Last OLS 2007 dinner!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Ta da! One Local Summer 2007 has been successfully completed!

One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 10

  * Homemade whole wheat pizza (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles) with tomatoes, onion, yellow and red bell peppers, garlic (all from Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles), basil (Bux-Mont Hydroponics - 5 miles), white sweet corn (Lancaster - 84 miles) and cherry bomb hot peppers (our garden - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: yeast, olive oil, salt
  * Red and yellow watermelon (Blooming Glen) and peach (New Jersey - 40 miles) fruit salad.
  * Proprietors Reserve red wine (Chaddsford Winery - 48 miles)

I absolutely considered going all out with several recipes for the last meal, but thought this simple meal was much more representative of the spirit of OLS. Simplicity in making big changes with little effort. Simplicity too, in finding joy in small things; like cutting open a watermelon and discovering buttercup-yellow flesh instead of the expected pink.

Hm. Actually, now that I think about it, this dinner wasn’t exactly simple. I’d never made pizza dough before. Not that it was complex, but there’s a little bit of a learning curve to work into the math there

And that’s what OLS has been for me these past ten weeks: doing things that I never before had an excuse to do. Making pizza dough and tortillas, going to the Skippack farmers’ market and discovering artichokes, finding several local vegan protein sources - shit, me just purchasing flour to bake was an unthinkable prospect before this summer. I mean, really… I look at this and am just plain surprised with myself:

As much as I love to cook, and love local foods, I can truly say that I never would’ve made a pizza from scratch had is not been for the challenge of OLS. Nor would I have considered using corn as a topping. But! These were all good decisions!

Thank you, Liz! You are amazing and inspiring and fun.

With the the picture-taking, planning, deadlines and posting, I’m happy to have a short break from these meals each week , but I’m sure local-specific meals will maintain a somewhat regular appearance here until OLS 2008. I’m interested to see what I can some up with say, in February. Stay tuned!