On Sunday, my parents had eggs from my hens on the bread I'd made on Friday night for breakfast. I'm not a big fan of eggs -- I'll use them in baking, but I'm not very fond of the taste of eggs over easy or hard-boiled or anything like that -- so I had a blueberry-peach smoothie (yogurt the milk of our friend with goats, blueberries from the farmers' market, peach from Thorpes).
For lunch, we had the leftover ratatouille and pasta. Ratatouille really is the perfect late summer/early fall dish. Everything in it is in season in August and September, like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and peppers. You can really tell the difference between a traditional dish and a modern one. Modern dishes commonly feature major ingredients that are from very different seasons and/or geographic areas, making it hard for a locavore to find a useable recipe sometimes. Traditional dishes, created long before the advent of refrigeration and supermarkets, always pair things that come into season together or can be easily preserved, making cooking much easier on today's locavore.
Dinner last night was another locavore disaster. Last year, we decided that if anyone invited us over to dinner in September, it would be impolite to turn down their non-local food. It's our family exception to the rules, which we call it "The Rule of Good Manners." I got together with a bunch of my homeschooling friends at a friends' house yesterday evening, and the hostess served bean burritos and cake for desert. I was covered by the Rule of Good Manners.
My mom, who drove me to my friends' house, stayed in the area because it's a ways from home. She got so hungry that she had to go to eat. She tried to stay within the Locavore Challenge parameters as much as she could, ordering freshly-made tomato-basil soup and lemon gelatto. She figured that there was a chance the tomato and basil was local, and lemon is one of her Wild Card Items. Still, she was feeling bad about her possible violations of locavorism...
...until I realized there were bigger problems with what my parents ate last night. When my mom and I got home, my dad had dinner ready. I only ate corn on the cob (farmstand), but my parents also had boiled potatoes (garden) and salmon. Apparently, it simply didn't occur to anyone that the salmon that my dad pulled out of the freezer was obviously not local. I didn't realize until I sat down today to record on this blog what we ate yesterday the problem with the salmon.
Both my mom and I feel awful. I just can't believe I let the consumption of something as hugely non-local as salmon escape my notice for over twelve hours. My mom, who actually ate the salmon, can only explain that she was hungry, tired (it was after 9 p.m.), dinner was already made, and she just ate the food that was in front of her without thinking.
My dad, though, shows little remorse. He's been driving me crazy with how he doesn't take the Locavore Challenge seriously at all. We'd talked about it days before the challenge started and tried to take his concerns into account. At that point, he really seemed fine with everything. After all, we'd done this last September and everything turned out fine. I've been making a ton of meals, usually local, ever since the farmers' market started in May, and my dad's always appreciated them. I guess I just really expected him have a much better attitude than he seems to about the Locavore Challenge.
I feel like I'm the "locavore police," all the time, telling him not to use to Hidden Valley Ranch or trying to convince him that we really can live without canola oil for the month. I don't want to be the "locavore police." I've told my mom that she really should have had that piece of lemon meringue pie she was dying for at my neighbor's pig roast yesterday, as it would have fallen under the Rule of Good Manners. I try to be accommodating of my parents' concerns about cholesterol and butter while still following the rules of the Locavore Challenge. I really am trying to be much more sensitive to other my parents' (and especially my dad's) feelings and needs around food, but I still feel like the enemy.
I write about my trouble with my dad not to fulfill the urge to whine. Okay, part of it is just whining. The main reason I share, though, is because I suspect other people may be in the same boat. They find that one of the main obstacles on the road to locavorism is not the industrial food system or the inability to locate certain products, but resistance within their own household. If I write my blog as if locavorism is always easy and fun within my house, it would be a lie and a disservice to others who have similar struggles to mine.
~*~
Round Ginger Loaf
slightly changed from the recipe "No-Time-To-Bake Wheat Loaf" in Great Whole Grain Breads
This is the best recipe for a simple bread. I've made it with all hard red whole wheat, all soft red whole wheat, a mix of the two, and mixes of one or both kinds of whole wheat flour mixed with all purpose flour. I've also made it with variable rising times and even once without kneading. I've yet to find a way to make it wrong. Rather, there are good ways to make it and better ones.
1 cup milk
1/4 cup warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1/8 tsp ginger
1 Tbsp maple syrup
2 1/2 cups flour (any combination of wheat flours you desire)
Scald milk. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and immediately add ginger and maple syrup. Once milk has cooled some and the yeast mixture has sat for about five minutes, add milk to yeast mixture. Gradually mix in flour. Knead for about a minute or so, adding more flour as needed. Spread into 8 inch circle on greased baking sheet or place into greased round 8 inch cake pan. Ideally, let rise for half an hour or so before placing in an oven preheated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. However, rise time can be reduced or eliminated if the baker is in a rush. Bake 20 to 30 minutes. Once cooled, I generally cut it into wedges to serve, although it can be sliced.
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