by Vicki Robin
Undeterred, I got the names of people who do sell cow’s milk out their back door. I can’t use their real names, though, which is a pity as they turned out to be so informative, intelligent, and fun. We’ll call them Koren and Belinda. I telephoned them and said my goat co-op friend sent me, sort of like “Knock three times and say Joe sent you.” Koren said they could supply me with two quarts of milk a week. I’d have to pick it up from the back porch at a set time. I could “rent” the two-quart glass canning jar (they refused to put milk in plastic) if I liked. They’d bill me monthly. Both Koren and Belinda reminded me often that this was a clandestine affair, and over the months gave me an ever-deeper understanding of the issues.
Honey, Cheese, Wine, Coffee & Beans
One person who heard I was committing to a 10-mile diet said, “That should be no problem. You can shop at the Star Store.” Yes, the owners are local, but as it turns out, most of the food on their shelves wasn’t. I was certain there were beekeepers within my ten miles, though, and I headed down to the Star Store to see if I could find some honey.
I went up and down the aisles, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. To a 10-miler, it was all foreign food. I became like the Ancient Mariner, who when thirsty said, “Water, water everywhere / Nor any drop to drink.” Food, food everywhere, but not a morsel to eat. To my relief, there on the shelf was a jar of Island Apiaries honey from Freeland, Washington, less than ten miles as the crow flies. I could be fairly certain the blackberry blossom variety was hyperlocal. Blackberries are outside everyone’s back door here. So, sweets: check.
The closest cheese was from Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. Whidbey Island Winery was within my ten miles, but even though they grow grapes there, most of their wines are blends of grapes from other vineyards. And anyway, I am one of those rare birds who get drunk on one drop of wine no matter where the grapes are grown. UBCC (Useless Bay Coffee Company) is catty-corner from the Star Store across Second Street, but they only roast locally. The coffee beans are not Whidbey-grown—not by a long shot.
Speaking of beans, there were dried Rockwell beans in the produce section from Georgie Smith’s farm thirty miles north, but none from within my DEZ—designated eating zone. A fourth-generation farmer, Georgie sells her heirloom beans to the Star Store at ten times the cost of ordinary pinto beans, a price only a committed locavore could love (which I became in February when I tried 50-mile eating in the dead of winter—more on that later). Lest you judge Georgie or any local grower as capitalizing on a niche market, overcharging Yuppies with a conscience, wait a few chapters to learn what goes into conventional pricing. The short story—that will get longer as we go on this 10-mile journey together—is that industrial food is cheap because of scale, yes, but also because of subsidies and laws and licensing that favor industrial production. One heretical conclusion I came to is this: we pay too little for food. We do not pay what it costs to produce or what it is worth in scale of importance to us. We also eat far more than we need. You may not agree with me now, or even after reading this book, but stay with me and see how I came to this seemingly unwelcome and inconvenient conclusion before you decide.
There was one 10-mile grower stocking the produce section: Molly Peterson. Her greens, bagged in biodegradable cellophane and labeled with a home-designed sticker, grow less than five miles from my home. In September, though, I’d have all the greens I needed from Tricia. I was looking for what would be missing: meat and sweet. I’d join Molly’s Season Extender CSA in October, but for now, her presence was nice but not necessary.
Why Not Fish? You Live Half a Mile from the Beach
I could have eaten clams if I would dig them . . . which was really more effort that I wanted to put out. I didn’t eat salmon because I had no access to fish caught within ten miles of my home. Yes, people were pulling them out of the South Whidbey waters by the dozens, but they were probably just passing through. They weren’t necessarily 10-mile local, spawned in one of the two salmon creeks on the island. I would have made an exception for Dungeness crab if I could have nabbed one. They creep around in Langley Harbor, probably not scuttling too far afield. Several times I went out in my little kayak and paddled around the dock, looking both hungry and hopeful as people with crab pots returned with their catch.
“Nice big ones!” I’d observe cheerfully.
“Yep.”
“Catch a lot?”
“Yep.”
