We now have 18 participants for the Dark Days challenge - wow, I really didn’t expect that many people to want in - so glad to meet everyone and I can’t wait to see what we all come up with for winter meals.

I’ll post a recap here each Saturday with a review of what everyone is making, challenges and triumphs. The first one will be posted next Saturday, Oct. 20. I leave that afternoon for Italy for 2 weeks - I’ll be eating a lot of local foods while there but I won’t have web access so Kim at Yankee Food is going to guest post for me here on Oct 27 and then I’ll be back on Nov. 3.

At our house, we’re really committed to trying to eat as local as possible for every meal, so most weeks will probably be like this one. We ate 90% local 5 days this week with meals ranging from meat loaf to pasta, eggs & bacon to kielbasa and potatoes. We found a few more local sources (fresh made pasta and kielbasa) and were generally lazy - nothing gourmet here this week. So there are no pictures, because none of it was pretty enough to photograph.

Tonight we’re hosting our annual Oktoberfest and I’ve spent all day visiting the produce market, the “good” grocery store and rustling up all local grub, wine and beer for our gathering. More on that later - right now I need to go pay attention to my caramel sauce before it burns again…