Two months of Washington eating

We're two months into our year-long eating odyssey of limiting our food intake to foods from Washington state. Over those two months we have hit a few milestones and realizations, and now is as good a time as any to offer a quick summary.

First, what we are doing is really not all that different than what a lot of families all across the US and around the world do every day. We used to eat out at restaurants way too much, but with our self-imposed limitation/challenge to eat out only two meals per week, this has meant that we have to pack our lunches every day and cook dinner at home a whole lot more than we ever have before. This is normal behavior, but what takes out challenge to the next level is the commitment to use all Washington ingredients. This has meant no sugar, no beer, and living without tomatoes and fruits unless we already had them in the house when we started our challenge on April 1.

The first month of Washington eating was easier, because we could eat through a number of ingredients that we won't be able to get again until we either find a local source or until our local eating year is done. I ran out of rolled oats in early May, so now I make a Washington-grown cereal mix from Bluebird Grain Farms in the Methow Valley - the same source we use for a variety of flours. We are just about to run out of dried cranberries, which I have been gradually using on daily salads for lunch.

We still have some items to work out, like what to do about butter. We know of a number of local milk producers, including Organic Valley milk that we can pick up and Metropolitan Market. You can check the numbers on the carton of Organic Valley milk and determine if it is from a farm in Washington if it has these numbers: 41-35, 41-34, 41-017 and 53-21. Since most organic milk producers in Washington are part of the Organic Valley cooperative, this is a good option. But we have been told it is harder to guarantee that Organic Valley butter comes from Washington rather than the larger Washington-Oregon region. We can get heavy cream from a dairy in the Dungeness Valley from Marlene's Deli here in Tacoma and then make our own butter. We're just still trying to decide.

The biggest change in two months is the realization that eating local requires constantly keeping your mind on the next meal. If I don't think about what we will have to dinner tomorrow night, we might not have ingredients ready to go in time for the meal. We ran into that exact situation tonight and managed to ad-lib and do baked potatoes with a cheese sauce and left over grilled hamburger from a couple of nights ago. But because I wasn't ready to make lunch today and I was late getting up, I had to get by without breakfast. Planning is everything.

To close out tonight's rambling entry, here is a link to a related article about which is better - eating organic or eating local from The Daily Score blog: Food and Climate Change.

-- Rob

A sucky week

This week has totally and completely sucked for me on trying to eat only Washington foods. BUT, it's not the Washington thing that's getting me/us. No, instead, what's getting us is our inability to plan so that we have leftovers and things set up for easy-to-throw-together meals that we both find palatable. We have enough Washington food, we just don't have the discipline and time that others seem to have that allows them to cook all of their meals at home. Although, as I write this, I also realize that their "cooking" depends largely on processed and semi-prepared foods like packaged mixes, boxed cold cereal, and quick hot cereals. We aren't using those, which adds to our challenge.

Our awful little kitchen with (have I mentioned this?) six square feet of counter space IF the counter is completely clear, a one-bowl sink, no dishwasher, very little cupboard space doesn't help make any of this easier. All of that is further compounded by abysmal design. On one side of the kitchen we have a dog-legged "breakfast nook" currently stuffed with an under-used microwave, an overflowing desk with a chair that's too big. On the other side a doorway between the refrigerator and the range that opens to a bedroom that served as our office when we worked at home and that is currently overflowing with clutter and books and books and more books with books on top of all of it. In order to get from our front room to anywhere else in the house, you have to walk through the kitchen, passing between the sink/breakfast nook and the range/refrigerator. I hate to have people in the kitchen when I'm cooking. I really, really, really do not like it. The kitchen is difficult enough with just Rob and me--and we know how to move around each other and find a square inch of counter space to set a cup. But, put some other body in there just to talk, or gods forbid, to try to help cook, and things become truly untenable. It's not the size of the kitchen. Fantastic food can come out of boat galleys and apartment kitchens--it's really the design that gets in the way--and the fact that the counters always have something on them.

