One Local Summer

Every Sunday, all summer long, I will be posting about a meal that we eat that consists of all locally produced food. Everything in the meal, but for oil and seasonings, has to be produced within a 100 mile radius of home. This link will bring you to all of the One Local Summer participants' blog posts, which will be posted there by Tuesday.

Our first meal consisted of hamburgers, salad and roasted vegetables. The grass-fed beef came from our friends at Riverview Farms in Ranger, GA. The salad lettuces and the boiled beets that were cooled and then mixed into the salad came from our farm. The roasted beets, garlic, carrots and onions were from our farm. The turnips (so sweet when roasted), and the radishes in the salad came from Gillen and Jesse's backyard farm. The potatoes were from a friend down the street.
Everyone contributed to the preparation. Gillen and Jesse collected their vegetables. Nicolas drove to the farm, five minutes away, to collect the rest of the vegetables. Once we realized that we couldn't use any of our condiments on the burgers, I thought of a cheese-free pesto that we could make with our basil and garlic. I thought of it, but didn't make it. (I was busy starting a novel. : ) Gillen and Nicolas generously made it, with a cheese version put aside for later in the week.

For dessert we had plums from our farm and strawberries from another local farmer. Gillen ate his strawberries dipped in organic, raw milk that was produced by a local dairy.

We included Tuki in our local feast. She got her own burger.But not enough.


While I did the dishes, I listened to last year's annual "poultry slam" episode of "This American Life", about the tiny bird that is described as representing the soul of France. It is illegal to eat it anymore. Mitterand ate it as part of a huge last meal feast, thinking he was going to die, and when he didn't die he refused to eat again for the next eight days, until he finally did die. The narrator of the NPR story described eating it himself and how conscious and silent he had to be in order to eat it. It is Act Two of the episode. It made me think about how unconscious we all are so much of the time when we eat. We talk a lot about this as a family and as members of Slow Food. Tonight, we were made more conscious of what local really means. We missed our condiments and thought about how much work will go into making them all ourselves. And we talked about what a luxury it is to have this farm and our honey bees and to know local farmers who raise meat.

Later, the farmers hoed, staked the tomatoes and spread fertilizer in the backyard farm, and we talked about what they'll have grown by the end of the summer.
Anyone in the Atlanta area who is interested in getting more local produce, we are part of a large group of organic farmers who sell our produce every Sat. morning at the Morningside Farmers Market. Here is a national web site that can help you to find the local resources near you.