“Guess you and your family are going to eat them all, eh?”
“Yep.”
“Well . . . enjoy!” I’d say, paddling on, feeling inappropriately deprived. I could have bought a license and pots and caught my own. If this experiment became a post-peak-oil way of life I might, but by then I’d be doing a lot of things differently.
The Four Exotics
I’ve noticed that as soon as I make a declaration that I will always this or never that, my inner shadow shows up like a film noir character to say, “Vraiment, chérie? Mais what about . . . ?” If I make a New Year’s resolution to be more kind, the next day my nemesis shows up in full irritating regalia. If I make a resolution to temper my eating, the next day I’m sitting down at a wedding feast.
And so it was that as soon as I accepted Tricia’s challenge my mind delivered my list of things I cannot live without and will never find in my ten miles. Even the most dedicated locavores seem to allow themselves a certain number of exotics, foods from outside their eating circle. It’s an acknowledgment that fair trading between regions is important, and that life gets a little dull without variety and a few treats. Some choose three foods, some five, some ten. I picked four.
My must-haves were oil (expeller-pressed, of course), lemons and limes, salt plus a few Indian spices, and caffeine. All my exotics are food enhancers, not food itself. They are literally the spice of life. We can live without spice. We can endure anything with concentration and will. But I wasn’t about to sacrifice these essentials. Whole continents have been discovered by brave men searching for spices!
Here’s my rationale for each one.
Oil is a necessity for preparing food. It gives food color and richness, makes it either crisp or moist, carries flavor, and keeps it from sticking to the pan. You can’t stir-fry without oil—or you’ll end up with a wok in need of a long soak. Salad dressed with the water it was washed in—that is far too much like dieting. Also, after years of vilifying fats, science now lauds some oils as necessary for heart health—and even sanity (omega-3s have alleviated bipolar illness, according to author Andrew Stoll’s research2).
Lemons and limes are medicine for me. I attribute the restoration of my liver to good health after my brush with death-by-chemotherapy to a morning glass of hot lemon water, and I drink it daily to this day. I consider it a prescription from my inner doctor. I tried to find a substitute—local apple cider gone to vinegar, perhaps—but didn’t find a supplier by September.
Salt and spices provide flavor. I discovered during the month of the challenge that my local herbs—oregano (growing wild in my yard), basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, cilantro, fennel—were lifesavers in making the same veggies daily into different dishes. But salt is food’s necessary accessory. Salt is bling. It is glow, glisten, shine, sparkle, depth, passion. Salt, in fact, does not even need to be explained. Yes, in that post-peak-oil scenario I could set up a seawater evaporation system (with sun as the energy source), but I wasn’t about to do that for my little 10-mile month. This was not about getting an Eagle Scout badge.
Indian spices are another matter. I can’t rationalize them except that my hands automatically add cumin, cinnamon, and curry when I cook. My passion for them is supported by more than two millennia of human history. Once Europeans tasted Asian spices they would travel by land and sea at great peril to have them. Perhaps they are even a drug for the taste buds, and if so, I was unwilling to give up my fix. Many studies find them full of healthy phy
tochemicals and even suggest they moderate blood glucose and reduce inflammation. So perhaps my insistence was my inner doctor again coming to call. Even here, if necessary, I could substitute. Coriander is the seed of cilantro. Fennel, in the celery family, also grows well here and the stalks themselves have a sweet anise flavor.
Caffeine because I need it. I mostly drink black tea and I wasn’t giving it up “for all the tea in China.” I wasn’t about to detox from caffeine along with detoxing from all foods beyond my ten-mile perimeter.
Having negotiated what could breach my dietary walls, I looked more deeply at what else might be necessary to survive the month.
The First Test of My “Yes!”
A few weeks before the starting gun, Tricia called to ask if I liked turnips. I wrote my first blog post:
Tricia brought me some garden “overstock” just before she went to visit in-laws in Iowa. “Do you like turnips?” she asked. Not having eaten them in years I said, “Of course,” as this is the response I’m choosing to have whenever Tricia offers me anything. I am going to live almost exclusively from what she grows for the month of September . . . and the turnips are only the beginning.
