Tuesday, August 21—Day 21

A short order revolution. . .

That's what it says above the counter at The Farmer's Diner in Queechee, Vermont, which is where I had lunch today. It is a real live diner—it's even in an old railcar, see?


Still not convinced? Here's the inside:



What's so revolutionary about a diner? This one happens to source all of its bulk ingredients (meat, dairy, produce in season, and baked goods) from within a 60 mile radius. That's big. They had to make a lot of special arrangements to get this to work, but it's working. They are putting finishing touches on a second location.

As I've noted elsewhere, I am not so much a fancy-food kind of guy. So a place that dishes up diner classics done very well that are also local to their area is perfect for me.

You have to love a place that that has Wendell Berry's The Mad Farmer Liberation Front reprinted on the front of the menu!

The food? I'm pleased to say that it is everything you would hope for in diner food: quality and taste were great and portions were generous but not insane. Here is what I ate:

That's half of a bacon cheesburger and half of a pulled pork sandwich, with fries on the side. When you can't decide what to eat, you go halfsies with your dining companion (thanks, Mom). Not shown is the milkshake that came a bit later.

Here is how this stacks up relative to our dietary guidelines: All the meat and dairy are fully compliant. The bun (which was one of the best sandwich buns I've ever had) was baked locally using some imported ingredients. The fries were from local potatoes, and the shake was made from local milk and cream but contained some non-local ingredients (sugar and—gasp—chocolate. Really, what would you have done?). The garnish is local, but we forgot to ask about the pickle.

The pulled pork rocked: succulent and tender, it just melted in your mouth. The burger was also first class—really as good as you can do without going to open-flame grilling (it's a diner, so that means it is constitutionally required to cook burgers on a flat-top grill). 100% grassfed beef, of course.

In the entryway they have a map that identifies where it all comes from, and the back of the menu proudly identifies their key suppliers:



They didn't have a T-shirt to buy, but we did get the bumper sticker:



'Nuff said!

Not much to report from the WI front. Food is no longer utmost in our minds since Scott left us with plenty of bread and sifted flour. Breakfast was peanut butter toast and cider. Lunch was tortillas, eggs and toppings for Jen, hot dog and carrots for Evie, blueberries for both.

Monday, August 20: Day 20

Today we went to Troy Gardens on the north side of Madison.

"On 31-acres of urban property, Troy Gardens integrates mixed-income green-built housing, community gardens, an organic farm, and restored prairie and woodlands."

It was glorious! A friend has three plots there but we hadn't been in over two years. We visited the kid's garden, picked tomatoes, gathered eggs, walked the prairie and took in the smells and sounds.


This is the chicken



























that gave us these eggs























to make this sandwich.



















We were forwarded an interesting report regarding the US Food Supply Chain, please read through it if you have the time. It is an analysis of the question of Local vs. Organic From Far Away. It is quantitative and looks at individual food products not just broad generalizations about all foods taken together.

Breakfast was peanut butter toast and cider.
Lunch was egg sandwiches, carrots and apples.
Dinner was JenEhr chicken, edamame and roasted potatoes with herbs we got from Troy Gardens.














We also made mint tea today from Chocolate Mint we are growing in our driveway. We made peanut butter and honey cookies too. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to make peanut butter cookies before, they adapt to our mileage requirements perfectly. They are delicious! We added a little whipped cream tonight because whipped cream makes everything better.

Sunday, August 19: Day 19

It has been a rainy, cozy day filled with yummy food and inspiration. For breakfast we had toast made with the delicious bread Scott made in the wood-fired oven yesterday--even he grudgingly admits it came out "okay."




Lunch was tomatoes with onions and basil, green beans from our driveway garden and pork burgers.




Dinner was homemade pasta (2 cups flour to three eggs) with onions, summer squash and tomatoes and pork sausage with garlic bread on the side. For dessert Scott whipped up some little shortcakes and we added blueberries and whipped cream for a real treat!

You may have noticed that almost everyday includes something from Willow Creek Farm. I can't say enough good things about Tony and Sue Renger. We love their philosophy, we love their products and we so appreciate their hard work. I wish I could call out every single person who is making this project possible. Thanks to all the farmers that grow the food here in southern Wisconsin, we are lucky, lucky eaters.

For inspiration we watched The Endless Feast and Chefs A' Field. We love seeing how other people are eating in place!

Scott will be out in Massachusetts this week and will be doing some remote blogging. He will still try eat locally and has some cool field trips that he will blog about. Check back often . . . we are always eating!

Saturday, August 18—Day 18

Market day today—a good haul. In addition to most of the usual staples, we had a pleasant surprise: Sugar River Dairy is experimenting with sour cream. Based on our initial testing, it's a big success.



Breakfast: pancakes made with the aforementioned sour cream, cider, and the original manna from heaven, Willow Creek bacon.



Lunch: Jen made baked tortilla chips and combined them with some home-made salsa given to us by a friend.

Dinner: We fired the wood-burning oven today, so we roasted chicken and potatoes. The chicken was very good, and the potatoes were outstanding. We used the residual heat to bake 2 loaves of sandwich bread and a batch of crackers.





An exciting development today was that we were interviewed and photographed for an article in the Wisconsin State Journal about our project. We're hoping that getting some attention for the project will cause other people to think about the same issues we are examining. We'll post links once the story comes out.