At any rate, I've sucked at local this week because I've turned to Starbucks for breakfast all week and ended up going out to lunch today. I didn't eat lunch yesterday until I whipped up and scarfed some tuna salad when I came home for a few minutes before heading to hear Joel Salatin. Cheryl Ouellette and some local farmers have created a co-op with the intention of opening a mobile abbottoire and processing plant so that animals raised locally can also be slaughtered and processed locally. Palatin was here to advise and inspire. The talk was not what I was expecting: I expected him to talk more about what he's done on his farm and about the connection between farming and what we eat. Instead he focused solely on recommendations and cautions for the co-op that is raising money and planning to open a mobile abbotoire. More later on his talk, but one thing he said really made me laugh, "Most farmers just aren't good at marketing." That is a text-book example of a truism.

Nobody said this would be easy. We certainly didn't.

Friday Dinner: Party at my boss' house. We took a dish of Cheryl's sausage mixed with garbanzo beans from Alverez farm and kale, onions, and garlic from Terry's Berries and herbs from our yard.

Saturday Dinner: Went to market in the morning (curds, feta, goat cheese, pears, asparagus, salmon, plants) and had Starbucks with Linda and then gardened all day. Can't remember lunch and had barbecued salmon and curds from the market and salad for dinner.

Sunday Dinner: Blueberry waffles made on our new wafflemaker/griddle for brunch; barbecued mini-burgers on homemade buns and homemade refried beans.

Monday Dinner: breakfast was frozen waffles heated in the toaster; lunch was leftover & frozen barbecued chicken on salad with chopped almonds and dried cranberries, which we're running out of, along with refried beans topped with curds. Leftover salmon on salad for dinner.

Tuesday Dinner: Rob had waffle for breakfast, I had Starbucks; I didn't eat lunch until after 6 p.m. (that's still lunch) and then had some tuna salad; after meeting went to Pour at Four (at least the delicious illicit oysters we were gifted came from Washington).

Dinner tonight: Rob skipped breakfast and I had Starbucks; I ended up meeting a friend for lunch at Matador. Dinner after evening meetings was baked potatoes topped with crumbled hamburger and cheese sauce with fudge for dessert. I worked on organizing the kitchen to clear off the counters and clean the fridge. Have some new ideas for re-arranging it to make it more useable.

Road food sucks - When it's processed

I was in Topeka, Kansas last week. I have no clue where my food came from. And, there are some "foods" for which one just should not look at the ingredient list unless one is prepared, mid-mouthful, to be completely turned off. I got to Kansas City late on Monday and spent the night in a Homewood Suites (which I like for a standard chain hotel). Thankfully the suites have full kitchens and their lobbies contain a mini-store where you can buy processed foods to prepare on the stoves and microwaves in the rooms. I bought a beef and bean burrito. Based on the taste(lessness) of it, I wasn't too surprised at the ingredient list. I wonder though why processed food have to be, well, so processed. If I made myself a beef and bean burrito, it would contain a tortilla (wheat flour, shortening); shredded beef cooked with some chiles and spices, maybe some vinegar; beans, likewise cooked with spices like garlic and onion and coriander and cumin; some cheese (milk, rennet, culture); salsa (tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapenos, cilantro, salt, pepper, dash of cayenne cause I like it HOT); and perhaps some yogurt or sour creme, maybe some lettuce and tomatoes and jalapenoes. It wouldn't contain all of the things in this sample product. I know that all of those ingredients are not evil, but I do think they are unnecessary. I also think that the processed food items are made with the dregs and are barely a step up from cat and dog food and canned corned beef hash.

Of course, compared to what we would make here, and to any other really homemade burrito I've ever had, this thing completely sucked. If I hadn't been so tired and so hungry with still a lot of work to do, I would have thrown it out, hopped back in the car, and asked Garmin (my GPS) to find the nearest fast-food joint - not that the food would have been any better. Breakfast was a strip of disgusting beef jerky and a granola bar, as I picked up a co-worker and drove the hour-plus to Topeka. Road food sucks (road food being defined as the grab-it-fast fast-food variety versus finding a real restaurant and making an effort - which unfortunately can also still suck, but one's chances for finding food are better).