I can trade what she produces for a few things I just gotta have—milk, honey, vinegar, maybe a chicken or two—but our rule is that these have to come from within 10-miles of our town, Langley, WA. Plus we decided that we can include 10% “exotics”—tea, salt, oil—as traders have always come through towns selling spices and teas.
The question is: How local can you go . . . and still have everything you need . . . and not feel so deprived that you dive into a burger on Day 30.
So about the turnips, I cruised www.recipe.com for some ideas and went with boiling them in some chicken stock with three onions from her garden and some garlic left over from Eric’s garden (and salt! and spices) and blendered it for an amazing soup. She’d also given me some kale so I steamed and chopped that and garnished the soup (well, smothered it) and felt smart, well fed and happy to have started.
We get going in earnest in September. Meanwhile we are fine-tuning my 10% exotics and our trading partners for the 10-mile extras.
What’s the big deal, you might ask. People have homesteads all over the country. But this is an experiment of a partnership between a market gardener and a regular person who likes her treats and doesn’t grow enough to feed herself for more than a week a year. It is a community experiment. Not a rugged individual experiment. The bigger question is: in an era of declining energy and other resources and growing economic instability, in an era when living locally may be the rule, how well might we manage on our island fare? Can we feed ourselves? Through our little experiment we are beginning to map the food system in our community—who has what, how to prepare it, how to trade, how to flourish where we live.
So to answer the first question: Yes, I like turnips.
Clearly I’d be challenged in many ways this month. I’d eat things I rarely—if ever—ate, cook in ways I’d never cooked, miss my food rituals and flavors and habits. Food would not be a backdrop in a busy life. I wouldn’t be able to “grab a bite” and get back to work. For a month, food would be the main event. I’d spend time washing and peeling and slicing and chopping and boiling and sautéing and blendering food. I’d be grateful as never before that I actually had food to eat.
By August 31 I had it all lined up. Eight pounds of beef in the freezer. A big jar of honey on the counter. A milk pickup scheduled for the next evening. Limes from Van’s Produce. Plenty of Tetley British blend tea (produced by Tata, the Indian multinational corporation from tea grown on more than one hundred plantations in India and Sri Lanka). And a box of veggies from Tricia in the fridge (more on that in a bit). I gave away to friends everything perishable that was outside my perimeter. Finally, as my last act as a woman free to eat where I could, I took myself out to dinner at the only restaurant within twenty-five miles that served pad Thai. Nice, greasy, noodle-y, peanut-y, chicken-from-a-factory-farm-y pad Thai—my last meal before walking the plank off the ship of food from anywhere and into the murky waters of 10-mile eating.
I got immediate validation from the September 2 Transition Whidbey Potlucks with a Purpose, focused on preparing for their second annual September Eat Local Challenge. Pieces of butcher paper lined the walls of the Fellowship Hall at the Methodist Church labeled meat, cheese, grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, etc. Fifty of us bustled from page to page writing down the island suppliers we’d found for each category. I added some I’d discovered myself, but I was pleased to see that I’d left almost no stone unturned. I’d found just about everything others had found . . . and then some.
One category on the wall that night I hadn’t factored in, though, was gleaning. A group called the Gleeful Gleaners had formed at a Potluck with a Purpose the year before. Their goal: to identify fruit trees that went unpicked so the fruit could be harvested and donated to the Good Cheer Food Bank. It was a good reminder that if I couldn’t find what I needed from producers in my ten miles, I might find it for free in the forests and abandoned in fields. A group in Bellingham, Small Potatoes had been gleaning for years, bringing in six tons—yes, tons—of produce from local farms and delivering the fruits and vegetables to area food banks, soup kitchens, and feeding programs. They have agreements with more than a dozen local farmers who don’t want the food they’ve grown to go to waste.
Okay, I thought, ready to roll. Bring it on. I’m in. I’m up for it.
