Over the last month, I have begun to create a much more pleasing, close relationship with my food. With trips to the farmers' markets more a pleasure than a chore and the experience of eating food at its freshest, I am more than convinced that local eating for the sake of the planet is an wonderful privilege rather than any sort of a hardship. With more than half of my lunches and dinners being created from at least 90% local ingredients, I admit with much satisfaction that I've never eaten more luscious food than when I eat local food.
Have you ever eaten freshly shelled English peas? Did you know that the season's first garlic bulbs, freshly dug from the ground, are as easy to peel as a banana? Want to know what it's like to cradle in your arms a beet so huge that it's half as heavy as a newborn baby and just as sweet as a tiny beet? What about eating apples so new and crisp they're still tinged with a taste of greenness from the tree they were cut from? Would you like to experience the difference in peeling an onion that has only one layer of skin and bursts with crispness under your knife?
Here is a sample of what I have made over the last few weeks: oven-roasted cauliflower; caramelized green beans; dilled borscht; creamy mashed fingering and Russian blue potatoes; basil-hazelnut pesto; strawberry-rhubarb crisp; blueberry crisp; raspberry-blueberry crisp; sauteed baby red cabbage with rosemary and caramelized onions; garlicky "buttered" peas; pan-fried green zucchini "
crostini" with roasted garlic spread; mashed
kohlrabi with onion; sauteed greens (kale,
Swiss chard, collards, and beet); tomato-basil salad; mashed white baby turnips with wilted turnip greens; zucchini "spaghetti" with baby heirloom tomatoes. I've also eaten three different types of cherries, giant blackberries, micro greens, romaine lettuce, green onions, red onions, at least five different varieties of potatoes, yellow beets, several different types of large heirloom tomatoes, baby carrots,
cremini mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, sweet bell peppers, and
peppercress. I've savoured bread and butter pickles, spicy pickled garlic,
bumbleberry jam,
bluebarb jam, pickled hot baby peppers, and pickled sweet bell peppers.
I've had the opportunity to buy
watermelons, patty pan squash, summer squash, garlic
scapes, musk
melons, peaches, five different types of plums,
purslaine,
tatsoi,
bok choi,
su choi, savoy cabbage,
mizuna, hazelnuts, four different types of radishes,
chanterelle and oyster mushrooms, fresh hot peppers, fresh Japanese
shiso leaves, every fresh herb
imaginable, any micro greens you can name, pale yellow egg-shaped cumbers and two other types of cumbers, dried apples,
sundried tomatoes, apple cider, dried
chile peppers, wild watercress, black currants, and
crab apples, to name just a very few things I could be buying.
And with Chinese long beans,
portobello mushrooms, spaghetti squash, red plums,
nectarines, corn on the cob in my fridge, as well as the pumpkins, butternut and acorn squash, and late summer apples I am eagerly awaiting, I think few people would argue that my vegan diet is in any way one of deprivation. In fact, eating locally as a vegan has accomplished two things I've not easily been able to make myself do before: eat more veggies and not crave sugar. And in a recent week where I didn't eat as much fresh local food as usual, I found my daily bike
commute was much less easier than it had been when I was fulled by the freshest food and coasting
uphill in places I'd previously
laboured to keep up a steady pace amongst all the other commuter cyclists.
It's not too late to hit the farmers markets in your area (and believe me, they are there) and enjoy the best of what the summer season has to offer. In my area, as in many other areas, the farmers' markets run until the end of October. And when the first week of November comes along, I'll be making the twice monthly trip to the local winter farmers market in eager anticipation of sweet kale and many of the other winter vegetables made better by the chill of fall and winter.
Go on, give it a try. You know you want to...