One thing I discovered after leaving the land of processed food: Kansas is not a foodie's state. Kansas City may be, but the heart of the state - Topeka - has a tame, American palate. Breakfasts were strange affairs of steam scrambled eggs mixed with strips of pre-seasoned and maybe pre-cooked chicken one morning and with deli-sliced roast beast the next morning. Luckily the little cinnamon wheels and the spiced pears were good enough to make up for the eggs.

Lunch in Topeka was far from exciting. We went to a little cafe near the inn where we had our meetings. I ordered taco salad and iced tea. It was disappointing - iceberg lettuce mix with unseasoned ground beef, shredded processed cheese, a plop of sour cream, and a plop of commercial salsa, all served with some over-watered Lipton powdered iced tea. Dinner salvaged the day's meals - at least the actual food part of it did. We had 12 people at dinner. We went to a well-established bar and barbecue joint that looks like it must get hopping and must be used to large groups. Our group was served six at a time even though we were all sitting at the same table. Side one got their food fairly quickly. Side two, the side I was on, got its food by the time side one was mopping the sauce off of their plates with slices of soft, white bread. However, the food was good. I am willing to guess, that the beef and pork in my barbecue dinner came from nearer than beef normally comes from here: baby back ribs (which I consented to eat with my fingers) and burnt tips. They also make this chocolate cobbler with cinnamon ice cream - three of us split a dish of it. Yum.

Meals the next day sent us back to fast-food hell: Jersey Subs for lunch where I had a philly cheese steak (authentically gooey) and pizza for dinner. I do not like pizza. I just don't. I don't like how much sauce or cheese pizza joints glob on and I don't like the sub-par toppings like flavorless pepperoni and greasy sausage. I like authentic Napolitan pizzas with thin crusts and light toppings; I like "gourmet" pizzas made one at a time in wood-fired ovens like those that Charlie McManus makes at Primo; and I like the pizzas we make here at home with Rob's cornmeal dough (we now substitute cracked emmer for the cornmeal) and homemade pesto with real toppings like the sausage we get from Cheryl the Pig Lady or the things we buy at the farmers markets: tomatoes, spinach, greens, mozzarella we buy at the Proctor Farmers market from River Valley Cheese, and smoked salmon from Wilson's Fish Market.

I was glad to get home to real food again. Although, Rob picked me up and took me from the airport straight to Pour at Four. I needed food fast. The trip was awful, and I was feeling sick from a three-day headache and from not eating enough on Thursday. I ate a little at breakfast - but not enough - and then, due to some poor timing on my part and the fact the Kansas City airport is lacking several services such as restaurants. I bought a couple snack bags on the plane from Denver to Seattle, but by then I was feeling so poorly that eating wasn't much of an option. Still, I forced down a handful of toffee nuts and four granola chunks. By the way, Frontier Airlines has the best snacks of any airlines even though they are all pre-packaged. The nuts and granola chunks contained more than peanuts and real sugar - no corn syrup or fillers.

One of our rules is that we can eat it if one of us or someone we know travels some place and buys something that is grown in the state they travel to and brings it back with them - but it must be carried back in their luggage, it cannot be shipped back separately. I wanted to try to buy some sunflower seeds while I was there, but my meetings were really all-day affairs, which left little time to look and shop.

- Natalie

Beans!!!

We found beans at the Tacoma Farmers Market today. Kidney beans, pinto beans, and garbanzo beans--which, you must know, are the best beans ever. Alvarez Farms, from Mabton in the Yakima Valley and supplier of some of our vegetables through their exchange with Terry's Berries, is coming to the market this year. We knew we'd eventually find beans, but I haven't taken the time yet to call and try to order any from the sources we've found that may sell them direct. I have actually been hoarding the last two cans of garbanzos in our pantry in case it took us too long to get to eastern Washington to buy some. But now, I don't need to because we have one pound of garbanzo beans. We also bought a couple of pounds of peanuts--we can make our own chunky peanut butter. I was so happy to find beans that I wanted to cry--and next week he's bringing us 10 more pounds of garbanzos and 10 pounds of black beans. The peanuts? A great bonus. I'm not normally a peanut butter fan, but every once in a while I want some on toast or with an apple--and strangely, over the last couple of weeks I've wanted some. Later in the summer, I know we'll order cases of tomatoes and peppers to preserve, plus Alvarez grows melons and potatoes and onions and cucumbers and a lot of other delectable green things.

