One Local Summer- Week 6: Mid-Atlantic Report

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New York

Meghan is continuing to dedicate a large part of her diet to local eating. She produced, count them, three local meals this week! Her first of the week was roasted chicken with broccoli which in turn became her second– a huge salad featuring leftover chicken and beets. For her final meal of the week she and some dear friends supped on ricotta gnocchi with pesto, another huge salad, plus roasted asparagus. Looks like a fun night was had by all.

Maryland

The Purloined Letter had cause for celebration this week so she and family enjoyed an especially special meal together. With grilled portabello mushrooms from Pennsylvania, roasted asparagus spears from New Jersey, baby potatoes and lamb shanks from Maryland, plus fresh rosemary from the neighbor’s yard, and slices of gorgeous Chioggia beets pulled from their own garden it was a meal worthy of marking a milestone birthday. And to top it all off, they breakfasted the next morning on multigrain pancakes from grains they milled themselves served with cheese and blueberry jam also made with their own hands. Delicious.

Throughout the challenge, Danielle and family have been enjoying meat from their own livestock. This week they branched out a little with some grass-fed beef from a neighboring farm. Something new and only a nominal impact on their overall food miles! Alongside the beef kabobs they enjoyed the first of their red potatoes topped with farm-fresh herbed butter, plus broccoli, green beans, home-made herbed focaccia and a salad of greens, shredded zucchini and onions– all from their farm.

Smtwngrl discovered this week that without consciously making the effort, it’s difficult to achieve a truly local meal. On the other hand, a well-stocked pantry means you can work local ingredients into your eating without much thought or planning. Feeling the deadline crunch, she reprised her kale and onion frittata and new potato homefries for her official OLS entry. However when she sat down to recollect the week she realized that local eating was a big part of her diet anyway which is equally important to mention, I think.

Pennsylvania

Robin had a similar experience. Finding it difficult to make the farmer’s market this week, she feared she would have to forgo the challenge. That is until she realized she had already eaten her local meal… without really trying! Plus her kids surprised her with scones one morning which also, for the most part, were local. So for her inadvertent local meal, Robin turned a bunch of rainbow chard into a cheese-and-chard-filled omelet and a chard-and-cheese casserole. Check out this rainbow chard… you’d almost think it was candy:

New Jersey

After oohing and ahhing over other participants’ pizzas, I thought it was high-time we had some of that cheesy, saucy goodness chez Seedling. This week it was a grilled pizza with tomato sauce from last year’s larder, locally made mozzarella and CSA radicchio and basil.

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

Post-vacation dinner at A Rowhouse Kitchen was marinated roast chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans, with a salad of homegrown red oak lettuce. And then she made up a big pot of homemade chicken stock!

As usual, Buzz and Pat’s meals for the week look delicious!  There was pot roast with roasted veggies, a plum and blueberry cobbler that makes me want to eat through the computer screen, and spaghetti casserole.

The lovely ladies at Philly Farmers had some beautiful meals last week.  It started off with one of my favorite things: corn on the cob!  Dinner was sliced tomatoes with basil from the garden, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, plus the corn.  The meal also included marinated and grilled carrots and summer squash.  Breakfast the following day was a fried egg with bread and butter.  They also fed the baby his first local produce: carrots!

As for me, I was busy preparing for a dragon boat race in Ithaca, New York last week but I still managed to eat a few local meals.  My first meal of the week was honey roasted pork chops, zucchini blossoms stuffed with garlic scape pesto and homemade mozzarella, and swiss chard gratin.  The second meal was bison burgers on locally made challah rolls, served with locally grown cannellini bean, tomato, and basil salad.

New York

Peg thinks she would have gotten voted off the island or something for her OLS meal last week, but I think it sounds yummy: a stir fry of sugar snap peas, onion, carrots, zucchini, ramps, and locally made tofu served over non-local rice.

Linda cooked up her favorite - roasted potatoes, radishes, onions, portabellos, topped with NY cheddar and broiled.  She’s looking forward to getting more creative and mixing things up a bit.

Julia delved into the world of freeganism this weekend, something I admire but don’t have the intestinal fortitude for myself.  She dropped in on a locally hosted freegan event with a friend.  After the dinner there were some bags of greens left that guests were invited to take home.  She’s going on vacation shortly, so she really challenged herself to use up all the greens before leaving.  The result was dinner with a friend of vegetarian peanut sauce stir fry.  She also made herself a grilled zucchini sandwich with greens for lunch the next day.

This section of the OLS update by Nicole.