What I've carried away

Now that I’ve participated in the local foods challenge, I’m looking back on the positives and negatives and determining what things I’ll carry with me from this point onward:
• I’ll continue to make Kentucky flour (Weisenberger) and local cornmeal a part of our regular kitchen provisions.
• I still have reservations about raw milk. I drank it, loved the taste and had no ill effects, but there’s such a division of information out there, from those who insist the benefits outweigh the risks and that anyone who says otherwise is part of a government conspiracy to those who imply that raw milk is synonymous with Russian roulette. If I buy any more, I’ll at least do a stove-top pasteurization.
• Simple is good. I like sauces and elaborate meals, and because of this adventure, I’ve revisited many of the meager cooking skills that I had let slip over the years, but sometimes, a stripped-down-to-the-barest-flavors meal is not a bad way to go. When I was a kid, there was one of those cartoons-between-cartoons that warned us, “Don’t drown your food (in mayonnaise or ketchup or goo; it’s no fun to eat what you can’t even see…).” I appreciate that now.
• Cheese. Why would I ever rely solely on individually wrapped processed cheese products again? Well, price could be a factor, but I at least plan to incorporate some local cheeses into our sandwiches, pasta dishes and casseroles.
• My quest is to find a local baker. The art of breadmaking is a humble, ancient act, and I’d like to retain a human connection there.
• I'd like to work some regular celebrations of local foods into my family’s routine, be that an all-local day each month or an annual July challenge. Fruits especially will be celebrated with minivan treks to find peaches, apples, strawberries and blueberries in season.