We also picked up a chicken, two pounds of Italian sausage, and four packages of smoked sausage from Cheryl Ouelette, (a.k.a. Cheryl the Pig Lady). I also asked whether she still has any hams left. In her last newsletter she mentioned that several people had not picked up their hams. Rob especially likes ham, and unless we get another one in the freezer, we won't have any until next spring. We still haven't cooked our spring ham, but I think when we thaw and cook it, I'll repackage and freeze some so it doesn't spoil before we can use it all.

Other things we saw at the market: oysters, crab, shellfish; spring onions, spring greens, herbs, green young garlic; pepper and tomato starts (and other plants); honey. We didn't buy any in part because I'll be out of town next week in Topeka, Kansas. Plus, all the stuff we can't buy: popcorn, pretzels, bread--all looked good, all produced locally and worthy of purchase, but not grown locally, so out of bounds for us. Of course, we did cheat for lunch at the market and had Mexican food. As Ed Murietta pointed out however, none of the food vendors seem to use locally grown foodstuffs: blogs.thenewstribune.com/edsdiner.

Dinner tonight: Mozarella & Ham Sausage from Cheryl's and baked fries made with potatoes from Terry's Berries.

- Natalie

Recovering from a week away from local eating

This week I am settling back into local eating after a forced week off while I was at a disaster training exercise on the other side of the country in Emmitsburg, Maryland last week. I went from spending more than a month eating little other than local food to spend a week eating like I was back in college - institutional food, all you can eat. This meant that I fell back into old habits, without the possibility of eating any local food. And how did it feel going back? Not that good. I felt more sluggish with the return to eating food full of sugar, corn syrup, and other ingredients that are off limits in our Washington eating.

After returning home last weekend, I broke back into local eating by branching out and baking homemade hamburger buns to make barbecue sliders on Sunday. But tonight's meal was even better - barbecued lamb chops with a mint sauce that Natalie made from mint in our yard, served alongside chunky apple sauce from Washington and local potatoes made into baked fries with a dusting of ancho chili powder. With a meal like that, there is no need to think that eating local food is a sacrifice of some kind!

- Rob

Eating local (or not) alone

I intended to do so much this week. I even wrote it down: get the dishes done--every piece of cutlery was dirty; plan all my meals; clean the bathroom; clean the bedroom; get the kitchen nook/office cleaned up; clean the living room; write for the blog; clean the freezer and the refrigerator; buy and preserve asparagus; do laundry; buy bins for the pet food and clear out the pantry area; take donation bags to the second hand store; finish weeding the bottom of the terrace. I'm not sure how I imagined I'd have the time and energy to do that. I got quite a lot done on Sunday even though after I dropped Rob off at the airport I came home and slept the rest of the morning. Still, I got the rest of the terrace weeded, I did most of the dishes (including a fine, obsessive cleaning of the decorative grooves on every piece of cutlery), and I cleaned out the freezer. I even made sausage and pancakes for dinner, which I also had on Monday for breakfast. I took leftover chicken breast and salad and a hunk of cheese to work for lunch, and then came home and made a Northwest Waldorf salad for dinner with more chicken breast, Greek Gods yogurt, a crisp apple, walnuts, and a little mayo.

Tuesday I ate every meal away from home--and thus, none of it likely from Washington. I had a conference in SeaTac and had eggs and a mini-bagel for breakfast. Lunch was a green salad, salmon, and a good vegetable medley with snap peas and thick-julienned carrots, rutabaga, and turnip. Then I came home exhausted, fell asleep on the couch, woke hungry and went to Pour at Four for dinner.

