Peeking in

Clementine peeking in on her bloggie friends from the safety of her Peezy-tent

Ok, so we've been gone for a while. Sorry. I'm not even going to try and catch up on everyone's blogs or catch you up on everything that's been going on in our world, but a quick recap is that I quit my job, went in to freelance writing for myself, was asked to become the director of a non-profit I've been volunteering at for many months, and am supposed to start teaching English at the Community College I used to work for in the fall semester! Needless to say, this has not left me much time to blog. But since I'm working from home now, there has been a lot of time for Winston to do some of this:

Winston sleeping under my desk while I work

I'm hoping that here and there I will find time to pop in and say 'hi'! Please don't forget about us! We miss all our bloggie friends and hope to get back into the community soon once this new chapter of our lives calms down a bit.

Foodie Friday - How Locavores do a Potluck

I've mentioned that I'm a volunteer with the Hampton Roads chapter of Buy Fresh, Buy Local.

Well, this past weekend, the BFBL gang had a volunteer appreciation/meeting luncheon at a member's home. They decided it would be a potluck, which meant, of course, everyone was under pressure to come up with something that highlighted local products.

I was tasked with making a dessert. Much to my dismay the local strawberry season ended the week before the potluck and the next fruit season (blackberries, blueberries, peaches) is not quite in its prime. Fortunately, Jeremy came up with a brilliant idea: sweet potato pie!
Sweet potatoes have been and will be in season for the entire summer and into the fall. I had gotten a half a peck of them in my co-op share the week before and had conveniently (without even forseeing this issue) steamed, peeled, mashed and frozen them.
I tossed the mashed sweet potatoes (From Flannagan Farms) together with butter from South Mountain Creamery, eggs from Shire Farms and some organic fair trade sugar, and organic milk.
Delicious! As was everything else at the potluck.
Other items on the buffet included a sweet potato hummus, sweet potato and beet salad, cabbage cole slaw, zucchini casserole, zucchini bread, and cold shrimp and veggie salad.

The feast:

Dessert:

Seeing how people used ingredients that are seasonal and fresh for so many different things really inspired me to talk about the idea of food seasons.
Last week I preached a little on the idea of "cheap food" and how expensive it really is in the long run for our environment, health, community, etc.

Today I want to preach about the importance of seasonal food. Have you ever gone to the grocery store in January and seen tomatoes or zucchini or squash or asparagus and thought "hmmmm?"
All foods have seasons. Asparagus are grown in the mid to late spring, zucchini and squash don't pop up until about June, Strawberries are picked in May, corn is grown during the summer and early fall*. If you're eating any of this produce and it's not that time of year, then how exactly did that food get to you? There are a lot of answers, but the most basic one is that it got to you by the use of pesticides, herbicides, GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms) - which are meant to last longer in the field, on the truck/plane/boat, and sitting on the grocery store shelf, and a long list of other farming practices that aren't exactly environmentally sound.
Chances are good that if you're eating a tomato in December, it came from Argentina, Mexico or in the least of all evils, California.

Am I saying that you shouldn't eat produce in the winter just because it's not being grown locally? No! But I am suggesting that you be aware of what you're eating during all seasons, and think about how it may have gotten to you.
It's the easiest thing in the world to stock up on local, fresh, SEASONAL produce during the growing season, and then freeze, jar or can as much as you can fit in your freezer or pantry. Come winter time, you'll be enjoying delicious produce that you can feel good about, that was grown, picked and frozen at the peak of freshness, and didn't travel more miles than you did on your last family vacation.
(Little known fact: most grocery store produce HAS, in fact, traveled further in its lifetime than the average American family traveled on their last vacation.)

The problem with the average American consumer is that we WANT something, and we want it NOW. We don't care that tomatoes aren't going to be in season for another 6 months, we want caprese salad TODAY!

