her able hands

We had friends to dinner last night, nine of us including Lila. Some of the dishes weren’t entirely local, but a bunch of them were, and delicious to boot. Once everyone arrived, things happened so fast that I forgot to break out the camera! Too bad, the food was all so beautiful, and the front porch set up with colored lights and candles, with the two card tables pushed together and chairs and benches crammed all around. Tight, but in a good way.

Playing by the rules:

Amish chicken from Lake County, grilled with a balsamic and herb marinade (30 miles).
Sausage (mix of sweet and hot Italian) from Lake County, grilled (30 miles).
New Potatoes, steamed and tossed with Amish butter and fresh parsley and dill (potatoes and herbs-0 miles, butter-30 miles).
Asian Cole Slaw (green cabbage-20 miles, red cabbage-CA—it needed the color and it was use it or lose it, carrots-10 miles, cilantro-0 miles, rice vinegar, ginger and sugar concessions).
2 different green bean salads from friend’s gardens. Yum! (1/2 mile and 4 miles respectively).
Sautéed mix of Chard, two varieties of Kale (Russian Red and Nero de Toscana) and Beet greens in a bit of olive oil and my fresh garlic (Red Kale 10 miles, everything else 0 miles except for the EVOO).

I had picked greens for a big salad, but tasted some while washing it and discovered that the lettuce has officially gone off and is now today’s green scavenge for the chickens. Bitter. Bitter. Bitter. (0 miles but not consumed).

Wild cards:

Starters of fresh mozzarella, hummus, crackers and marinated olives. Was supposed to be Zucchini fritters made total local, but I ran out of time. That’s tonight’s dinner!
Shrimp on the grill. Delicious, but obviously not local.
Cornbread, made 3 miles away, but not sure of the sources.
White bean salad with green olives. Who knows. But yum!
Dessert was actually partly local…Zucchini Chocolate Cake with local ice cream. I know the zucchini was local, not sure about the rest of the cake.
Margaritas and wine (a dry Rosé). The local wines I saw all seemed too sweet.

So really, if we extract the bottom list from bunch, the top one is a meal and a half on its own. I’d say we did pretty well.

Also, I learned something today. I’m in the process of collecting info from the market vendors to write their profiles for the market guide. The local bakery owner sent hers back and said she uses flour that’s milled right here in Kent from locally grown wheat. I knew about the Star of the North mill and grain elevator, but it never even occurred to me that it might be a resource. I have to find out if they sell to individuals. It’s probably not organic though. I can still order from Frankferd Farm, at the end of the month. It’s within my 100 miles and organic.

I’d been feeling tired and cranky and at loose ends with myself, but as one of our guests so wisely pointed out, a social gathering with the right mix of people, good food, a light breeze and a starry night can be a most healing happening. I feel like myself again.

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Well, I’m sliding in just under the wire here, and not with a complete meal, either. What can I say? It’s been a great week for being knocked on my butt with anesthesia, wandering around my kitchen in a daze for an hour then picking up the phone and ordering local takeout, and having revelations, but complete meals…not so much.

So I give you my mostly locally produced contributions to two meals this week.

First up, the salad that I brought to dinner at Cheril and Greg’s house on Thursday night.

I just love this kitchen at the end of the day. The sun slants in through an opening in the trees and shines on the counter to the right of the sink. It’s my favorite spot to photograph food.

So the salad was made with:

Lettuce—a combo from my garden (0 miles) and from the farmer’s market (grown about 4 miles away).
Cucumber—from the market (grown 30 miles away).
Nasturtiums—from the volunteer patch (0 miles).
English Peas—from the market (grown about 10 miles away).
Dill—from the market (grown about 20 miles away).
Basil—from my garden (0 miles).
Celery and red onion—from the grocery store. I had some in the fridge and had to use it up! California grown. Oi. The miles!
Dressing—homemade but with oil and balsamic vinegar from Italy. Double Oi. Although those items are on my concession list. So I take back my double oi.

Next up, the appetizer I brought to the big potluck BBQ for the fireworks last night—Grilled Polenta with a Chard and Kale situation on top. I made it up as I went along and thank goodness it was delicious. I hate it when I invent something that tastes like dung. I really wasn’t in the mood for that last night.

This one’s a little better on the mileage, with one offender…

Polenta roll—about 250 miles away in Pennsylvania, but that was closer than the cornmeal I had on hand, which came from Washington State.
Olive oil, again Italy. Always Italy. I can’t let go of that one.
Bunching onions—from the market (grown about 30 miles away). I must grow my own next year.
Bright Lights Chard and Nero di Toscana Kale—from the garden (0 miles).
Salt and pepper—Concession! Concession! No idea where they came from.
Basil—from the garden (0 miles).
Garlic—from the garden, but the one at the old house (want to buy a house on 4 acres?) (grown 14 miles away).

So the finely chopped, bordering on minced veggies got sautéed for about three minutes in a little olive oil, then I added the herbs and salt and pepper. Dumped that into the food processor with a bit more oil and a few leaves of raw chard just to green it up a bit.

Sliced the polenta into rounds, brushed both sides with olive oil and grilled on both sides, then cut the rounds into wedges (thirds). Topped with the greens mix.

And let’s finish it off with a photo of the chard and kale bed. So purty.

Hope you all had a grand weekend.

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I needed just a sip of fortification before I got down to business making my first One Local Summer meal. Yesterday was hot, sticky, still, stagnant and stinky. Work sucked the spirit out of me. An iced vodka tonic spritzed me back into shape.

