Local Breakthrough

  My husband came home the other night with a 4L bag of milk from our local grocery store.  Which should be good news. I had requested the local dairy supply bagged milk, as we drink it in these parts, but was told they couldn't carry the stock, so I continued to go to ELS to get my milk every Friday.  Once I am there I chat with April or Jess,  I also get some sour cream, cheese, some meat and large bag of sweet popcorn. In sum, I do the bulk of my groceries- and since I am downtown I'll stop by a local bakery to by bread and some confection I could probably do without.


  My husband thinks we should cancel our milk order at ELS so we can buy our milk at the grocery store so that it will continue to stock locally produced foods- a fair and good point. But what about the ELS? I love the Eat Local Sudbury store. I love the smile and familiar chat with staff, the lovely patch of earth in front of the shop, a bit of urban Eden. The Eat Local Shop, literally saved this project for me, without them I would have given up by the end of June.  The shop is patient with my kids, always informative, and welcoming. 


   I know that the reason I go every week to ELS is because of the milk. I may get lazy, or give in to busyness if not for the milk. I NEED the milk.  So the decision is to half my milk order, support both and hope for  the best, that the grocery will continue to carry local food and ELS will continue to thrive 8)


Shannon D.

The Allen's Came for Supper

       I watched the episode of Oprah with Martha Stewart earlier this fall. I think Martha is awesome because she shamelessly values her domesticity and handles herself like royalty. I like her brand of rigid femininity and capableness. What struck me most was when she said people never invite her to dinner because she intimidates them, hell I wouldn't either, but I would love to have dinner with her. Interview
      
      In desperate need to spend some quality time with the other Shannon, we had her family over to dinner. Now, Mrs Allen, is our own Martha, not anyway uptight, but everything Shannon cooks is perfect. She is generous with recipes, but nothing ever tastes quite as good as when she makes it. This is what makes her Martha-esque, the genuine passion and love with which she makes food renders all her creations absolutely heavenly. The fudge she gave Melanie and I for Christmas two years ago can send us into drooling fits. Melanie and I both made the fudge with less fantastic results.


     But inspired by Martha herself, I figured why not have the Allens' over? I miss her and with enough wine who'll know how my cooking pales. The night had a good share of local foods, chicken from the neighbour, potatoes from our community, frozen beans from the garden, milk and ice cream from the local dairy etc. But what pleased me most was that even the food that wasn't local was still homemade. Shannon brought some pickles, beets, and homemade (by Mr. Allen) tarts (yummy). The leftover tart didn't make it to dawn.  


   I am nearly out of backyard potatoes, green beans and tomatoes, clearly I need to expend the garden next year. Good times were had by all, some preliminary talk of seeds was had, but thought best to leave it to January. 


  As this year draws to its close, I am most grateful for the changes in how we grow, buy and share food. I hope you get a chance to invite your friends over for dinner and enjoy superior foods in the comfort of your home. Nothing warms the heart like local food. 
    

Mrs. Duguay makes bread!

There it is folks, a very nearly local loaf, made with these two hands in my kitchen.  As you can see by the correct date stamp, it was some time ago, but I did it! Since finding my camera I've uploaded some photo's, my chocolate zucchini cake and the granola bars- make sure you take a look.

As for my local eating, things are still pretty good- my daughter and I pick up groceries every Friday at the Eat Local Sudbury store, our meat, cheese, milk and other dairy products are still all local all the time.     Grains and veggies- well, we buy Ontario but I already wish I had more frozen foods. Lessons for next year, I guess. Pick every day!

  

October is Squash

This soup..., seriously. EVERY time I make it, my husband is awestruck, guests marvel and everyone but my kids devour it.


This weekend past, my friend Sarah, who has been shortlisted for the Giller prize for her collection of short stories This Cake is for the Party, came to Sudbury for a book reading. I made this soup and wowed her too. 


My friend Melanie and I used to do a soup swap and she introduced this soup to me, I am forever grateful. Imagine my joy when I discovered a local butternut squash. I've planted three years running and never succeeded - I've saved the seeds from this butternut, hoping to have backyard butternuts next year.




