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
3 comments:
For salt, you might substitute NW Kelp for at least savory use! Ryan Drum in Washington State is a great source, & I've taken a weekend workshop with him.
Olive oil is easy (but a bit spendy) - since we have Red Ridge Farms in 'our own backyard' ...
But for the myriad health benefits, I use coconut oil for all my cooking (bake with palm) & in my massage practice, I make my own coconut milk kefir ... I've puzzled over this for awhile, as I DO try to eat mostly local all the time.
I usually buy the oil BOTTLED in Eugene - Aunt Patty's)
I remember that when Barbara Kingsolver & her husband did their personal 12 month challenge local diet challenge, documented in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, each family member chose one item for farther afield, which included olive oil (they didn't have a local press), chocolate & coffee, wheat .., in my case, it would be GF grains, (a lot of Bob's Red Mill GF grains are local - can check the sources there) & I think coconut!
http://www.kingsolver.com/books/animal-vegetable-miracle.html
Hi Beth- I think I found a salt source for you- http://www.farmingportland.com/2010/08/oregon-salt-batch-2.html
Annie
www.Dolcefarm.com
Thanks for the input you two! I hadn't heard of the kelp option, so I'll have to check that out!
Also, word to the wise, Red Ridge Farms (who I work for and love) produces oil that contains Oregon oil but isn't 100% Oregon. They still supplement with Northern California fruit because their grove is quite young. That said, it is the closest you can possibly get and probably worth bending the rules for. :)
I have also read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and found it very inspiring. I like her idea of one "special" item, which is a concept SFYC is planning to extend to our 100 Mile Diet.
Beth
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