This is probably one of the hardest things about being a locavore - you have to accept and understand that you cannot have everything exactly when you want it. But there is an upside to this. When a certain vegetable or fruit's season does come around - it is like Christmas morning!
When I saw the first pint of strawberries at the Farmers Market, it was like seeing a shiny new bike under the tree! I'd been waiting for months for FRUIT! I bought loads, washed and sliced them, froze them, and have a huge bag in my freezer where I grab a handful of them every day and throw them into my afternoon smoothie.
This week I finally saw beets listed on my co-ops website - oh the joy! I spent all of yesterday afternoon cleaning, roasting, eating, freezing, and sharing them. It certainly wouldn't have warranted the same kind of celebration if I had just gone into the grocery store and grabbed a bunch of beets in the middle of October.

What's the next thing I'm anxiously awaiting? Blueberries and peaches! They should be out by the end of the month, and let me tell you - no 5 year old ever sat by the chimney waiting for Santa more anxiously than I await these delicious fruits.

Try and learn to live in the season! You will find that your patience WILL be rewarded.

*These growing seasons are indicative of Virginia's climate. Other areas of the country will have slightly different growing seasons. You can find a guide to your own region's growing season at sustainabletable.com

Foodie Friday - Locavore Challenge

As I mentioned in last week's post, I'm experimenting with making Foodie Friday more locally themed, and so this week I tried to make a meal that was at least 75% locally produced. It got difficult because this week we also had a little health incident with Clementine (what's new?) that took a bit of time out of our normal routine. Nothing serious and I'll post about it later, but just a little time consuming.
Anyways, what I've found is that it seems to be the easiest to switch your breakfast to local produce first. Sometimes eggs, dairy products and cured meats are the easiest things to find locally, even if you're not in a super agricultural area.
So here's a snapshot of one of our locally produced breakfasts from last weekend:

Here's the run down:
Locally baked sweet potato biscuits made with fresh local potatoes
Locally raised and cured Virginia bacon
Pure Maple syrup from our friends' sugar shack in Monterey, Virginia (made over wood fires!)
Virginia produced wildflower honey

We put some bacon on the sweet potato biscuits (NOM), and then I use the maple syrup to sweeten my coffee and Jeremy uses the honey to sweeten his tea. We try to never eat white sugar if at all possible.

Yes, it's a simple meal, but it's a very very easy way to start incorporating local meals into your weekly ritual. See, it's not that hard! We also had some locally produced cage free eggs we could have scrambled up to go on the side if we had wanted (as well as cheese from a local dairy we could have mixed in). All these ingredients and products were purchased from two of our farmers markets - Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk, and the Virginia Beach Farmers Market.
The maple syrup was given to us by our friend, but I believe it's available for purchase on the Back Creek Farms website (It is SO good, and also so much better for you than sugar).

Every other meal I made this week incorporated at least one local ingredient, but this is probably the only one that was almost 100% local (except the actual coffee and tea).

Other local items I made this week:
locally grown friend okra
my afternoon smoothies with fresh local strawberries, blueberries and yogurt from a local dairy
baked sweet potatoes with butter from our local dairy
Cesar salad made with local romaine lettuce

So easy!

Ok, so it's not all about being easy, right? The second most important (or possibly MOST important) thing in the American family's dinner expectations: is it CHEAP??


No. It's not cheap. And why should it be? Real people making a living wage produced the food. It came farms, bakeries, dairies and sugar shacks in MY state, and I want to make sure that my local economy is strong and that means keeping my dollars here.
Sure, I could have bought butter from the grocery store for $2 less, or eggs for 99 cents instead of $2.50. I could have paid 69 cents a pound instead of 99 cents a pound for potatoes at the grocery store and $3.50 instead of $5.00 for bacon.
But the bottom line is that the extra 6 dollars or so is worth it to me to buy food from people who care about the land and animals they use to produce it.

Americans are the wealthiest people in the world and we spend the least amount of our total income on food. And did you know that the higher an American's income is, the lower the percentage of that income is that they will spend on food?

Farmers get less than 20 cents of every food dollar you spend at the grocery store. Even if you are buying a straight up fresh vegetable from the produce section - the majority of that money goes back to a giant agribusiness whose ethics about the land and animals they use are likely far below your own.

