This week has been strange, while it’s getting easier to find local sources with some momentum, our one local summer dinner was more difficult than expected. Most of the food that I bought during my weekly shopping is organic or local or both. But I somehow failed to plan a meal that used all local ingredients. I think I was so taken with everything that I found in my search that I just assumed a meal would come together. And it did, a couple of times, almost…
On Monday we had breakfast for dinner with breakfast sausage from Sammish Bay Cheese, a scramble using our own eggs. But the veggies I threw in the eggs weren’t local, in fact were from the grocery store where I bought them when I realized I needed them for a recipe last week on short notice. The jam on the bread was from Peshastin, and the bread from a local bakery, but the butter was not, and I’m sure the bread wasn’t made with locally sourced ingredients. So close, but yet still not really there.
And so it went for the whole week. Until last night. Last night we had our friends John and Kristen over for dinner and invited them to share our one local summer challenge meal for this week. On the menu: grilled chicken, salad, roasted potatoes and fresh green beans. Washed down with local wine. And topped off by ice cream and cherries flambe. Wow - that makes me hungry again all over!
So, where did we get all of our fabulous ingredients for our meal? Here goes.
Appetizers: We had Beecher’s Flagship cheese (Seattle, 25 miles), fresh herb and garlic spread from Cibo Naturals (Seattle, 25 miles) and crackers from The Essentail Baking Company (Seattle, 25 miles). I’m not sure about the origins of the ingredients for these, but since the companies all have a commitment to fresh natural ingredients, and sourcing local when possible, I’m guessing that they at least didn’t come from somewhere REALLY far away.
Grilled Chicken: we don’t get our chickens from Akyla Farms until August 11th, so we settled for Ranger chicken breasts from Draper Valley Farms that I picked up at Sno-Isle Co-op - even though they’re a fairly big farm the birds are free range and organic and humanely treated and processed (Mt Vernon, 45 miles). The chickens were grilled with a rub made from Rosemary (front porch, 0 miles), garlic (not local, but already in fridge) and olive oil (california).
Salad: I made a fresh salad with lettuce (Mt Vernon, 45 miles), cucumber (Maltby, 15 miles), green onion (Maltby, 15 miles) and tomato (Snohomish, 10 miles). I made my own blue cheese vinaigrette dressing - the ingredients were domestic, but not necessarily local. The blue cheese came from Oregon so somewhere around 200 miles.
Roasted Vegetables: We did these in the grill basket. It was a mix of blue, red and yukon gold potatoes from Frog Song Farm (Fir Island, 31 miles). The potatoes were tossed with onions (Maltby, 15 miles), olive oil (domestic) and sea salt (california). We also added in green beans for a little color (Yakima, 160 miles). Spice mix from Grandma Edna’s (30 miles).
Wine: John and Kristen were in charge of liquid refreshments and came through with style. We had a selection of wines to choose from and ended up opening them all for just a “taste”. We had Stevens A Thought (Woodinville, 20 miles), Mount Baker Viognier (Bellingham, 70 miles), Des Voigne Cellars Duke Red Table Wine (Woodinville, 20 miles) and Dunham Cellars Three Legged Red (Walla Walla, 294 miles). All except the Dunham were bottled within a 100 miles, with the grapes coming from either Yakima (160 miles) or Walla Walla (294 miles).
Dessert: Our summer standard of Snoqualmie Ice Cream (40 miles) and fresh fruit. The cherries (our yard, 0 miles) were heated with organic sugar (origin not clear but non-local) and flambe’ed with brandy (definitely not local).
Wow - that’s quite the novel. Thanks for bearing with me! It was really fun to make an event out of it. And to prove to myself that I really could have a nice dinner with friends complete with appetizers, wine and dessert and have it be all local - or at least mostly local. We did have a few ingredients that I would like to find a closer source for. But that will come with time. For right now, I think we’re doing pretty well.
Next week’s meal will be a little tough as I’m gone for work Mon-Tues then we’re home and packing Wed-Thurs and leave on our road trip first thing Friday morning. We may end up making eggs for next week’s one local summer meal.
*****
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Wow! Way to pull it all together. Don’t you love that we have so much wine in our state. I’m super lucky since I’m 40 miles from Walla Walla, and about 60 from Yakima.;)
Your dinners are truely amazing. I love that you seem to incorporate friends in your meal.
Great Job!
Chelee
OLS West
[...] I used the same ingredients, from the same sources as OLS #3. I made a fresh salad with lettuce (Mt Vernon, 45 miles), cucumber (Maltby, 15 miles) and tomato [...]