One Local Summer, Week 4

I'm working hard to empty out my freezer, hence cauliflower cheese pie. The cauliflower is locally grown, frozen last summer. I can't believe the flavor difference with locally grown cauliflower - it's just fabulous. The cheese, eggs, milk, onions and basil are all local as well. The crust is made from locally grown potatoes - the first I've seen at the farmer's market so far this year.
The only non-local ingredients in this dish are salt and pepper and the olive oil used when pre-baking the crust.
I'm counting the paprika as local, since my husband bought it in Hungary last year on a business trip!!


The side salad is made from locally-grown, roasted eggplant and peppers. After roasting, it is then marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Unfortunately, it sounds much better than it tastes! It was only an OK recipe, so I won't be making it again.

The tomatoes are also local.



Dessert was angel food cake and strawberries. The only non-local ingredients were sugar, vanilla and salt.

Memories

My grandmother and I had a somewhat uncomfortable relationship. I'm sure she loved me, and I loved her, but we didn't seem to like each other very much.
I spent every summer on my grandmother's farm in New London, Iowa, from the time I was 9 or 10 until her death in 1979. The first several summers, my older sister, Marcia, also stayed there. She and my grandmother were very close and seemed to close ranks against me; at least that's how I felt at the time. I remember how much it hurt to hear grandma talk about "my girl" and know that she wasn't referring to me.
Since there wasn't really any room left for me in the house with Grandma, who was pretty much housebound due to heart problems (her bed was in the kitchen with an oxygen tank at the ready) and arthritis (she needed a walker to move about), I ventured outside to spend time with my dad's older brother, Clarence, and my cousin Bill.
Uncle Clarence farmed his entire life, though what he had really wanted to be was a veterinarian. He was the first adult to ever treat me as an equal. I followed him everywhere on the farm, apparently so stealthily that he would often turn around and run right into me! Some of my best memories are of riding on the tractor with Uncle Clarence, holding onto the back of the seat and leaning against the tire guard, while he mowed weeds. Oh, the conversations we had!
My cousin Bill is only 1 1/2 years older than I am, and I never had more fun than when the two of us had pillow fights in my grandma's living room, plotted against my older sister, dueled outside with sticks or built toad houses in the rock pile outside the yard.
I lived for my summers in Iowa.
As I got older, unfortunately, my relationship with Grandma didn't improve. How I wish now I had listened more closely to the stories of her childhood, asked questions about her early married life, really gotten to know her.
I was the youngest of the youngest of the youngest by far. My dad was born when my grandma was in her forties, my grandfather was born when his father was in his 50s, and I was the youngest grandchild by decades; I'm 44 and my oldest cousin is in her mid-60s.
My grandma was born in 1888 and died in 1979, when she was 91 and I was 15. Imagine what I could have learned from her!
Thinking back, there are a few things I remember, like her teaching me to make hollyhock dolls.


I think Grandma would have liked the adult me. I know I would have appreciated her much more than I did as a child.
I've been thinking about you, Grandma, and wishing I had known you better.

Home Alone

My girls are spending 10 days with my mom in Arkansas.
I'm the one who planned this time for them; a chance to have time with their grandma and company for my mom.
What I didn't anticipate, and should have, is the aimless drift of my days without them here. I don't know quite what to do with myself, which seems somewhat pathetic. As a 44-year-old, shouldn't I have tons of activities, hobbies, etc., to keep myself busy?
Granted, I could be cleaning my house, but I tend to avoid that at all costs anyway. I have done a bunch of cooking, and spent an afternoon freezing blueberries and strawberries. My husband and I have watched more movies than we usually do.
I can read, I can crochet - I have several books started and scads of crocheting projects to work on.
But I can't shake that feeling of purposelessness.
It reminds me of the first day of preschool for my youngest daughter. I felt so alone and didn't quite know what to do with myself for those two long hours.
I think what scares me about this is the knowledge that I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. What will I do when my youngest leaves home in 7 or so years? I'm a worrier, and once I get started on this track, I can work up quite a lot of anxiety.
So, I start to look at graduate programs in the area; master's of education at Drake University, a master's of social work from the University of Iowa. But I don't yet feel prepared to dedicate myself to something so potentially all-encompassing as a graduate degree when my youngest is still unschooling at home.
So, I surf the internet (a lot), make a couple of pies, and bemoan the state of my house.
I miss my girls.
A lot.