Butternut Cream Soup

2 tbs butter
1 large onion chopped
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp minced ginger root
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
5 cups cubed peeled butternut squash 
1 large potato peeled and diced
4 cups veg stock
1/3 cup of milk 
OPTIONAL 2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs tomato paste-backyard


Saute onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder and s&p until onions are transparent, Stir in squash and potato cook for 1 min add stock lemon juice and tomato paste, bring to a boil and reduce heat and simmer until tender (20 min) Puree and slowly add milk. Taste to adjust seasoning.


This soup is very forgiving, for my guest this weekend, who are vegan, I replaced the butter with olive oil, skipped the milk, couldn't find a potato so subbed in a zucchini, forgot the ginger and tomato paste and still the soup rocked! 


Shannon D.

Reflections On Autumn

The kids have been back in school for three weeks now, dance lessons have started and hockey evaluations start early Sunday morning. Sleeping in is a thing of the past. The first killing frost occurred last Friday, the geese have been flying over the house in flocks for weeks now, and the sandhill cranes are gathering in the farm fields. Dump trucks have been spotted on the highway mounded high with potatoes and the hills around the Valley are quickly becoming more red and orange than green. The Vernal Equinox occurred Tuesday evening and we have begun the three month descent in to darkness. 

Fall has officially arrived but we are still going strong. 

I've often felt sorry for those down South who don't get to experience the seasons the way we do. We all know what the seasons look like, but you have to be here to know what they smell, sound and feel like. The colours are spectacular, the earthy, sweet smell of decaying growth fills the air and the honking of the Flying V's can be heard repeatedly from day break to sun set. It's perfect. Each season has it's pros and cons, but I feel Autumn is perfect. There is absolutely nothing better than a cool, crisp sunny day...the kind of day where I need a sweater and the tip of my nose is cold, but my dark brown hair feels warm to the touch from the sun beating on it. The Farmer's Market tables are weighed down by all the heavy squashes, bags of potatoes, baskets of apples and bottles of cider. I want to make soups, and stews with the bounty from Dalew's and bake bread with the flours from The Flour Mill and Loonsong Farm. Rather than dreading the heat from the canner full of boiling water, I think of it as a good way to warm the kitchen, better than turning the furnace on. The freezer is full and the cupboard is loaded with jars filled with all colours of goodness. It would make absolutely no sense to stop eating locally now that the time frame we gave ourselves has come and gone. We are allowing ourselves to bring in some things we went without this summer, like rice and pre-made pasta, guilt free, and I'm sure more will trickle in as we use up our reserves. And that's fine. Above anything else, what I've learned in this project is that 90% of the stuff in the grocery store is convenience food, meant to be used in a pinch, not as staples. If we all took that approach, what a better world it would be.

Isn't this photograph absolutely stunning? It was published in our newspaper last night, taken by a local woman, Dianne Monette. 

It struck a chord with me.

In our family, Autumn also transforms us in to creatures most like our early ancestors.  We take on the role of Hunters not just Gatherers. We have already spent an afternoon making sausages of the geese and ducks Keith bagged on his first hunting trip of the year. Over the next month or so, we hope to be adding moose and grouse to our freezer....the ultimate in free-range, organic, pastured meat available. I will be joining the crew in the moose hunt this year, for the first time since Sydney was born. I'm not sure how I will feel about the whole experience as I have never been present for the kill of such a large animal, but I am fairly certain that if we are successful, it will bring deeper meaning to our project of examining where our food comes from. It has been suggested in several books and movies that I have taken in lately, that everyone should, at some point, participate in the death of an animal they are going to consume. It sounds brutal, but I can understand how seeing your steak as a majestic animal rather than just, well, a steak, will affect how you treat it and savour it. I foresee this being quite an emotional experience, you just have to look at that photograph to see why, but I understand the circle of life, and I trust in my hunting party's ethics of a clean kill, safety and honouring the animal, so I'm actually looking quite forward to being there. 

