One Local Summer-Week 1 Recap

A number of years ago I tried playing along with an idea hosted by the blog Farm To Philly http://farmtophilly.com to eat at least one meal a week totally (with exceptions for stuff like salt, pepper, sugar and oil) from food grow or raised locally. Over the years there were several different definitions of local and several levels of exceptions made, some of which I've chronicled here, some that I did on my own. Unfortunately, as the scales of balance tipped in the wrong direction, cooking anything, not to mention cooking healthy, sustainably sourced, locally grown meals fell off. And I've been worse off for it.

But no more. I'm back with a CSA subscription to a new local farm just 24 miles down the road, a farmers market that host only vendor-produced foods grown within 125 miles, and a commitment to make this my summer to back on track. 

One of the reasons I let go of this before was all the rules of what and how far and the guilt of including something "not approved". It made what should have been an educational, inspirational journey into a comparison of who was "really" being local and who could afford to source more expensive meats and exotic veggies to eat well. In an effort to avoiding all of that I'm playing by my own rules this year and celebrating even the little steps as success. 

My rules will be:

Cook at least 3 local meals a week

A local meal is a meal that contains at least half local foods and no exotic items that could not reasonably be obtained  locally. The point is to eat things in season, not how creative can I get at stretching the rules but I will note the non local items. I will also feature things like pickles where the primary ingredient that is ultimately eaten is local even if the liquid and spices are not. 

Local is anything grown or raised within 150 miles. 

I will endeavor to find sustainable, environmentally friendly, economically feasible alternatives where possible but will hold no guilt if I use store bought items or a cheaper product if it results in the ability to provide a healthy, home cooked meal to my family. 

I will source and meal plan from my share first and do my best to fully utilize all the yummy stuff.

I hope to see a gradual transition from partially local to mostly local as I use up non-local ingredients and replace them with local sources. Things like butter, flour, herbs should be easy but I wont just toss usable food to buy new local versions, I'll use up the old and replace with the good. Things like oil, salt and some sugars probably wont be replaced at all but either reduced as I make healthier meals or simply kept as my exlusions.

So for the first week, here is my recap:

Thursday evening I picked up my share and started meal planning but didn't get any cooking done as it was too late. I also still had a few few things left from my last farmers market trip like grape tomatoes, pasta, and carrots.

Friday I cooked a batch of kale (share) chips using a non-local drizzle of oil and dash of salt and pepper following this recipe at http://www.beardandbonnet.com/how-to-make-crispy-kale-chips-gluten-free-and-vegan/.

Then I took half the asparagus from the share and made a jar of refrigerator pickles using this recipe http://shesimmers.com/2010/03/quick-and-easy-refrigerator-pickled-asparagus.html. My BF, the pickle expert in the household found them quite good. 

For the main meal I used all the curly kale (share), a pint of grape tomatoes from Ticonderoga (fm), some fresh linguine noodles from Caravan Pasta (fm), and non local garlic, oil, and feta to make a delicious one pot pasta dinner. We enjoyed the incredibly fresh juicy strawberries plain for dessert.

Saturday I had previously prepared store bought chicken to use up so for local content I made a quick salad out of our lettuce (share) and some shredded carrots (fm) and braised some pok choy (share) in non-local soy sauce to go with the lemon chicken and rice.

Sunday I made a mostly local fritatta from the last of our Lancaster Farm Fresh eggs (share). This version had some non-local feta and paremsean cheese and some commercial lunch meat ham slices but also used up the leftover pok choy (share) and some sauted asparagus (share).

The rest of the week was filled with veggies too but none met my feature conditions. Chard warped salmon with sautéed asparagus, chineese cabbage and carrots in an Asian chopped salad, and kale and carrots in soup used up every last bit of the items in the week 1 share. 

Small steps

Step 1. Stop feeling guilty about not exercising and eating poorly. Admit that you not perfect, your going to be lazy at times but that’s no excuse not to start again.

Step 2. Get up off the couch and run 3.1 miles (yup that’s a 5k) up and down slippery muddy slopes, across streams, through woods and back to the lake with a fun-loving run club Thanksgiving morning before cooking turkey, potatoes, and cranberry to put on sandwiches for the next week.

