I really wanted to get my photos up from my trip to San Francisco and BlogHer Food 09 tonight, but Flickr and I are not seeing eye-to-eye. Stay tuned for them later this week.
Instead, I’m posting the invitation and details for the 3rd Annual Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge. Whew! That’s a mouthful. We just call it Dark Days for short around here. Anyhoo, I decided to get this up early so that anyone new to the challenge still has a bit of time to gather any winter staples or supplies that they want to put by or up.
All of the details are after the break. Well, except for the buttons, stay tuned for them later this week as I need to work out the code. Hope you’ll join me! Hope you’ll invite all of your friends to join us! Can’t wait to see what we all cook…
Dates
Nov 15, 2009 – Mar 31, 2010
What’s the Challenge?
Cook one meal each week focused on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients and write about it on your blog. It’s really that simple, but at the same time, it can really be that hard.
To keep things interesting we’ll have theme weeks throughout the winter, with polls to choose as we go.
What does local mean?
Traditionally, local food challenges call for a 100 mile radius. Winter time is more difficult in many climates, especially if you’re new to eating locally, so my default definition is 150 miles. You can choose to make your radius smaller or slightly larger as you need. Typical exceptions are oils, coffee, chocolate and spices. If you’re making fewer or more exceptions, please note that on your first post.
What if I can’t find every ingredient locally?
That’s why this is called a challenge! If you can’t find every ingredient, or heck even most ingredients, please still post your meal each week. This is just as much about what we learn, the obstacles we find and the decisions we make as it is about cooking with SOLE ingredients.
What if I don’t have a ‘good’ camera?
Take pictures with what you’ve got. If you don’t have a camera, no worries, just tell us the story and we’ll use our imaginations?
What if I don’t have a blog?
You are still welcome to play along, you just won’t be included in the weekly recaps. Instead, I ask that you come by each week and add your meal/experiences as a comment.
How do I sign up?
Complete the form below, being sure to let me know if you’re interested in helping with recaps. Due to how crazy our lives are around here I’m hoping to recruit help for the winter. Once I know how many participants we have, I’ll figure out if we need to divide by regions, squash love/hate, or can just rotate recapping each week.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
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What a great idea!
Just signed up for the Dark Days Challenge. I’d like to help with the recaps; I’m not very computer savvy so would need a bit of coaching at first. I’m so thankful that it finally cooled down here. I’m wearing fleece this morning.
I just signed up. I put that I can’t help with recaps. Until the holiday season is over, I’m going to be too busy. But after the middle of January, let me know and I’d be more than happy to help with recaps then!
I just signed up too but not sure it went through. I think this will be my 3rd year doing this with y’all! I also have a busy season coming up but am happy to help after January.
I e-mailed my husband and he’s all for us doing this. He does most of the cooking and I have the green blog so this sounds like a perfect challenge for us.
I’m in – and looking forward to it! Last year was wonderful, thanks for hosting this.
I’m in – sounds like fun!! Already stockpiling squash… winter’s coming!!
Well, I’m in. Our meals are already mostly composed of local foods; the challenge will be to photograph & get them up on the blog! Any tips for taking indoor food pics with a low-light situation would be appreciated. See ya’all in the kitchen!
After taking a year off, I’m ready to do this challenge again. The added twist for me is that we’ve sold our house and are moving this November, and I don’t know yet what house we’re moving to! Or what kind of internet access I’ll have…
Anyway, I’m currently trying to use up any stockpiled food and then I’ll buy what I need when I need it for a while. With access to a new year-round farmers market, I think I can do this!
Just signed up for Dark Days Challenge. This seems to be a week of signing up for challenges (I signed up for a homeschool one, and one for Cloverbuds (4H) too- lol). I would love to help with recaps! Just one question – WHAT ARE RECAPS!?! haha. I have access to endless sweet potatoes, so we will see how many recipes I can do with that!
I hemmed and hawed for a while but yes! I’m going to do it!
After much soul searching I’ve signed up for the dark days challenge. I try to keep it simple so I may not actually do alot of photo’s and postings but the dark days challenge will now allow me to challenge all my walking friends to keep walking in these dark days of autumn and winter. yea!
I’m in–wouldn’t miss it for the world! Would have liked to have taken on recaps this year, but posting itself is challenging these days.
I THINK I signed up…..buts it’s the second time I’ve tried so please let me know. We finally found a source for grass-fed beef and my husband is already planning menus!
well, I wasn’t going to but last night while hungry and stuck at work I looked through all my previous dark-days/OLS meals from last year and thought all that food looked better than what I come up with without an assignment. So hey, here I am again. Yum!
Hope it’s not too late to sign up….What a procrastinator! I hesitated because my blog isn’t food related and it’s in need of a lot of work. Maybe this will motivate me to get on it!!… as well as write about what we’re eating this winter.
