Wednesday night was the February Full Moon Fireside at the Community of the Holy Spirit (aka the Sisters at Bluestone Farm in Brewster, NY). An ordinary Fireside begins with half an hour of drumming, followed by half and hour of meditation, and then an hour and a half of discussion on the topic of the evening. This Fireside began with the drumming and then a movie, The Future of Food, and then a discussion. The movie is a well-made 2005 documentary discussing genetically modified foods, how life came to be patentable, and corporate control over the world’s food system. It was horrifying. As you might imagine, the discussion was intense. Some things we can do: grow our own food. Buy from local farmers. Do not buy food grown from Monsanto seeds, even if the farm is next door. By the way, if the farm is next door, don’t eat anything you’ve grown–you never know what the wind blew in.

Despite Monsanto, the evening ended up on sweet note, literally. We ventured out into the cold to watch the lunar eclipse but kept warm sipping sweet tea. Sweet tea is a liquid mid-stage between sap and maple syrup. It’s light and sweet and so very warm.

Laura at Urban Hennery posed a Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. She’s posted her personal rules and encourages others to make their own.

I’m in! I’m thinking that if I can’t get to 90%, I can at least have one local ingredient per meal. Does that sounds too easy? Wow– what progress! Three months ago, I probably had about one local item per month!

My partner has been sprouting seeds on the kitchen counter. We have an alfalfa, radish sprout mix and a chick pea, pea, lentil mix going. The sprouts are delicious and nutritious.

I read that sprouts contain an enormous amount of vitamins and nutrients and that you could give up taking vitamin pills if you eat sprouts daily. The idea appeals to me because I don’t believe in vitamin pills. How can we be sure that the chemists who formulated the vitamins took into account the associated food factors that make the vitamins actually work in human bodies. What’s the point of taking something that your body can’t absorb? What good is taking something that requires something else to be effective if the something else is missing? So, sprouts seemed like a great idea. It’s a living food!

It turns out there’s lots of disagreement on just how nutritious sprouts are. It seems some claims may have been overstated. So, I don’t know. (Can anyone point me to some authoritative information?)

Funny thing, I have been feeling better since I’ve been eating them (could be the placebo effect, and I’ll take it if it means feeling better!).

The bottom line: we grow them on our kitchen counter and you can’t get any more local than that!

Delicious nutritious sandwich:
Spread tahini on 2 lightly toasted slices of bread (I like the sprouted wheat kind from Alvarado Street Bakery*. Pile sprouts on each slice. Place two thick slices of local heirloom tomatoes on one pile of sprouts and cover with the other. Enjoy!

*Yeah, I know–the bread traveled 3000 miles to get to me; I’m hoping it averages out since the sprouts came from my kitchen and the tomato came from my back yard.
Anyone know a local baker that can bake sprouted wheat bread like the Alvarado Street Bakery?

In a previous post, I expressed envy that a particular supermarket has a delivery service. You order groceries from their Web site and they bring it to your door. That’s one of the perqs of living in the 21st century. Oh that local, sustainably-grown foods came with the same convenience.

As it happens, there are a few such services:
My Personal Farmers works with a number of local NY farms and will deliver anywhere in Westchester County, NY. Since I don’t live in Westchester County, I cannot use the service and am therefore unable to provide a review or any guidance whatsoever. It does seem like a very cool thing. I invite anyone with any experience with this service to share their experiences in the comments.

Organic Connection in Brewster, NY delivers to Westchester and Putnam counties in NY and Fairfield County in CT. How excited am I?!
More on this service once I’ve had a chance to try it out.