“Quick! Take a picture!” My husband admonished as I was about to dive into tonight’s yummy roast chicken dinner.
“Oh, but wait,” he said, “The rice. You blew it.”
That’s right, it was a fabulous dinner. A toasty brown roasted chicken with veggies from the CSA, along with some chive brown rice. It’s that rice that was bothering my husband. But I’m not bothered at all. Sure, the meal would have been just about 100% local if it had been creamy, smooth new potatoes on the plate instead of rice. But you know what? I didn’t have potatoes in the house. I had rice. And at 5:00 on a busy Monday, I’m not going to go out for potatoes. Besides, sometimes I like chicken and rice.
The tagline on my blog here is, “If you can buy it locally, you probably ought to.” I started this blog with the idea that I would see if eating locally was possible and practical here in New Hampshire. I haven’t answered the possible part (what with February still months away), but I have been able to determine that, not only is eating locally practical, it’s downright delicious! But that doesn’t mean I feel like I have to eat 100% of my food from within my foodshed. In reality, now that I’ve been at this for a few months, it seems that the idea of checking for the availability of local ingredients has become a habit. That habit does not include stressing over where I can find wild rice or pasta locally.
The push toward local eating will really appeal to people more, I think, if they know that they aren’t “breaking rules” if they embellish local products with non-local staples. In fact, I think that I’ll make more of an impact by refusing to buy watermelon in March than by giving up the dark chocolate bar that I savor throughout the week. It’s like all the nutritionists who say that a diet won’t work if you give up everything you love. You’ll just fall off the wagon and give it up all together. Rather than make the idea of eating locally scary, consider everything in moderation, and in it’s own context (Is it seasonal here? Did it take more calories to get it here than I’ll get out of it? Would it taste better if I just wait a few months?).
So, there’s no picture tonight, but it’s not because of the rice. It’s because my food pictures are so atrocious, I thought it would be nice to give everyone a break.
Tonight’s local meal:
- Roasted chicken (Chicken from Agape farms, 15 miles, butter from Cabot, chives from the yard)
- Roasted veggies (eggplant, carrots, onions, fennel and green beans from CSA, 8 miles)
- Brown rice with chives (rice from away, butter from Cabot, chives from the garden)
- Salt, pepper (not local)
Rest easy, fellow thoughtful eater, rest easy!
