Green Living

I signed up again for my community’s Eat Local Challenge—from June through October, hundreds of us pledge to eat 50 percent of our food from local sources. I have to confess, I skip the whole daily calculation process and, instead, direct my energies toward expanding awareness of local food sources—which is the whole idea behind the food challenge, anyway.

            When you eat local, you reduce the environmental impact of your daily bread. (Food on the shelves of your neighborhood grocery has traveled an average of 1,500 miles—that’s a lot of oil in your tomatoes and not the heart-healthy kind.) Summer is a great time to become a “locavore.” Finding fresh vegetables is easy: I can supplement my own garden gleanings with a weekly delivery through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, or visits to several farmer’s markets, which carry a lot more than produce.

The Eat Local Challenge Web site posts regular updates on resources: where to find locally made dairy products, flour, honey, maple syrup, baked goods, and—if I were a carnivore—meat. The icing on the cake? We even have a candy manufacturer in the community, producing great chocolate from Fair Trade, sustainably grown cocoa.

No matter where you live in the U.S., you can find farmer’s markets, CSAs, food coops, even grocery stores and restaurants that make available local food at www.localharvest.com.

Oven-wise practices cut down on home energy consumption

Yesterday, I gave my granddaughter a lesson in slow food. Instead of dinner in a bag, drive-by-style, or something from the frozen food section, we pulled out flour and eggs, we cut up vegetables, we measured ingredients, we stirred them together, and stir-fried, steamed, toasted, and baked away the afternoon. The result? A healthy, tasty, inexpensive gourmet meal.

            Okay, it was only a tuna casserole, broccoli, and salad. But you have to start somewhere. In the process, I followed some advice I’d read recently—particularly relevant during winters like we’re experiencing in the Midwest: When done baking, leave the oven door open. This lets heat to escape and warm up the house, allowing your furnace a little respite, however brief.

            It reminded me that lots of little habits can build up to make a big impact. Like covering pots on the stovetop so they reach boiling point faster, turning off the oven a couple minutes before your dish is done, and resisting the temptation to open the oven door and peek on the progress. One other tip that’s great: When doable, use a toaster oven or an electric skillet or crockpot rather than the stovetop or oven. The smaller appliances eat up less energy (unless you’re using them all at once).

Planning next summer’s garden takes the chill out of winter

The seed catalog came today. In the dead of winter, the future promise of food springing forth from my backyard is what keeps me going during these dismal weeks. I pore over the possibilities: Rainbow chard or green? Bush or pole beans? Should I give garlic a try this year? Go for a hotter pepper?

Now that I’ve been gardening my own little patch of earth for the past few years, I’ve stretched beyond my repertoire of basil, tomatoes, and peppers. Slender Asian eggplant, white beets, pink radishes, purple potatoes. I’ve experimented with different kinds of cucumbers. I’ve added edible flowers to the mix.

But what really tells me that I’ve graduated beyond beginner status? This year, I intend to plant my own seeds, harvested from last summer’s crop. I saved big, red-and-black kidney shapes from the scarlet runner beans and a medley of seeds from various squash. Nasturtiums, cilantro, marigolds, borage-collected and waiting to be planted once the ground thaws.

And it occurs to me that I’ve achieved sustainability in one of its purest forms. I’m propagating food from my own food! I anticipate late-August dinners of ratatouille and stir fry without having spent a penny at the farmer’s market or even on a packet of seeds.

With this miraculous transformation of dirt into dinner, it makes me wonder why any of us bother with grass at all.

(Be sure to take a look at Organic Gardening For Dummies to get a jump-start on the planting season.)