Now It’s Your Turn
Practice 1: Establish Your Home Base
Whenever you engage in change, you need to know your starting point. What do you eat now?
Start by making a list of the twenty-five (or more) foods you eat most frequently. Not the calories! Not the prices! Not the brands—like McDonald’s burgers or Clif Bars! Just the foods. If you can’t think of any, just open your fridge and cupboards and see what you have. If you want to be systematic, list foods under the following headings:
Fruits
Vegetables
Meats
Dairy
Nuts
Sweets
Grains
Prepared foods (sauces, mixes, soups)
Practice 2: Your Motivations
In making this personal top twenty-five list, you may become more curious about why you eat what you eat. Why these foods? Why not others? You’ve seen my hodgepodge list of habits, preferences, ethics, willful denial, addiction, and more. To review:
• Simple: not complex
• Cheap: a bargain
• Healthy: good for me
• Ethical: good for others
• Low-calorie: ain’t gonna make me fat
• Desire: I just want it
• Convenience: it’s handy
• Comfort: it soothes me
• Nostalgia: what I ate as a kid or at special events
• Because it’s there: unconsciousness
Make a list of your own. Ask: Who taught me to like these? Do I eat them from habit or conscious choice? How far do they travel from real food in a field to prepared food on my plate? Who grows and packages and distributes them?
Practice 3: Your Where
You can add a column to your list called “Where?” For each food, write down where it is grown and processed. If you come up blank, treat your industrial food outlet—better known as the grocery store—like a treasure hunt. Bring your list and clipboard and pen and check each food out. If the label doesn’t say, ask the produce manager or the store manager. They may not love you for this . . . yet. Later they’ll make you the star of their own story of going local.
Food, perhaps more than any other consumer product, is a mirror. Our obsession with diets—health and weight loss—obscures our natural capacity to know what our bodies need. A useful attitude for such inquiry is “no shame, no blame.” This is not a new
right way. This is you actually beginning to transform your relationship with food—and the hands that feed you.
Practice 4: Begin to Grow Your Own
Growing food used to be a shared endeavor on the part of the whole tribe. To be part of the shift to relational eating—to be part of the tribe—you need to grow at least one crop for home consumption. Fortunately, that’s as easy as buying some sprouting seeds and growing them on a windowsill. Sprouting is how you enter relational eating. It’s simple, it’s inexpensive, and it’s a great way to have green food every day—even in winter. Here’s how you do it (reading this may take more time than doing it):
Buy some sprouting seeds. You can get them in the bulk section of your store or online. I like the mix with alfalfa, radish, lentil, and others.
Put one to two tablespoons in a wide-mouth jar. There are sets of sprouting lids for mason jars that make rinsing easier, but you can use cheesecloth or muslin and a rubber band to keep it in place.
Fill the jar halfway with water. Put it out of the sun for a day.
Pour off the water through the sieve lid (or remove the muslin), rinse the seeds, pour off that water (replace the muslin if you are using that system), and tilt the jar in a bowl so the water drains.
Repeat whenever you think of it—a couple of times a day.
When the seeds begin to sprout, put the jar in a sunnier spot so the sprouts will eventually green up.
When the jar is full of sprouts and the leaves are green (after four to seven days), you’re done.
Rinse them in a big bowl to float off the hulls, then store them in a jar in the fridge. I like to put a paper towel in the jar to absorb extra moisture.
Voilà. You’ve planted seeds, watered them, and eaten them. Now you’re a food producer as well as consumer! That’s as local as you can get outside of the bacteria nursery called your intestinal tract.
Ready now to take on more? Anyone who knows me would suggest you look elsewhere for gardening advice, but I know that the best way to learn is on your hands and knees next to a real gardener. Then put a few seeds in the dirt yourself. You can plant in tubs on your balcony or on a patch of yard that you dig up and enrich with compost. Find out from a librarian or farm-and-garden store what grows well in your area so you have success! If you can get a plot in a community garden/pea patch, grab it. Gardening alongside other gardeners is a great way to learn.
