Seriously, everyone wins. Almost a quarter of the people who participated in the PEC’s Eat Local Challenge this fall actually got a prize—that’s 27 lucky winners taking home Dr. Ho’s gift certificates and Blue Mountain Brewery growlers and a day with cheesemaker Gail Hobbs-Page at Caromont.
But there were other kinds of winning too. Everybody who entered ate at least 21 local foods in 21 days, so you know they were lovin’ them some meals. And over 250 sources of local food were represented in the eating, so that’s a huge number of local farms, orchards and vendors who got some business.
At my house, we often play a different "eat local" game, which amounts to congratulating ourselves on the number of local ingredients in a given meal. Try it! It’s all kinds of fun.
We will, for example, look down at our seemingly no-fuss dinner (omelets, salad, toast) and start listing out loud: lettuce from our garden, mizuna and eggs from Double H, vinegar from Virginia Vinegar Works, peppers from Blue Heron Farm in the omelets, bread from Sub Rosa, jam from our friend at the farmer’s market, some of Gail‘s cheese on the salads, and beer from Blue Mountain to wash it all down. Were we in the mood for bacon to go with, we could certainly find some. I tell you, it’s downright thrilling.
Anyone else have a favorite meal that can be completely locally sourced? (Olive oil, salt and pepper, etc. don’t count.)