I woke up Wednesday morning with a migraine, took some codeine, called my boss, and then promptly went back to bed for a couple of hours. I ate some toast and cheese for breakfast late on my way into work so that I got there in time for our shareholders meeting. In the afternoon I came home to spend an hour with the dogs before heading back to work for the board and leadership boat cruise. The served something on the boat that they said was salmon. I'm sure it was, but wow, did they ever ruin that poor farm-raised salmon. That fish had no freedom in life and no justice in death. Mushy, flavorless, overcooked, dreck. It tasted like a spawned-out dog fish (Chum). The steak they served was only slightly better.

That brings me to today. I had great intentions this morning of boiling an egg and taking it and an apple and some bread to work. Unfortunately our dog Ada derailed my plans when she found a way out of the fence. Instead of spending time making breakfast, I spent time panicking and looking for her. I then resorted to a total cheat and went to Starbucks on my way into town to get a sausage muffin and an iced tea--with simple syrup. Let me say now that I miss the simple syrup in my iced teas--and it's just not the same with honey. Honey always has an added flavor that I really don't like in my iced tea. I had a lunch meeting at Matador with our new paralegal at work, so that was not native. But, I just took out more sausage and will have that and salad for dinner. I think I'll also cook up some wheat berries to take for breakfast with milk and cinnamon in the morning. Maybe the other sausage for lunch tomorrow, but dinner will be out with Jana before the Oprah.

Okay, so my week alone hasn't gone as well as planned, but I still have tonight to get all those things done that I wanted to do--yeah, right!

- Natalie

Proctor farmers market opens

The Proctor Farmers Market opened today. I wouldn't have known except we saw Bill Evans at the Howard Kunstler lecture this week (pretty depressing lecture, but it made me glad we have started this venture), and he told me that it started today. He also told me that a cheesemaker is at the market this year. So I decided to go this morning after my massage. In all honesty, and embarrassingly, I can't remember the last time we went to the Proctor market. It's been years, and then it was not what we were looking for. It was mostly arts and crafts and not much food. I was pleasantly surprised today at how much food was there, and most of it counts as local for us. The bread and popcorn didn't nor did the jams and chutneys since they contained sugar, but all of the vegetables, the meats, the fish, and of course, the cheese.

We decided before the switch to exempt fish from Alaska because we weren't sure how reliable it would be to only eat fish from Washington state. However, in March we found a cannery in Tokeland that cans crab, Oregon shrimp, tuna, and salmon. The tuna may come from Oregon waters, but it's caught by WA fishers. Then today, I found Wilson Fish Markets (Jania Wilson, 253-722-7100). They are from LaPush and sell line caught King and Coho salmon and Halibut. Hurrah! We don't eat it as often as we probably should--it being a superfood and all--but I do like my salmon and halibut. I bought $30 worth of salmon, including a chunk of frozen king that we'll grill tomorrow, a chunk of smoked coho, and a chunk of smoked king. My executive decision was to allow the brown sugar that is used in smoking since the fish is local, and the exotic ingredient is less than 2% of the full product.

At the Lopez Island Farm stand, I bought Apple Cider Syrup. I was tempted to buy some of their jams, syrups, or chutneys, but they included suga, a substantial portion, and the chutneys included other vegetables that cannot be verified as local. They also sold lamb and pork.

The last stop of the day was the cheese booth. River Valley Ranch sells goat and cow milk cheese. They also make sheep and yak milk cheese. She'd sold out of all but two cheeses by the time I got there. She gave me a taste of Fire Roasted Chevre, and we talked about the Washington eating venture and our Web site. I bought a small log of the chevre and a hunk of Naughty Nellie Raw Cow's Milk ($22.06 for both). I made another temporary exemption since the chevre contains peppers that may not be local and the other is brined in Naughty Nellie Ale.