And even if we aren't successful, I will have had the opportunity to sit in a forest for three days, simply enjoying nature in all of Autumn's splendour. I just hope it doesn't snow! 

Shannon A.

FALL, now what?

    I should be at ELS watching Fresh tonight, but the stomach flu has gripped my family and it was meet the creature night at my school, so worn out by 7, I came home to rest up for tomorrow.  The Autumn Equinox was yesterday, our project has officially met its deadline. I am forlorn. I don't feel finished. Just today we pulled the last of the potatoes from our garden. With all of its obstacles, my garden gave plenty, a banner year for carrots, and I am so grateful.
   
   I am always surprised at how plentiful my garden is, despite infrequent watering and random weeding- somehow every fall, the garden leaves me with more than I expect. I hate to get all sloppy, but when I bring in food from the garden, or serve it at my table I feel compelled to say grace. 


   When I am planting I say the same fertility prayer I used when I was trying to conceive my kids. My children always feel like a miracle to me, because I know, in the way infertile mothers know, that they could have just as easily not been and my life would have been so different. After I tuck those two beauties in, I pray "thank you, God, for this beautiful child."  


  When I look out at my garden, frost bitten and half turned soil, I have a similar feeling. I have witnessed the miracle of seed to food in my own backyard, shared it with my family and dear friends. I have tended and fussed over it, I have ignored the negative behaviours and praised the positive. I've read blogs, books and brochures, trying to understand the soil, improve my technique. I've learned to cut myself some slack and just let my garden grow along the way. I am thankful for this beautiful food, this blog, and the friendships it has brought into my life.


   So what now?  I am inspired to do better next summer, and to keep track of how local I can keep things in the dark months ahead. I haven't canned any veggies, although I've frozen quite a bit. I want to track my needs so I'll plant more effectively next year and harvest better too. I need to hire a sitter for a week just to get enough strawberries. So for me at least, the blog carries on- with the same objective; to buy local whenever possible and be mindful of the food I'm putting on the plate. I'll be sharing the adventure along the way.


Shannon D.

Granola Bars in the lunchbox

    Fall officially begins this week, which means the end of this project is near. A few friends have already asked "are you still doing that?" and the answer is YES, oh YES! It stopped feeling like a project weeks ago, however with the return of work, school and all the kids programs it began to feel challenging again. There have been more slip ups this week, more than I'd care to mention- many due to my weekend away last weekend which threw off the groceries and routines at a critical time. Either way, I made it to the Eat Local Shop this week, stocked up on many essentials and am feeling renewed.


  J.'s lunch is not as dismal as I thought it would be, milk, jam sandwich (blueberry),  carrots and cucumber coins, homemade oatmeal cookies (local flour, local sugar, local oats), cheese and crackers, and other leftovers. I bought pepperettes this week at ELS but he won't try them, I'll put them in the lunch box and see what happens. I tried to explain what a pepperette is and J looked confused, then I said; "it's like a Hot Rod, like some kids have in their lunch" then he knew what I meant. But he still won't try it.


  This morning I made granola bars, I searched dozens of recipes online and then went my own way. I have a can of condensed milk leftover from last years christmas baking so I went with that over the corn syrup recipes;


EASY GRANOLA BARS


First, grease a 9x13 pan or use parchment- your choice, preheat oven to 350


Mix the following ingredients or be creative:


3 cups oats
1/2 cup bran buds
1 can condensed milk (I'll bet Shannon Allen knows how to do this with local milk)
2 tbsp butter
chocolate chips (dark)
dried cranberries


Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. After 5 minutes cut in to squares and cool completely before enjoying


Alternative additions that I saw but didn't try because they are not school friendly or not in the cupboard :
 coconut, almonds, wheat germ, peanuts, protein powder, flax seeds, marshmallows, raisins, sunflower seeds- really you name it.


I've misplaced my cameras- both of them- September chaos- I'll add photo's when it surfaces.


Shannon D.

Camera found- this inspires me to make them again!