Step 3. Put 6 year old who’s too tired from running her own mile race into jog stroller and race to find/catch up with the runners/walkers who started 10 the club run 15 minutes earlier because you were to consumed with getting the kid dressed, fed and settled to make it on time. Proceed to run/walk 4 miles.

Step 4. Stop eating out. Make afore mentioned sandwiches with sprouts and mustard and pair with clementines, apples, carrots or salad. Pack lunch, snacks, fill bottle with water, and tea bags to take to work at any cost.

Step 5. Admit that you need support. Finally return the call of the new Health Counselor who has been patiently trying to reach you for 4 months and confess all your bad habits and slip ups. Get reminded by a total stranger that you haven’t failed, just taken a little (probably needed) break, you have already accomplished several goals including running a 5k (something that was once an impossible task and is now somewhat routine), finishing a 10k, dropping a dress size or two, and losing 15-20 pounds.

Step 6. Feel better. Make a plan to get active at least 2 days a week, pack lunch with health foods and drink more water. Go to bed excited to start working on your goals again.

Season for Balance

I’ve lost my balance. Since returning from my sisters wedding to be overwhelmed with work chaos and falling utterly behind in all things at home, it seems that I can only function in spurts. When I have the energy I pour my heart into the matter at hand and when that energy runs out it seems I just crash and become too worn out to tackle all the challenges that need addressing. Hitting that vicious cycle of cause and effect I have let my exercise motivation slip, my eating habits rely almost entirely on fast and prepared foods, my mental focus fade into survival mode only focusing on scraping together for the immediate needs and letting everything else take the back burner.

I need my balance. Lost in the clutter of my life and my home I’ve hit the point where I need to regain my balance in order to take care of my work and family obligations, not just to bring back my health and happiness. Being a Libra I crave that fine tipping point between the chaos and the order where thing flow freely and shift readily but always within bounds. With the bounds broken I’m left scrambling too much to catch everything and keep it from falling and the futility leads to letting it all go and that never works for long.

I will find my balance. The seasons are changing again. My friend autumn, with her blustery winds, chill air, and brief rich hues reminds me that I to can change again. It’s time to let the breeze sweep out the clutter, the air invigorate my motivation, and to refocus on what is important. More to follow.

Back with a plan

So I have faded out for a while and now I'm back with a plan...a garden plan, that is. My reasons are complex so let me explain.

As the sunlight starts to creep in my window a little earlier I have started to get that urge to connect with the earth again. I grew up playing in a huge shared garden and had fruit trees intermingled in the redwood forest of my back yard. I grew tomatoes on my college apartment balcony in salvaged 5 gallon buckets atop old plastic milk crates. I even took responsibility for the lonely rose outside my office in the harsh, dry Baghdad summer; watering it with the leftover drops from our water bottles and nourishing it with our coffee grounds. For the past 2 years since moving to the DC metro area I have relied on our weekly share pickup trips to our CSA farm and the frequent u-pick bonuses to fulfill my longing to cultivate and harvest. And harvest we have. I have picked more green beans than I knew what to do with and all the strawberries I could carry; K has had the joy of picking and eating a fresh peach from atop my shoulders and digging with her bare hands in the northern Virginia dirt to fill her pail with potatoes and a few rocks. So its not that I am ever far removed from the earth and her bounty. But maybe I want to be even closer.

I live in an apartment and work full time (currently with a long commute too) and while I dedicate my Saturdays to good food and the farm life, sadly at some point I have to come home to earth that is not mine and a concrete patio. I have no yard to tend, no grass to mow, no big sunny windows for house plants and a 3 year old who might "re-pot" any indoor plants for the fun of it at the first chance she could get. So its not that I have space for a garden just calling my name, begging me to dig and plant. But maybe that's what challenges me.

I suppose you could say that with a half share of produce each week to use up for the majority of the spring and summer months and only one person to consume it (what K eats, when she eats hardly counts as another consumer except when we have berries) that we have access to plenty of fresh, local food. We also have a great year round farmers market where we can supplement any foods that don't come in our share. So its not that we are lacking access to fresh food. But even with the great choices our CSA grows and the many vendors at the market I still find that I can't get certain things that I want even when they are in season.

