"eating local" news and stories

• More ways to eat local -- growing your own, sharing with friends, and swapping with others to get organic boxes that fit your tastes.
  
• Kim Honey talks about pie fear, and faking it with the special-ordered variety.
  
• A run-down of Toronto dessert shops for a sweet-filled walk through the city ... but being someone who walks everywhere, I'm not on-board with the "Toronto is just not a walking town."
  
• Sweet, starchy goodness -- potatoes have had an "exceptional" year!
  
• Bring your rosemary in for the winter.
• Wines: All under $20, and one under $10!
  
• Recipe: Pan-Grilled Chicken with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Tired of reading about eating local? Mad that your friends are going on and on about the provenance of the sage leaves (heirlooms from my own garden, they are!) on the gourmet dinner they served you? Really sick of hearing about your college roommate's new chicken coop? Well, you may not be, but NPR commentator Amy Stewart, is.

In a piece that seemed more bitter than escarole picked past its prime, Stewart takes America to task for its focus on the word, concept, and media conglomerate behind "locavores." (In case you missed it, "locavore" was selected as the 2007 word of the year by The New Oxford American Dictionary.) She says local eating is just "another symptom of our deeply troubled relationship with food" and "our obsession with local food has gone far enough ... we have heaped all our fears and anxieties onto the dinnerplate." Umm... isn't that the whole idea of the local eating "obsession"? Isn't it that we've ignored our dinner plates too long? I thought that reconnecting with our food supply and caring about animal rights (not so much for the animals' sake as for our very health and life, mind you -- poor treatment of animals and vegetables is thought to be responsible for the majority of often-deadly foodborne illnesses we confront) was completely the point.

It sounds to me as if Amy Stewart is a little peeved she didn't get a book deal to pay for her groceries for a year.

My mother grew up on a dairy farm in central Oregon, near Madras. My relatives, and those who grew up around her, now supply beef, lamb, dairy products and produce to the citified folk in Portland.

They would be sending most of their stuff to wholesalers, who would in turn send it to processors, or ship it overseas, or... who knows. A few decades ago, many of them were near bankrupt. Until New Seasons market happened along, with its commitment to sourcing locally. New Seasons is just part of a movement among those flamingly liberal Portland folk to buy local, organic, sustainable. And according to this article in the New York Times, it's working. And most ironically? Those farmers, they're conservative and straight-laced. But they're supplying the liberals.

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