and reportedly very, very tasty!

Mikaela continued her quest for simplicity with a seven ingredient meal: head lettuce, sugar snap peas, tofu, hakurei turnip, strawberry, spring onion, and escarole.  She made a veggie and tofu salad with strawberry dressing.  And she shared the recipe for the dressing - another good use for that immersion blender!

My own local meals were, well, meaty. Meal one was roasted duck with cherry sauce served with roasted cipollini onions and sauted garlic scapes.  Meal two was honey glazed pork with a swiss chard and onion saute and little round zucchinis stuffed with leftover risotto with kale and butternut squash (the squash was the last of last year’s frozen booty). The arborio rice, of course, was far from local.

New York

Rabi wins the award this week for most gorgeous OLS meal in New York.  Seriously - I never thought garlic scapes and radishes could look so beautiful!  I just made some of that garlic scape pesto and now I wish I had some radishes of my own to go with it.  This is what Rabi has to eat when her fridge is empty…

Julia from The Wounded Chef made me drool with all her talk of a restaurant that focuses on seasonal ingredients.  Queen of a container garden, Julia decided it was time to harvest the last of the Winter greens so she could plant up some herbs - so she mimicked a more expensive salad from the restaurant at home with her bitter greens and parmesan.  For those who say eating local and seasonally is more expensive, see Julia.  Later in the week, Julia busted out a big salad topped with radishes, baby carrots, and (be still my heart!) squid, as well as steamed clams topped with garlic scape pesto.

Linda made a great looking grilled pizza, and was delighted that the dough didn’t fall through the grates of the grill.  A girl after my own heart, Linda made her own mozzarella for the pizza, and used toppings from her garden (basil, garlic, and last year’s canned tomatoes) and pesto from a local supplier.

The other New York Linda delved into the wonderful world of broccoli rabe for the very first time this week and loved it!  She cooked up a roasted/veggie broiled/cheese combo, with potatoes, radishes, beets, and garlic with New York sharp cheddar. The side was braised broccoli rabe with garlic.

Peg discovered a wayward bag of beets in the back of her fridge and decided to use them up finally...in a very interesting way: via solar power.  She roasted beets in a solar oven with onion and sweet potato, and sauteed pea shoots as a side.  She calls her meal “motley”, but I call it ingenious!

New Jersey

There has been discussion at the One Local Summer yahoogroup about what ‘local’ means to each of us.  Bezzie is defining ‘local’ as “food that’s made in a place that’s a comfortable day’s drive away” and scoured her local ShopRite to see what was inexpensive and produced within her driving radius.  She found a few commercially produced goods that fit the bill - Freihofer’s bread (distributed out of PA) and Heluva Good Pepper Jack cheese (headquartered in upstate NY).  She put it together to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

-this section of Mid-Atlantic updated posted by Nicole.