ELC Day Twenty

The only hard part of the Eat Local Challenge has been not being able to find local food when eating out. I enjoy going out to lunch with my co-workers and we can't afford to go to a fine restaurant so often. So I've had to get used to eating lunch at home, alone. (Cue violins here...)

This is going to sound schizophrenic after my post from yesterday, but so be it. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that a seafood vendor has set up at the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market, with iced seafood in coolers that he brings from the North Carolina coast. He had quite a variety, and I bought some of the biggest bay scallops I've ever seen and some shrimp to freeze for later. Yes, it is twice the price of the shrimp in the grocery store, but food raised in sewage is not worth it at any price to me.

The fact is, I'm not ready to give up shrimp. I know that harvesting the wild caught shrimp tears up the ocean bottoms, and I'll have to consider that. I'll buy U.S. farmed shrimp at the grocery when I shop there, and will probably go for the organic label even though I know that it's not reliable. And I'll never buy the cheap black tiger shrimp again, bleh!

Now that I have a garden that produces quite a bit of seasonal food, I've found that my shopping trips to the farmer's market often do not involve buying vegetables. There is such a variety of foods offered there now, I could probably pass on ever shopping at a conventional grocery store again.

Today at the market I bought:

bottom round beef roast from Rocking F Farm (for pot roast next weekend)

shrimp (for the freezer) and bay scallops from Paul Nelson

chicken breasts from Back Woods Family Farm

garlic from Cornerstone Garlic Farm

white mushrooms and new red potatoes from Gann Farm

broccoli from WeatherHand Farm

roasted peanuts and a tomato from Faucette Farms (Sandy complains if I don't buy him a tomato! He's not as picky as I am. A tomato out of season is pointless to me, even if it is greenhouse grown.)

a blue cheese/leek mini-quiche from Nora Glanz, who told me today that she uses local goat cheese in her tarts now. Probably not this one, though.

a couple of cucumber plants from Handance Farm

Lunch today: leftover navy beans, lamb's quarters, hamburger, onion, and garlic, all mixed together with dried basil and called "hash."

Dinner tonight will be: bay scallops marinated in lemon juice and olive oil, sauteed with broccoli, spring onions, garlic, and maybe mushrooms, served over organic linguini and topped with freshly grated parmesano-reggiano cheese. I'll also add feta cheese from Sleepy Goat Farm if there is any at Deep Roots Market today. (Note: if you bought their feta cheese right around the time of the Taste Fair, you may have found it too salty. I talked to the cheesemaker and she said that the next batch has less salt, so try it again!)