The only thing local in the drink is the ice and the strawberries. But having the drink brought me back home to a local state of mind. Before that I was at the mercy of the waxing moon and Mercury in retrograde, reeling from the confusion and disorganization at work, the total lack of direction that accompanied so many marching orders.

For my first meal, I wanted to go to my local grocery store with a recipe in mind and see what ingredients I could find. My goal: whole grain crust pizza on the grill with a big salad.

I already had the salad covered, the greens beds are just bursting with tender leaves. Anything in the mustard family is quickly going to seed, however, as is the spinach, so I pulled the whole plants, snipped the leaves and tossed the stems to the chickens. Cluck, cluck, yum. Is it too late in the season to start more lettuce? I’m going to give it a try. Fill in the empty spots in the boxes.

So grocery shopping at the local ACME for local ingredients was as disappointing as I expected, but held one surprise. Tucked into the corner of the small fancy cheese case, four or five balls of organic mozzarella. I picked one up, expecting to see California or New Jersey, but no! Right there on the bottom of the front label, Cleveland area dairies! Made in Cleveland, a mere 40 miles from my doorstep. I mentally high-fived the ACME purchasing director for giving local producers a spot in the case. Local and organic.

The flour aisle also had a few choices. I would have been shocked to find locally milled flour. The nearest was central Illinois, non-organic, 50/50 whole grain and white flour. I figure it’s about four or five hundred miles, and I raised my bar for next time. I’ll buy from Frankferd Farms with the neighborhood buying club I got invited to join. They’re 96 miles from my home, in Pennsylvania. They do organic flours, milled on-site with locally sourced grains.

I started the dough (my favorite from Amy’s Bread, but with half whole wheat flour. I used my own young garlic (chopped and worked into the dough with a little cayenne, kosher salt and oregano,) harvested last weekend from the garden at the old house. There’s at least a hundred more bulbs in the ground there (second year plants) that I’ll pull up after the flowers open.

I sliced the zucchini and yellow crookneck, from the Saturday market, into thin ovals, then tossed them with a bit of olive oil and grilled it them. The dough made enough for 3 pizzas. Grill one side of the dough first, turning it to change the direction of the markings, then flip it, brush with olive oil, add toppings.

I was in a bit of a panic about the sauce, but then remembered that I had one more quart jar of slow-roasted tomatoes from 2005. Oh, joy! Juanne Flammées! I couldn’t believe how fresh they tasted after two years in a jar in a basement. Unbelievable.

I sprinkled the grated cheese, dotted it with the grilled squash, the tomatoes, chopped basil and oregano, and a little kosher salt.

I’ll get my food miles lower for next week, but for a first try, I’m very happy with the results. And with the leftovers I had for lunch today!

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This post is a practice run for the One Local Summer 2007 challenge. Liz at Pocket Farm is hosting the second annual challenge to eat at least one all-local meal each week for the summer, and then post about it. I wanted to participate last year, but the move and the new job made my brain all squicky and I just couldn’t get it together enough (although I ate and fed my family plenty of local foods). I’m excited about doing the challenge this year, and looking forward to tracking what I do. My own personal challenge is to prepare foods in ways I never have before.

Oh, and guess what? Today’s our one year anniversary in this house! We spent it at the old house burying our St. Joseph statue and mowing the lawn in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity, and wondering who we can call in to bale the cut grass.

Aaanyway…this is a practice post because the meal I made yesterday was mostly local (the salmon, the marinade and the asparagus were not) and also because it’s a week early. We had friends and Chris’ mom to dinner last night and in honor of opening day at the farmers’ market, I wanted to attempt as much local food as possible, without having to drive half an hour to get it (local meat and cheese means driving)

There was an amazing amount of locally and organically grown produce at the market, especially for the first day of the season, a far cry from previous years when it was all plants and bread. I scored some gorgeous Butterhead lettuce to add to my own delicious greens for a giant salad (along with Arugula, Lolla Rosa, Tom Thumb, Viroflay Spinach, Mustard, Mizuna and my Dwarf Grey Snow Peas, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette).

These peas are incredible. Too bad the plants are all turning yellow from the ground up and have stopped flowering, probably due to the onset of true summer—drought and heat.

I also picked up a few zucchini and summer squash, bunching onions and a loaf of whole wheat sunflower bread (not sure if she uses local flour, highly doubtful).

I didn’t take a photo of the peach pie from the local small bakery (also not likely local ingredients) but it was delicious.

The awesome garlic farmers were there with garlic scapes and spring garlic. They’re also my neighbors and want me to design their farm logo, and when they said they want to pay me, I jumped on that with “pay me in garlic!”

Their recipe for garlic scape pesto:

1/2 lb. scapes chopped into one inch pieces
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups grated hard cheese (they say parmesan, I used asiago)

Blend scapes and oil in blender (next time I’ll use the food processor because the blender kept jamming up and took forever to blend it all), then dump into a bowl. The recipe didn’t call for it, but I added sea salt and pepper.

Mix in the cheese by hand.

I sliced the bread, brushed with oil, grilled on both sides, then got Tyler to spread the pesto on the warm bread and top with a spoonfull of chopped cherry tomatoes (not local) and basil (mine). That was apps with beer while the fish finished grilling and the grilled asparagus and squash cooled.

We all pretty much moaned our way through dinner, and while I was swirling the last slice of bread around on my plate to pick up all the little bits, I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo after the finished pesto (which I made in the early afternoon) so you’ll just have to take my word for it…dinner was good, and about 60% local.

Technorati Tags: eat local, locavore, garlic scapes, farmers’ market, one local summer

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