Day 4 - Yes, We Have No Strawberries

Breakfast

Saturday, May 23, began with a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. As before, the eggs were from Triple S Farms (Stewardson, IL, 77 miles SE of Springfield), and the honey on the toast was from from Sasse's Apiary (Chestnut, IL, 88 miles NW of Springfield). The bread, butter, and the milk were all non-local.

Market

I then made a quick trip to the Old Capitol Farmers' Market. My main targets were strawberries and green beans. I struck out on both counts. The guy at the Living Springs Berries and Produce booth told me that they sold out of their 35 flats of strawberries at 7:53 AM. Did I mention that the farmers' market doesn't officially open until 8:00 AM? The last of the green beans were gone by 8:30 AM. The trip wasn't a complete loss, however, as I got sugared pecans from Voss Pecans (Carlyle, IL, 90 miles south of Springfield), snow peas, and broccoli. Where did the snow peas and the broccoli come from? Well, I wrote that information down on a piece of paper, which I then cleverly lost. *sigh*

Food Not Lawns Talk

The reason the trip was rather quick was that I was scheduled to speak to the Springfield Food Not Lawns group at 9:30 at Lincoln Library. The title of my talk was "My So-Called Locavore Life". (I'll post a link to the PowerPoint file here as soon as I can figure out a way to do so!) I had briefly met Carrie and Don Moorman, the organizers of the group, at Meet Your Local Producers. Due to conflicts with my work schedule, I hadn't been able to attend a Food Not Lawns meeting before. The turnout wasn't especially large, which wasn't surprising given that it was 9:30 on a Saturday morning, but everyone was quite interested in the topic and I had a good time.

When I was preparing the talk, I was worried that it would be too short. ("Let's see. 44 slides, 30 seconds per slide, that's only 22 minutes. Hmm... I better ramble a bit.") Well, I rambled alot! Somehow I talked for over 2 hours about:

• how I became interested in becoming a locavore;
• my first steps last spring and summer;
• how things got sidetracked by the house purchase;
• our intentions to resume the project this year;
• the various reasons I have for becoming a locavore;
• and local resources for locavores.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I think everyone else did, too. However, if I ever give this talk again, I definitely need to ramble quite a bit less!

Lunch

For lunch, we had a salad, with strawberries and sugared pecans for dessert. The lettuce, chives, and radishes were all local, from Veenstra & Heck's CSA (Rochester, IL). The sugared pecans were from Voss Pecans (Carlyle, IL, 90 miles south of Springfield). I'm sure the sugar on the pecans wasn't local, but I won't quibble; they're good! The strawberries were also local, although I don't recall from where. The cheese on the salad wasn't local, but it was from Wisconsin, which isn't too far away. (After it's gone, we'll be using cheese from Ropp Jersey Cheese (Normal, IL) and other local sources.) The salad dressing was non-local.

Visitors!

Later that afternoon, my dad and stepmom arrived for a visit from Texas. We invoked the "social exemption" and went out to dinner with them at Panera Bread, where I had the Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich and drank a Mountain Dew.

"Social Exemption?"

I probably ought to post a page here explaining what our "rules" are. For us at least, becoming a locavore isn't intended to be a religious conversion. Eating something non-local isn't meant to be a sin! So we have some "exceptions" or "exemptions". The most obvious one is that we're still using up any non-local food that's already in the house. And Dawn won't be giving up her chocolate, coffee, or tea. (I probably won't be giving up my oranges, although I won't buy them in the dead of winter!)

In addition, we have a "social exemption": When going out with friends or family, or when eating at their house, enforcing locavore restrictions just isn't practical. After all, part of my motivation for becoming a locavore is improving community ties; if we can't socialize with people, that sort of defeats the purpose! Dawn also wants an exemption for one lunch and one dinner out each week.

Of course, if there are too many exceptions, then you're not really being a locavore! We haven't really chiselled our rules in stone yet. I think we're both sort of feeling our way a bit to get a better feel for what we really can't do without.

In any case, as I said, this isn't intended to be a religion. There are benefits to being a locavore. We're just trying to make the changes needed to make those benefits a reality.

Comments

[occula]

I'm enjoying reading as you launch your journey - and your common-sense guidelines and exemptions seem just that.

Me, I've been an ovo-lacto-vegetarian (who eats also fish now but didn't at first) for going on 10 years, so I'm familiar with various rules, rulebreaking, and realistic accommodations (not to mention my annual thanksgiving Gravy Dilemma). I think the local food movement is pretty exciting! thanks for posting about your effort.