Saturday, June 30, 2007

One Local Summer, Redux

Liz at Pocket Farm is once again hosting One Local Summer, an open invitation to prepare one meal a week for the rest of the season based on local ingredients. The rules are flexible. Define local in whatever way suits you best. Make exemptions for spices and coffee if you wish. But try! Once a week, that's all she asks.
A couple of days ago Cranky and I whipped up a dinner of stuffed cabbage rolls.
I fell in love with Savoy cabbage recently, and when we found a crinkly head of it grown by my heart-throb farmers at Full Belly, we grabbed one.
Then I got to thinking. What's so wrong about using sausage instead of plain ground meat as a filling? Marin Sun Farms was selling a nice, gentle sausage of local beef and pork (no clue as to the provenance of the seasonings). I mixed the de-cased sausage meat with a little parboiled rice from Lundberg and some minced Full Belly onion.
And I already had a few bags of local tomato sauce in the freezer, left over from last summer.
Fancied it all up with a few dabs of local sour cream from Clover, and it was a beautiful, lovely plate of summer.
I won't spend much time bragging that we eat locally most of the time anyway. Instead, I want to give a shout out to Stacie at Mommy Mosh Pit for her local endeavors. Stacie lives in farm country, to be sure, but it's a brutal climate. Her first attempt at eating locally, in her words, was "hard work!" But she educated herself. She asked around. She grew a vegetable garden.
And yesterday she prepared a dinner (for company, no less) of food from her (very) local region.
As Stacie tells it, "...[N]ext thing you know, it's a year later, and it's just becoming the way you eat. Once you learn something, you can never look back."

15 comments:

Dagny said...

I want Stacie's garden.

Chilebrown said...

I will drink locally! Budweiser is located in Suisuan. It is 20 miles away. Does that count? I have harvested a couple of tomatoes. I have a packet of A&B Bacon.(Chandler) I have Monkey Wrangler Sour Dough Bread. It is loco in my book. Peace, Paul

Moonbear said...

I'm excited to be a local eater, to the best of my ability. (Two fingers on the brow-- brownie salute!)
And hey? About those pears, Cookiecrumb, I have a pressure canner and will travel, if you are interested in a canning party.

Greg said...

Loving the depth of focus on that photo.Yummy!

Era said...

I love Full Belly too, they are my CSA farm. And I got some of the corn that you wrote about earlier in my latest box! Can't wait to try it!

Stacie said...

hey, thanks for the props! I am super lucky to have 1.5 acers to garden at will... and a friend that has gardened in the region for 30 years, who will till at will! And slowly, the plan is coming together! Oh yeah, and there's the mostly local musings of my fave mad food blogger (pst... that's you)...

Sam said...

Its 3 oclock and I haven't eaten anything all day apart form about 6 alfieri almonds. I think I will do as you bid and fix myself a marin sun egg before i pass out

Liz said...

I feel like I'm at my Polish grandma's... only waaay better. ;)

YUM!

cookiecrumb said...

Dagny: I've seen pictures of Stacie's garden in the winter. Snow. You might want to rethink that. :-)

Chilebrown: Of course it counts. You define local right up there in your local little head. :D

Moonbear: Yay! Come on board. Brownie salute!!

Greg: Yeah, well, that's about the only setting I've been able to manage on my camera, and I've had it for almost two years. Sigh. It's hard. But thanks.

Era: You are lucky to have them. I visited your blog today (and it's on my Bloglines feed now, whee). I loved looking at the bounty in your CSA box.

Stacie: Thanks to you for being such an inspiration.

Sam: I didn't eat all day either. Sudden gut cramps; had to leave the Marin market early. But I'm well now. A Marin Sun Farms egg is a *remedy*!

Liz: I'm sure your grandma had a lot more practice than I do. My cabbage was a little al dente, and over-all, we could have used more spicing. But yes, it was so REAL and so yummza.

Kalyn Denny said...

The cabbage rolls look just lovely. That's a dish I've always been interested in making. Just came by to thank you for the recommendation for the Saveur article about cuts of beef. I finally got the mag yesterday; what an awesome article. This is one magazine that's going in the shelf with the cookbooks. Thanks! (I guess I better start subscribing if it's always this good!)

Monkey Wrangler said...

Oooooooh! Nice!
This makes me want a beer. I'll just have to go make some.

What are you doin' in four weeks when it's done? (Do I hear "tomato canning party"?)

El said...

Look what you've started. People are getting the notion that you're going to have canning parties! (There's not much magic to canning, btw; just a lot of "keep your jars clean, children" and one hot and steamy kitchen. Go to your local hardware store, find some pots and jars, and try not to feel like a survivalist.

I loove savoy cabbage. So do my slugs. (poor me.)

Unknown said...

Your photos are amazing! How delicious does that look.

Chelee
OLS-West

cookiecrumb said...

Kalyn: Saveur is always that good. I've been subscribing for 11 years. They do an editorial bobble now and then; who wouldn't? Like a couple of issues ago, the cover story was Summer Salads! Whoo! Iceberg wedge with roquefort... zzzzz. But it's usually worth it.
Good luck with your cabbage rolls if you try.

MW: What *don't* you make? :D
Don't you wish we could all rent a commercial commisary and have a cooking party, and then I wouldn't be all worried about tomato splatters on my windows?

El: I asked for jars at the local Longs (drugstore) and they hadn't stocked any for years. I think I'll try the hardware store. Yes, I will be brave and sanitary. :-)
And not wackadoo.

Chelee: Yay, you found me. This is nice.
Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Good Job! :)