Preserving

One of my first objections to this whole scheme was "What the crap are we going to do in the winter?" Don't get me wrong, I love winter squash and potatoes, but it seems like that is going to get old really quickly. My husband's answer was, "well, we'll just make our own preserves."

I've been trying to clean up my potty mouth since my son was born, so I won't write down what my first thought on that was. But, the more I thought about it, the more it sounded reasonable. After reading so much about how poisonous BPA is in almost everything food is packaged in (including the lining of canned goods), I was ready to think about alternatives.

Once I was sold on the idea of canning, I went a little nuts. After many trips back and forth to my hardware store and local farm, I came home laden with a 10 lbs of tomatoes, 7 lbs of nectarines, 5 lbs of plums, and 9 lbs of Lodi apples. After scrutinizing the USDA manual, I leapt right in with canned plum sauce and sliced nectarines. The next day I made cranberry and red onion relish and tonight I am making Applesauce.

So, for the last 3 nights after my son goes to bed around 8, I have been peeling, pitting, slicing, simmering, and canning. A note to all those who decide to try this for themselves- buy nectarine and peach varieties that are "semi-clingstone." I made the mistake of buying a variety that was not, and spent about 2 hours just working on getting the stones out of the nectarines. Not Fun!

So now I have filled a whole shelf of my pantry of home canned products and I obsessively check and re-check each can several times a day to see if the seal is still good. I just can't believe that I can actually make something that can keep for a year in my closet! I feel like a squirrel hoarding away for winter.

Here are some pics of me making applesauce from Lodi Apples. This variety is harvested from mid-July to August , cooks quickly, and has a nice tartness. Very delicious applesauce!

The Experiment Begins

The Experiment: To only eat foods grown, manufactured, and produced within a 100 mile radius of our home in Burtonsville, MD for at least 1 year.

Why: I love fresh, seasonal food and a culinary challenge. My husband is an environmentalist who worries constantly about global warming. We can't afford to buy a Prius, but this is one way we can reduce our carbon footprint.

After we decided to go whole hog with this idea, we started to research on how feasible this will be and what kind of sacrifices we will have to make. We bought the book, Plenty: Eating Local on the 100 Mile Diet, by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, we found out where all of the local farms and farmers' markets are, and we downloaded the USDA manual on preserving and pickling (http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html).

Sure, there are a lot of things that we can't have, but I'm sure we'll manage. We can't have sugar, but we'll use honey. We can't have OJ, but we can have all of the Apple Cider we want.

No Coffee and no chocolate-that might prove to be a serious problem.

We modeled our rules after those we found in the book, Plenty.

• All of the food we eat at home must be grown/made locally, and organic whenever possible.
  
• All of the ingredients in the food we buy must be local
• We can eat out at restaurants occasionally, and at friends' houses
• We can use all of the non-local food we currently have in the house
• We can use spices and tea (I absolutely refuse to give up tea)

So, we're off!