When people think about maximizing their budgets, they immediately go to things like "oh, I can buy all my groceries at "The MegaMart" and save $100 a month" or "I can buy generic brands of food instead of brand names" or "I'll just buy bulk meats from the grocery store." Aren't we all guilty of standing in the aisle at the super market scanning for whatever product is the cheapest?
This is FOOD we're talking about! This is the thing we LIVE on. It's what our bodies need to function and remain healthy. So why is it the first thing we try to cheap out on?? Are there not dozens and dozens of others ways to stretch our budget?

Buying local isn't just about spending a Saturday afternoon at the farmers market. It's about asking yourself the essential question: how important are the things that I put in to my body every single day? Is it worth $20 extra dollars a week in grocery money to buy food that is sustainable, that is grown and raised with ethical standards that conform to my own, that comes from a person who shares my community?

For me, it absolutely is.

Well, I'm stepping off my soap box before I get really crazy. If you're doing your own experiments with local food, please please please share it with me! projectdogway@yahoo.com. I'd love to see what kind of stuff you're coming up with for your own locavore challenge. It doesn't have to be something 100% locally produced, but let me know how you're incorporating local ingredients in to your every day meals.

I'm headed off to Bermuda tomorrow afternoon and the pugs will be spending the week with Auntie Anna :) (treats galore!) - so I may not have a Foodie Friday post next week, but I'll be back after that. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Don't forget to honor our brave men and women of the armed services: active and retired. Your life is better because of them, period.

Thank You

As thanks for making it through my rather long winded Foodie Friday post, here are some cutie patootie pictures of the pugs. That IS what you're here for, right??

Foodie Friday - And now for something really different . . .

So, I haven't done Foodie Friday in a while because I haven't had any recipes coming in and have been too lazy to document any of my own, but the other day our brilliant friend Stubby (and his mom) did a post about vegetarianism and CAFOs and such and it really got me thinking that maybe I should start doing Foodie Friday posts that talk a little bit more about eating sustainable, healthy, morally conscious food.

This is one of my soap boxes. I used to be a vegetarian (or more technically a pescatarian - someone who only eats seafood meats) when I was in college, but I went back to eating meat when I got married (weird how those two things coincided.....ahem). Nowadays I am less about rallying against meat and more about rallying for buying fresh, local, sustainable, morally conscious food in whatever form it comes in.

I'd love to make this more of the theme for Foodie Friday, but I don't want to come off as preachy or overwhelming. There is so much information about why buying local food and sustainable food is important that it can become a stumbling block between thinking about being a locavore and actually being a locavore. You can't over-think it.
So, anyways, I'm going to take my advice and try not to over-think it.
This first eco-themed Foodie Friday I will be sharing with you a non-profit organization that I work with called "Buy Fresh, Buy Local."


Buy Fresh, Buy Local is a national organization that has local chapters throughout the US. Our chapter is Buy Fresh, Buy Local Hampton Roads. BFBL's goal is to help educate people in the community about where and how to buy fresh, local produce and also to help educate people about WHY buying fresh, local produce is better for them, their environment, their community and their economy. Hampton Roads is lucky enough to be near the ocean and historic farming communities, so our local products include crabs, oysters, shrimp, clams, and fish as well as strawberries, potatoes, asparagus, peaches, tomatoes and any other kind of thing that grows in the ground. We even have a numerous amount of specialty producers including mushroom farms, bee apiaries (who bottle their own honey), dairy farms, and goat farms (for goat's milk and cheese). BFBL uses a seasonal guide to help people choose local, sustainable food sources (p.s. - I helped write the content for the 2010 guide).
It's very possible that your own town or metro area takes part in their own chapter of Buy Fresh, Buy Local. You can find out pretty quickly by going to FoodRoutes.com.
The guides are free and are distributed throughout the community at places like the YMCA's, farmers markets, community centers and then online.

So why IS it so important to buy local food? There are a lot of reasons, but here are just a few (as taken from foodroutes.com):

1.Fruits and vegetables shipped from distant states and countries can spend as many as seven to fourteen days in transit before they arrive in the supermarket.

2. Knowing where your food comes from and how it is grown or raised enables you to choose safe food from farmers who avoid or reduce their use of chemicals, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, or genetically modified seed in their operations. Buy food from local farmers you trust.

