Local leftovers

I just commented to someone on twitter about this blog, then thought to myself that with the chaos of the start of the semester, I'm really not doing all that well with local eating.

Then I looked down at what I was eating: Leftover mashed potatoes made with local potatoes, local milk, and butter made by one of my farmer friends from raw milk from pastured cows purchased from just one state over, topped with leftover sauce from another meal that is made primarily from local tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and tomatillos. The only things not local in this meal are the salt, pepper, olive oil and onions.

And around 75% of last night's dinner was tomatoes from my own garden. Tomatoes that I am, in fact, practically drowning in, as many rot on the vine because I can't pick them fast enough and most get tossed into the freezer since I can't eat what I pick fast enough. Yesterday I picked at least two gallons of tomatoes. What really cracked me up was when my CSA, to try and make up for accidentally selling my melon from last week's share, included extra tomatoes this week. Gaaaaaaaaaah!!

That's all pretty damned good, I think, for being in that time of year when I don't feel like I have two minutes to think about what I'm going to eat. And it fits perfectly into my primary goal, which is to get to the point where local eating isn't something I'm making a deliberate effort to do, it's just automatically what I'm doing.

Except tomorrow night, when I'll be dogging pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw and french fries, plus perhaps a brew or two: I'm taking Elder Granddaughter, who is so very excited to see a presidential candidate whose skin is close to her own light coppery cafe au lait color, to the biggest local party for watching Obama's acceptance speech. I'm counting (obviously) on an Obama win this November, and I want her to have lots of distinct high-energy memories of this historical moment: I want her to be in her fifties, talking about her memories of where she was and what she was doing, first when Obama was nominated then when he was elected. Some things are far more important than local eating.