Thursday, July 28, 2011

TONIGHT! 100 Mile Diet Kick Off!

We hope to see you there!!


What?
100 Mile Diet Kick Off Event

Where?
McMinnville Public Library, Carnegie Room

When?
7pm

Local woman Angelina Williamson will be sharing her experience eating a 100 Mile Diet for a year. There will be a question and answer session following. Local wine and nibbles are provided!

Friday, July 22, 2011

100 Mile Diet: Installment 3

So, What Inspires You?


Hello all!


Well, I don't know about you, but this weather makes me curiously more optimistic about this whole 100 Mile Diet thing. It seems more possible that there really will be peppers and peaches and maybe (gasp) melons! Hooray for summer.

This week we finally, after arduous work and coordination, got the 100 Mile Diet publicity out in McMinnville. You might have seen it... I hope you've seen it... if you haven't seen it then I'll get more out there so you can see it... And now that the whole thing feels much more real, I'm excited to start some conversations with you all about why we are doing this thing.

Inspiration is important with things like this experiment--things that are challenging and force you to think and to examine ingrained habits and all that self-help-ish sounding good stuff. I've been thinking a lot about why I want to do this, and came up with a little list (man, I love a good list). Have you come up with your inspiration for participating? If so, share it! If not... maybe go write it down, stick it to your fridge, and then share with us too!


Beth's List of Inspiration:

1. Turning sentiment into action.
If you're anything like me, you've probably thought, read, watched, etc a lot about food issues. You've been horrified and amazed and perhaps brought to tears by what you've learned (ok, maybe that's just me), and always wondered what you could do with that knowledge. Well, here it is. I've been learning about local food for a long time. Finally all that passion is channeled to a very specific, time-lined purpose. Action.
2. Farmers!
We are so blessed to live in this county with all of its fantastic, hard-working, trail-blazing, passionate, and talented farmers. Their hard work and dedication to producing true, honest food is super inspiring. I've always supported them, but this project feels makes that support seem more concrete somehow.
3. Freshly picked peaches.
Have you ever bitten into a fresh, sun-warmed Veteran peach at the peak of ripeness? Um, ya.
4. I love to eat.
Obvious? Perhaps. Still, I love food: growing it, buying it, cooking it, sharing it. And there's nothing better than assembling a meal and knowing precisely where everything came from, down to the farmer's hand who you laid your dollars in. So good.

Talk to you all soon,
Beth


PS> If you haven't seen the poster (!!!), here's a glimpse:

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The 100 Mile Diet: Installment 2

The First 100 Mile Meal


Hello everyone!

A shameful but packed two weeks or more have passed since I've written anything. Sorry! Luckily, I'm coming back to you all after (mostly) finishing publicity for the real 100 Mile event! Hooray! It should be up around town soon.


I wanted to just write a quick post about my first 100 mile meal. Call it a test run/learning experience/a way to use a lot of fava beans... any way it was delicious.

So yes, fava beans. I picked up a huge bag of them at market last week, and needed to use them up. I wasn't quite sure how... in search of inspiration I ended up walking carefully around Roth's reading labels and picking up produce from within that 100 mile radius. I did pretty good: a couple bunches of delicious spinach from Brownsville, green onions from Milwaukee, mushrooms from Yamhill, cherries from Dayton, a half gallon of apple cider from Hood River, and amazing chive havarti from Salem. The plan? Some kind of a salad. Maybe minus the cherries.

In the end, I sauteed the onions, favas (painstakingly removed from their fuzzy pods--so worth it!), and mushrooms in slightly ridiculous amounts of creamy local butter. I chopped the spinach roughly, tossed it in a big bowl, and added the hot beans, shrooms, and onions to the mix. Stir, stir, and viola! Wilted spinach salad. I cubed some havarti and tossed it in as well. Um, yum! The mushrooms and spinach were earthy, the beans sweet and green, the cheese sharp and bracing. Minor success!

Though I was able to catch myself before putting olive oil in the pan and before grinding some pepper over the finished product (kitchen habits lie deep), I did sin in one major way: salt. Salt is going to be a sticky spot for this experiment I think. I've been researching, and so far the closest source I can find is in Northern California. Does anyone know of a source for Oregon-harvested salt? If you do, you will be a hero to many a community member quite soon. Post it in the comments!


Hopefully everyone is getting excited about this event! For more information, check out the events page here, or a community billboard near you in the near future.

Cheers,
Beth