I am pretty excited, I’ve been striving to get more local, sustainable food into my house for me and my kids for the past year. We’re definitely making progress, but it’s tough. This will be good at keeping me focused! I don’t have a blog…..yet….so I can definitely help with recaps! Can’t wait to hear what everyone is doing!
Talk about jumping into the fire. Recently became vegan, buy local as much as possible, attempting to not purchase anything wrapped in plastic (hard!), want some chickens now! Bring on the Dark Days Challenge
Carbonara as our first challenge dinner.
Hrafinstaad.blogspot.com
Whew!! Crazy weekend, so I took it easy on this one and made a Kabocha Squash soup…looking forward to better planning this week and more time on my hands! Great Fun!
I just found out about this on the Eat Local Challenge Blog. I’m a little late to the game, but I’m in.
Okay so I feel almost like a cheat on this ….but my Mother, aren’t they the best, spent hours cultivating and preserving a fantastic organic garden to add to our fruit and nut trees from her home which when I am in one location is within the “local” radius so when at one home I will have easy fantastic meals to fix for the Dark Days Challenge. This first week was easy enough Nov. 16 was so past my 12 years as a vegetarian it isn’t even funny, but now being a carnivore again I was thrilled to prepare short ribs (from grass fed cow from neighbors field, no hormones, no chemicals, no antibiotics) braised in a tomato and squash base (both from Mother’s garden (MG’s))served over garlic mashed potatoes, I used no milk just a little reserved broth from the braising of the short ribs(both potatoes and garlic from MG’s) served with fresh city tap water with a couple of sprigs of mint (MG’s). Yes, it felt like cheating as it was too easy but it was fabulous going down.
November 22 was a little more challenging but not too much…being in a different city than the first challenge I am no longer close enough to feed off our land. So I will turn to the local fisherman and feed from the sea. Purchased a local whole fish (cleaned but kept the head/tail for stock) and stuffed it with dried herbs from last summers container garden. The temptation for lemon was there but I reframed ….broiled it in the oven and served it with local leeks and it was refreshing and wonderful. We first had local oysters that tasted like the ocean itself and needed nothing added to their perfection.
Though we never had a name for how we ate this was the way I was raised even when living in the city…I can’t say thank you enough to my Mother for instilling in me the desire to eat in season and local. Thanks for an outlet to share how devine these meals can be.
It has been busy and I am very behind in blog reading. Can I join in a week late? I can help with recaps if needed.
Sorry to be late to the party but I am excited!
I just signed up for the first time. Looking forward to challening myself. I might be able to help with the recaps. I just started a new job and am adjusting to a new schedule, so please keep me in mind and I’ll see what I can do.
I just signed up for the 3rd Annual Dark Days Challenge — hope it’s not too late. I was on the fence about it because I haven’t (until now) talked about food on my blog — eventho I love to cook and love to eat even more! Our farm is mostly about sheep & wool but we raise most of our own meat, belong to a CSA and member owned food co-op so we’re eating local much of the time. Looking forward to this adventure!
Fun! Since we’ve moved to France, I’ve worked hard at sleuthing out our local options. It sounds fun to do a post a week on a local meal. Also, I love to write and if you need any ‘recaps’ or whatnot, let me know.
I was so excited to sign up that I forgot to mention that I’ll be happy to help with recaps later in the winter!
Another latecomer here. And like a previous commenter, I forgot to say that I’d be happy to help with recaps.
This sounds like a fun, interesting and possibly very challenging er, challenge, going into winter. My poor kale and chard are still sort of green, and I am still mourning the end of summer. But planning on growing some greens under lights in my greenhouse, and hoarding my first-ever jars of homegrown tomato sauce, I take up the gauntlet/oven mitt along with you all. Cheers!
I just signed up yesterday – sorry for being so tardy! Can I still participate?
Hi…this sounds like a great challenge. I took a cooking class last month where they mentioned this challenge, and I am looking forward to trying it out for the next six weeks. Next year, though I would love to sign up and participate in the whole thing! Here is a post about your dark days challenge!
http://speckleofdirt.blogspot.com/2010/02/dark-days-challenge-roasted-veg.html
I just discovered the Dark Days challenge and would like to sign up for the rest of this year, if you all don’t mind. I sent in the form. Thanks for coming up with such a great idea. I like to garden and I’m a member of a CSA. Normally I can, preserve, pickle and freeze things to have to use at other times: tomatoes, marinara sauce, basil, summer squash, peas, spinach, pickles, jam, marmalade, preserves, etc. Combing those with our weekly veggie box makes for some tasty meals.
Just found you, scrolling through the blogs on Not Dabbling in Normal. I’ve made a tickler in my calendar for November 1 to join up for challenge number 4!
I’ve just found this. We are about to hit the start of winter and I think this is a fantastic idea. About 2 weeks ago I started to get a box of fruit and veg delivered every fortnight from a company called aussie farmers direct. I think I will stick with them as my dominant source of fruit and veg. This week I have a fortnight I have a whole pumpkin to devour.
I am keen to give this a go. It will give me an excuse to visit my local farmers markets more often!
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