There are a few things that we are exempting by default--and that, we would probably have to exempt even if we were resourceful enough, efficient enough, organized enough, and had enough time to make all of our own everything from scratch. To make cheese, which we plan to do later this year, you need rennet and culture. Granted, the rennet could come from the stomach lining of a local calf (it's third stomach--listen here http://128.208.34.90/ramgen/realarch/WeekdayA/WeekdayA20070517.rm to learn more), but vegetable rennet is likely exotic. But to get Cheddar cheese, you use a cheddar culture; for gouda, a gouda culture, and so forth. Other things also influence the flavor of cheese: what the cow's eat, local fungi/bacteria, skill of the cheesemaker, etc, but most cheesemakers use a starter culture. It's the same for yogurt and buttermilk. Then there's yeast for bread. Eventually, we'll have our own sourdough starter. You can start sourdough with wild yeast off of cabbage and grapes, but we'll likely use a starter culture or get a start from someone else. We just haven't found that person yet. But, even when we have the starter, we'll likely use yeast sometimes. And, we've exempted other baking necessities such as baking soda, baking powder, creme of tartar, and spices. I'm still waffling on herbs and spices that we can grow here, though. I need to be disciplined enough this year to harvest our own dried herbs like oregano, marjarom, thyme, rosemary, and sage, etc. I should also get organized and plant caraway and cilantro--some to eat fresh and some to harvest as coriander. I'll look next week at the market for more herbs to transplant.

I also ordered another rain barrel from Dan Borba for $70 and bought two bundles of cilantro for $1 each, eight assorted tomato plants to transplant at $2.50 each, four pots of spinach to grow, three flat leaf parsley plants, and three African daisies to put in the terrace ($30). Next week we might by cauliflower, cabbage, blueberry bushes, and some more tomatoes.

Rob was home from the Birdathon Kickoff, where he lead a short birding by bike trip. While he showered off bike sweat, I assembled a salad with greens from Terry's Berries topped with smoked salmon, frozen blueberries, Naughty Nellie cheese, hazelnuts (bought from OR pre-switch), and a vinaigrette I made with raspberry vinegar, dried spice mix, olive oil, and the apple cider syrup.

I think we'll be regulars at the market this year. Join us, every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

- Natalie

A challenging week of temptations

I knew when we took on this challenge that there would be times when the temptation to fall back into old habits would be especially strong. This week I was definitely challenged. It started with a bad headache on Tuesday night, when I had to work late and then missed the 7:20 p.m. bus home, which led to my asking Natalie to drive down and pick me up so I didn't have to hang out at the office until the next bus at 8:20 p.m. By the time she arrived, my headache was progressing to a migraine, so I suggested eating out.

Months ago when we started making our own ground rules for a Washington eating year, we set the standards for how many times we could go out in a given week. We agreed that eating two meals per week at restaurants would be acceptable. So, Tuesday night's meal of American-Mexican food at Matador in downtown Tacoma was our first meal out for the week.

Our second meal out for the week was at Ravenous in downtown Tacoma, as we had to squeeze in a meal before attending a lecture by James Arthur Kunstler.

So, with two times out finished for the week, it meant we wouldn't be able to visit our friends at Pour at Four, a wine bar in our neighborhood in Tacoma's North End.

The worst of it, though, has been the temptation of seeing my co-workers coming back from Tully's with lattes. I had the bad habit of drinking a grande vanilla latte every other day - sometimes every day - and going cold turkey for this entire month has been tough. Sure, I brew French-pressed coffee at work, since we made coffee on of the exempt items in our Washington eating year. But it isn't the same.

Despite the temptations, I managed to stick to the regime. Now it is Saturday afternoon and if I want a latte I can just make one here at home. It's just another week in the experiment.

- Rob

Breakfast has been a challenge

Breakfast has been a challenge. It's not a resources challenge, we have plenty to choose from. It's a timing and habits challenge. Since I haven't been leaving the building to take a morning break and get breakfast at Starbucks, I find that I don't actually eat the breakfasts I take to work unless they can be eaten a few bites at a time. Oatmeal, which really isn't good once it has cooled, does not work well if eaten over more than an hour.

