Day 4- YAY tea!

After grillin' up a hamburger in "Kentuckyaki" sauce for lunch, it was time to go grocery shopping---so off to Berea, to check out their market!

Which brings us to the absolute highlight of my day: I found local tea, thanks to Salamander Springs Farm! Not only did they have loads of onions, garlic, and wonderful blackberries...but they had tea! And a girl working at the booth told all about how to make my own yogurt...so that's definitely gonna happen soon. :) Thanks, Salamander Springs! (Did I mention they had tea!??)


While at the Berea Farmers' Market, I also stocked up on raspberries and blueberries. Now, we all know that we shouldn't shop while hungry...but I totally broke that rule, so half the raspberries were gone before I even left the market! They were so good though, and I've never been so happy to have a big ol' raspberry.

After Farmers' Market, I rolled on down to Happy Meadows and bought a loaf of bread and cheddar cheese, which made quite possibly the best cheddar cheese sandwich dinner I've ever had (or maybe I was just really, really hungry!). I also got a jar of cream from a local dairy, because I didn't do so well at rationing my butter to last an entire week. Unfortunately, the cream met its demise on the sidewalk outside of the house, rather than actually making it through the door. So much for having cream 'n berries for dessert! Ah, well--getting more milk tomorrow, so I can manage a day without butter! ;)

Tomorrow and Friday will be tricky for me, because I'm traveling for meetings both days. On Friday, I'll be out of town for lunch and dinner...I'm a bit nervous about that one!

~Mel

Day 1--Makin Butter

Welcome to Saturday, our first day of eating local! I woke up feeling super confident and excited about my breakfast of local raw milk, and locally made bread, toasted, with homemade butter.

That's right, I said homemade butter.

We made friends with a woman with dairy cows here in Whitley County:

(this is one of the cows, not the woman ;) )

She gave us some milk, and we siphoned off the cream and put it in the food processor:

We hit the button and watched it spin, and spin, and spin...and suddenly, it started to transform!

Pretty yellow butter:

We separated the (now) buttermilk from the butter, and set it aside for cornbread (yum!)

and now we're left with this:

And lemme tell you, it tastes good! Also, I've churned butter before...and a food processor is Godsend. :)

Lunch was beans and potatoes from the Whitley County Farmers' Market, with some ham from Faulkner Bent Farms. Oh, and a very nice man offered me a piece of fudge...but I totally passed it off to Rudi with only a twinge of sadness.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch, but add in a huge hunk of bread with aforementioned butter and honey from the Lynch Farm...I could probably last the first fifteen days on just bread, butter and honey...I love that stuff.

I then launched off to Moonbow Prom by the Corbin Main Street Program, and felt so full of honey, buttery goodness that I didn't even long for the funnel cake. Plus, we were all too busy dancing to think of food! Day 1=Success. :)

~Mel

The Challenge-Mel's Perspective!

I'll be honest, I never put much thought into the food I ate before working with Extension. Eating local to me meant getting KFC...after all, it is Kentucky, right? Well...in working with the Farmers' Market, I started learning about what really goes into this food that travels across the country-or across the world to get to us. Did you know that a tomato grown in Brazil is bred to be hard, because its sole purpose is to travel for days and days before reaching you? Kinda cuts down on the flavor, huh?

Over the past year, I've been more and more involved with finding local foods-but never decided to go exclusively local. But from Saturday on, I'm gonna be a local-only girl. I'll letcha know how that goes. :) The goal is to be more aware of what I actually eat, see how I feel about cutting processed, preserved, and transported food out of my diet... and then bonus points if I lose a few pounds! ;)

So what exactly is an Eat Local Challenge ?

When: June 26-July 26

What: Eat locally grown and produced foods for a meal, a day, or for the entire week - you decide what is a challenge for you. --We went with 30 days!

Exceptions: Marco Polo Rules apply (salt and spices that sailors could carry in their pockets for 6 months while at sea) --I dunno who invented this rule, but I love it.

Wild Cards: Choose from 0 to 3 wilds cards for foods that you will eat during the challenge that are not local. --This makes it possible for people who have to have their coffee or tea able to participate. I havent decided on my Wild Cards yet...I'm saving them for if I get an awful craving for something non-local--I'll keep you posted. :)

If you wanna join in, for a day, a week, or a whole month--you're more than welcome! Jump in with us, the more the merrier!

~Mel