Local in Kansas City

We are traveling this week, visiting my mom in Springdale, Arkansas. I didn't think I'd be able to post a local meal this week, but while staying a couple of days in Kansas City, Missouri, I came upon a locavore's dream: Blue Bird Bistro.
This small restaurant is nestled in an old Kansas City neighborhood, making its home in a converted 1900-ish house. We made reservations for brunch on Sunday, June 15. Although it was Father's Day and the restaurant was bustling, our service was knowledgeable, friendly and efficient. We climbed the old stairway to a former upstairs bedroom where we were seated next to a large, old-fashoned window. Our entertainment for the meal included a family celebrating Father's Day at a nearby table, complete with children and grandchildren; and watching a mother and father bird bring insects to their nestlings in the branches of a tree outside.
The restaurant caught my eye by advertising itself as "organic, all natural, sustainable, local." Along with the brunch menu, which featured more than a dozen entres and a thorough appetizer list, was an insert that listed the local produce, meats and dairy products that were delivered that week. This list included potatoes, carrots, oregano, mixed greens, spinach, chard, white and wheat flours, tomatoes, butter, oyster mushrooms, tofu, pecans, milk, goat cheese, cheddar and garlic colby, grass fed bison, free range chicken and eggs, and local pork chops and beef.
Whew! What I wouldn't give for a restaurant like this is Des Moines!
I asked the waitress which of two options I was considering had the greatest proportion of local ingredients and she readily shared with me her knowledge of the menu and its ingredients.


Above was my entree: Vegetable Egg Napoleon, featuring local Beau Solais oyster mushrooms, organic fresh vegetables, caramelized onions and parmesan cheese layered between chives and egg white crepes with roasted red bell pepper coulis and fresh parsley. It was absolutely fabulous and affordable, too, at $13.00.

My husband had the Blue Bird Salm San: House-cured sustainable salmon and local herbed goat cheese open-faced on a toasted English muffin with sliced tomato, capers, onion and mixed greens.

Both my daughters had the pancakes, made with local organic white wheat flour studded with house-made granola and organic blueberries served with pure maple syrup and local butter.

It was a purely delightful meal: affordable, flavorful and local.

One Local Summer - Week 2

Actually, this might only be week 1, but this is my second week of One Local Summer.

This week's meal included eggplant parmegiana, salad and red wine.

Dessert was strawberries and cream. A little bit of heaven!

Local ingredients included the eggplant from Maharishi Organic Vegetables in Fairfield, Ia.; local tomatoes, basil and oregano; fresh mozarella cheese from Gateway Market in Des Moines; lettuce and spring onions from our garden and CSA; edible flowers from our garden; local strawberries from a vendor at The Des Moines Farmer's Market; Iowa-made red wine; and cream from Picket Fence Creamery, in Woodward, Iowa.

The only non-local ingredients were salt, pepper, salad dressing, and a sprinkling of sugar on the strawberries.

One Local Summer

Well, in an earlier post I declared my plan to try to eat locally as much as possible, including ice cream. I promptly discovered how difficult this actually is. There are so many food items my family and I have come to rely on that are not local, including pop and carbonated water, salad dressings, nitrite-free lunch meats, ketchup, orange juice, bananas, grapes, lemons, etc.
Fortunately I stumbled upon One Local Summer, a challenge to prepare one local meal each week for the summer. Now this I can do!
Tonight was our first local meal, and boy was it a good one!


Tonight's meal included roasted rosemary chicken, roasted asparagus and spring onions parmesan, local tomatoes, homemade butter biscuits, Iowa white wine, and a salad of lettuce from our CSA, radishes and tomatoes from the farmer's market, radish sprouts from thinning our garden and edible flowers from our garden, including violas and pansies.
We bought the chicken last fall from a local farmer; the parmesan cheese was from a local artisan goat cheese farm; the wheat was from Paul's Grains, about an hour or so from Des Moines; the white wine was from Iowa winery White Oak Vineyards.

Then came dessert:

Rhubarb pie!

So, what wasn't local? Baking powder, salt, black pepper; I didn't make my own salad dressings and the sugar was from Minnesota.

Not bad, huh?

Oh, and what's this?


I just thought it looked like PacMan wanted to eat local, too!