On Tuesday I had to scavenge for breakfast. It ended up being toast made from the two slices of honey wheat bread that I accidentally left at work the night before - and a Snickers bar that was in my desk from before the switch. Why? Well, Rob and I didn't communicate very well that morning. He asked whether I wanted oatmeal. Oatmeal sounded pretty disgusting when he asked me - I rarely feel like eating first thing after getting up in the morning. I said no, but I didn't ask for anything else, and he didn't put anything together for me. So, bread and snickers. Which made me realize, I need to stock the cupboards, so to say, at work. I need protein at breakfast. Not a lot of protein, but more than is in a bowl of oatmeal or cereal. Usually a little yogurt or an ounce or so of cheese or an egg will do. So, we'll have to keep some boiled eggs on hand. I can take boiled eggs, some cheese, and cups of Greek Gods yogurt to work. That, the occasional slice of toast - I found a hidden toaster at work - will make due for breakfast. And, when we've eaten through the oatmeal we have at home, we'll be eating wheatberries and BlueBird Granary cereal for breakfast.

I found today that oatmeal reheats okay in the microwave. Just have to sprinkle it with a bit of water before zapping it. It's pretty good topped with cinnamon, honey, and milk that I took to work, and sprinkled with chopped walnuts that I still have in my desk.

- Natalie

Greek Gods yogurt

Greek Gods Yogurt is made with milk from Washington!!!! I'm so happy to know this. I feel like dancing around and singing, "Yay, yay, yay," but that's not really in my nature. Greek Gods' yogurt is yummy. Even the plain yogurt is good, which is all we'll be able to buy and eat since all of the flavored yogurts contain sugar--even the honey one. Still, since it's made with Washington milk, and it is my all-time favorite yogurt, we can add our own honey and frozen blue berries and raspberries from Terry's Berries, I have another breakfast option.

- Natalie

DC Whole Foods irony

I find deep irony in the fact that I went to a Whole Foods in Washington, DC, to try to find local foods. I found very, very few. I found some local foods from Washington State, though--apples and potatoes, maybe even the onions. I went to pick up a few things to keep in the hotel room since I had a refrigerator and was going to be there for a week. Normally, when I am traveling I like to keep bananas and granola bars on hand. I'm not a morning person, and these make good portable breakfasts. Plus, in DC on meeting days, it's a good idea to have a granola bar in your bag since you may not find time to eat until late in the evening. If I have a refrigerator, I sometimes also buy some yogurt and cheese and other fruit. So I went to the cheese station and asked one of the salespeople whether they had any locally-made cheeses. She took me around the case and showed me a few cheeses--apparently Wisconsin is a local manufacturer of cheese if you are in Washington, DC. Luckily there were also a few made in Maryland and Virginia. I picked up a chunk of Naturalist's Cheese made in Virginia. I skipped the bananas, but I did buy a pint container of sliced fruit, including oranges. I figure they may at least have been grown in this country, rather than wherever bananas come from. I also bought two bottles of HonesTea and a box of Kashi granola bars. I was so busy on this trip though, that I never had a chance to eat the cheese. So, am taking it home. One of the rules we have established is that we will honor a food as local if we or someone we know travels somewhere and buys something grown within 100 miles of where they are, and brings it home. This cheese counts. And later this summer, we'll have more maple syrup when Jana and Jason bring us some from Massachusetts.

- Natalie

Local eating in the news today

Issues about local eating have grown so mainstream over the last year that we have moved from a world where the idea that grew popular through books and Web sites is now drawing two editorials in the same newspaper in the same day.

The Seattle P-I offers the following:

• Good reasons to support local farmers, by guest columnist Jennifer Wilkins

• That mouthful shouldn't travel so far, by guest columnist Paul W. Birkeland

Meanwhile, I am planning to attend a discussion about local eating at my local bookstore here in Tacoma, Washington - King's Books. The community Web site Exit133.com highlights Thursday night's discussion, which will include Terry Carkner from Terry's Berries on the panel. I look forward to an interesting conversation and maybe sharing a few of the tips that Natalie and I have discovered in our research before starting a local eating year, a Washington-only food year, on April 1, 2008.

- Rob