Friday, August 17—Day 17

What did we eat today?

Breakfast: Toast with honey and butter

Lunch: Goat cheese and crackers, carrots, cider. (Leftover pork chop for Scott)

Dinner: Sausage and onions, green beans, cherries and yellow doll watermelon.

(no photos today—most Fridays we are on the run, and this one was no exception)

Very excited for farmers' markets tomorrow (2 of them).

I had an email from a friend today—she had been reflecting on an article she read about cutting down rainforests to provide cropland for soy production. It got her to thinking about how much soy she had added to her own diet as a lean protein source, wondering where all that soy comes from.

Well, I suppose it can be hard to know. After corn, I would guess that soybeans are the #2 commodity crop grown in the US. To the extent that people see problems with conventional agriculture, be it in soil conservation, pesticide and fertilizer use, broken subsidy systems, or genetically modified stocks, soy has them all in spades. And taken as a category, soy beans have zero traceablility, which is basically the definition of a commodity crop. When you read your food labels and see "soy protein concentrate", "soy lecithin" and a million other things, this is what you are buying. That's not to say that you can't buy soy products that are not part of the conventional commodity market—I assume that you can, though I'll confess that I do not know for sure. Certainly certified organic soy products are part of a different economy, but as big as industrial organic growing has gotten, that only assures you that some of the issues above are addressed, but not necessarily all. If you care, you have to do the homework and find out.

But another thing popped into my head, and I shared this with my friend—soy is turning out not to be the wonderfood we once thought. There are a lot of compounds in soy that are suspected of mimicing hormonal effects, perhaps causing gynecological problems, among others. I also had to point out that soy is not exactly as lean as we might assume: a 4 oz serving of firm tofu has 6 grams of fat. Compare that to 4 ounces of skinless chicken breast at 1.5 grams.

We eat tofu occasionally, but we normally opt for other protein sources, some leaner and some richer than soy. Why? I'll admit that I like meat better than tofu, but tofu is fine—I'm perfectly happy to eat it. The big thing for us is that we know where the meat comes from. We get chicken from people named Kay and Matthew, beef from Jim and Rebecca, pork from Sue and Tony. If I want to know how fresh it is or how it was raised, I will just ask them, or better yet, go see for myself. But I know for sure that the meat our family eats is not implicated in any way with destruction of rainforests or any of the other issues I noted above.

That's what we care about, so that's what we choose. What do you care about? Do your choices support that?

—SCL

Thursday, August 16: Day 16

Breakfast: yummy tortillas made with corn from the Rengers topped with cheese, tomatoes, jalapenos and onions



Lunch: HONEY!


Dinner: Pork chops (See "Rengers" above), amaranth sauteed with garlic, veggie kabobs and flatbread







A wonderful friend gave us honey from her hives today--Evie ate it with a spoon for lunch! The same friend gave us salsa, popcorn and cauliflower! Scott got more flour today (still has to be sifted but we didn't have to mill this batch) and cider. We also expanded our 100 miles a bit to include Island Wheat Ale from Capital Brewery. Washington Island has a unique micro-climate and they are growing all sorts of interesting grain crops.

Today is the halfway point. I am glad we are not trying this in February! We are all amazed at how much time food procurement and preparation takes. We are eating well, feeling healthy and being amazed. We also really miss chocolate--we used a free coupon from Working Assets to get a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The ice cream was good, but I felt a little weird eating it. Where did all the ingredients come from? Did the farmers get paid a fair wage? What impact does their manufacturing plant have on their environment? Can I recycle this package? Am I caving in? Can my money still do good here?

Wow! I thought about our food before, but never so thoroughly! I think we are renewed and ready to continue.

Wednesday, August 15: Day 15

Today's theme comes from our observance of two little words seen on our journeys throughout Madison: "coffee chip." It was the flavor and Michael's frozen custard today and it had Scott and I thinking of two of our favorite indulgences--coffee (me) and chocolate (all of us). I think we were all feeling deprived today because we had not laid in enough supplies to accomodate anything but our planned menus. We are out of flour again so cookies or a cake were out, we are low on milk and cream so ice cream was out. Earlier today Scott wanted a salty, crunchy snack he could just grab. The usual popcorn wasn't doing it and we are out of peanut butter. We are eating fabulously, but truth be told it is a lot of work. There really are no convenience foods that fit our rules, so if we want to grab something fast, we either make do with something fresh and whole or we need to have planned ahead.

When we reach for a snack, there are normally just one or two choices. When you eat "normally" there is typically a much greater diversity of choices. Takes some getting used to. And the planning is different, too. When you have fewer choices from which to pick, your consumption of the items you do have goes up as well. With no lemonade (a summer favorite), we are going through a lot more cider (which is also our replacement for orange juice) and milk, our consumption of which is up about 50% since the experiment began.

Today's meals:

Breakfast: Wheat bran cereal, toast with butter and/or peanut butter, cider, milk.

Lunch: Edamame, watermelon, open-face grilled cheese.

Dinner: We ran out of wheat flour, so we had Rhode Island Johnnycakes with edamame and pork breakfast sausage from Willow Creek Farm . The sausage was particularly delicious. Jen admitted that she was considering licking the fry pan, and Scott allowed as how he was thinking of sucking on the paper towel on which they were drained.