THIS is probably the biggest reason behind my garden plan. I want to put by some dried beans, savor a lemon cuke, have fresh herbs at my fingertips, relive my childhood though the favorite flowers of my memories and show my daughter the joy of sprouting a seed that turns into a plant whose fruit ends up on our plate or in a vase.

My patio does get good light, being almost South East facing and last year with the addition of a self-watering container I was able to keep some herbs from our share going until the first frost and in the case one over zealous chive almost until Christmas. So with renewed energy I have measured the patio, surveyed the light, plotted the space, researched container sizes, cut out little squares and rearranged everything until I got it all to fit, ordered the self watering containers, drooled over seed catalogues and finally placed my order. I set up a sturdy plastic utility shelf in front of the sunniest window where I plan to start my seeds and picked up some potting soil this week and now K and I are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our seeds. More to follow.

Goals

What do I hope to accomplish? Given that this is the beginning of the new year it is a natural time to reevaluate what hasn't been working over the past year and set some new goals for the new year. Although my weight is the first thing that I would like to change about myself this has not made it directly into my goals. What I hope to do is change other aspects of my life which will indirectly but cumulatively help me burn more calories, free up time and money, get out more, and get unhealthy concerns off my mind so that next year I will be ready to tackle my weight more directly.

A few months ago when I took a look at my work performance, behavior and appearance I realized that I had to get rid of my old ratty day planner binder and go for something a little less poor college undergrad and a little more multi-tasking professional. It just so happened that I would be running out of weekly planner pages at the end of the year and they were running a sale to give you $-off of a binder/planner/book combo. So with my new black leather binder I purchased a years worth of daily planner pages and an organization self-help CD designed by Julie Morgenstern. Over the last month I have used her CD to help me refine my goals and learn to focus on what had to be done.

My biggest problem with organization stems from K. I want to be responsive and attentive to her but as a single mom there is only one of me and some things have to get done in what little time I have at home and sometimes that outranks time with K. Not that I'm ignoring her but my attention has to be on something else even when I'm with her. So by setting long term goals, short term goals, defining activity areas where I need to focus, and listing tasks to complete those activities I hope to determine what is really important and what is just busy work that I do because I feel I have to do something when I have some time but that doesn't really accomplish anything.

I have initially divided up my goals into categories like Work, Family, Home, Knowledge, Self, and Financial. My Work actives are almost on autopilot since all I have to do is keep up on the daily tasks and remember to update my resume. My Family and Home activities are going to take much more conscious action. It involves setting and maintaining behaviors that will make our interactions much more meaningful, and also bring some order and sanity to our household schedule (or lack there of). I subdivided Knowledge into 3 sub-sections: Work-related, Formal Education, and Personal Interests. I have no problem exploring my personal interests but they often are more fun than the formal educational activities that I have to do to complete my degree. My main activities there centers on setting myself up for success my making the Formal Education a priority when I am home. This includes putting off my personal reading until after homework is done and reducing my Internet activity to school related until I feel ahead of the class. Obviously my family goals are necessary to support this effort.

I resisted setting any concrete activities for my Self, partly because I didn't want to start of the year failing at my most important goal and partly because of what I described at the start of this post. To start with I need to find a primary physician, want to keep my room and bathroom orderly and clean and make some (read at least 1) scheduled time for exercise. Finally, I put down that I want to spend time stretching with K.

I have done yoga on an off since I graduated from High School but I have never been extremely consistent in my practice. I decided that I want to teach K how to do some of the calming moves to help her deal with her frustration and that I probably need them as much as she does. Besides, stretching is a good first step to prep me for more activity and eventually more targeted exercise. So I told K that I was going to do some yoga and got her to help me to clear her toys off the floor. Then I showed her cat/cow--my back was aching so this was the only stretch I could think of that had a name she could remember, a pose that she could try and something that would work on my back. A few days later I added downward dog to the short routine. She can do the cat part and then giggles as I try to get her into down dog and she gets ticklish and collapses in a somersault. Since then she has repeatedly asked me to do "cat-dog" with her and is getting better at cow. She even sat through a video podcast of YOGAmazing so I could look for another pose to teach them and commented on the poses she knew. So far so good. I hope to keep this up this month.

Now that I have just finished writing that I didn't set any typical fitness or eating resolutions here is my two exceptions: make a weekly meal plan and go for 10 minute walks during lunch, regardless of weather or location.