3. Local food doesn't have to travel far. This reduces carbon dioxide emissions and packing materials. Buying local food also helps to make farming more profitable and selling farmland for development less attractive.

4. Fruits and vegetables shipped from distant states and countries can spend as many as seven to fourteen days in transit before they arrive in the supermarket. Locally grown fruits and vegetables are usually sold within 24 hours of being harvested. Produce picked and eaten at the height of ripeness has exceptional flavor and, when handled properly, is packed with nutrients.

5. Farmers in 2002 earned their lowest real net cash income since 1940. Meanwhile corporate agribusiness profits have nearly doubled (increased 98%) since 1990.

6. Local family farmers spend their money with local merchants. The money stays in town where it benefits everyone and builds a stronger local economy. Independent, family-owned farms supply more local jobs and contribute to the local economy at higher rates than do large, corporate-owned farms.


Those six reasons are enough by themselves to convince me, but if that's not enough, there are dozens, if not scores and hundreds more you could dig up.

So, how can you start buying locally?

Check out http://www.localharvest.org/ - this is a great site that can point you towards farms, CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture), farmers markets and co-ops in your area.
If you're not ready to jump into a CSA share, start by finding a local farm stand or farmers market and pledge to make at least one meal a week that includes something local. Once you master that, make one meal a week that is completely locally produced (it's not impossible - I did it for breakfast this morning), and go from there.

The sense of satisfaction in buying a tomato from someone with a face and not just out of a bin in a white walled grocery store is reason enough to support your local farming community. I'm not asking everyone to never go to the grocery store (for God's sake, where would I get my avocados??? No one in VA is growing those!), but I would encourage everyone to look into the idea of buying locally. There is literally no downside.

Next week I hope to be back with a recipe I can give you that I was able to prepare with at least 75% locally produced ingredients. Until then, take a look for yourself around your area - the growing season is really starting to take off in most states and you'll be surprised what kind of delicious stuff your neighborhood is growing : )

I hope I didn't bore you too much - next week will have FOOD again! Promise!

When Pugs Fly

Uh-oh...

Silly Saturday

Winston, that's just silly.

Old Habits

New office, same spot.


People call pugs lap dogs, but in my experience, they've also earned the name "feet dogs."

"My little dog - a hearbeat at my feet." -- Edith Wharton

Meet Up

This past Saturday we had our monthly pug meetup. We haven't been to one of these in a long time. Mostly because I've been in school and been really busy every weekend. But school is finally over (yay!) - so we took some time to hang out with our pug friends.

Sequoia

Sassy

Tuni

A non-pug impostor!

That little pug-impostor really wanted to play with Clementine, but she was implementing her usual reign of terror over the entire park, as is evidenced by the picture:
Yes, that's Clementine on a leash....at an off leash dog park. Because she can't seem to understand that the park does not belong to her and that therefore there is no need to antagonize and face-bite every other dog there. (Regardless of size).

Oh well. Even though Clementine isn't civilized enough to play nicely, we still had a good time seeing our pug friends.

And for anyone who reads this blog who is local to Hampton Roads - the meetup.com group is going away - the previous organizer is giving it up, and rather than continuing to use that site and pay the fees, the group is moving to a Yahoo! group called HRPugs that I organized a few years ago.
You can join us there for free - we'll be doing all the meetup scheduling and announcements through there from now on.
Click this link and it will route you to the new group site where you can request membership.

Belated

Winston's Birthday was April 23rd. Whooops! I just remembered this little fact this past Saturday while we were in line at the pet store buying food and I happened to see a little sprinkley Birthday dog treat. Anyways, to make up for missing his THIRD Birthday, I bought him a rawhide donut.

For the first fifteen minutes he really had no idea what to do with it, except guard it from Clementine with his life.

What do I do with this??

I don't know what the heck this thing is, but she better stay away from it!

Hmm...this actually tastes kinda good . . .

This is delicious!

NOMNOMNOMNOM

Did you look at my Chewy??? I SAID, did you *LOOK* at my Chewy?!?!

I didn't think so . . .