Eat Local
In the Long Run

When I dived into the eat local fray over a year ago, I did it, I admit, mostly for the challenge. Since my attempts to lose weight had been failing, it would give me a new challenge. Something to do, so to speak. And the thing is, I never really succeeded much as a challenge. I had too many exceptions right from the start. I mean there's that whole eat out exception--that pokes a big hole through the framework; then there's my wine, my coffee, my olive oil, and when the Condiment Queen wanted to pack baby carrots in the kidz lunches, who was I to complain. The less I have cared, however, about the challenge, the more I have succeeded in eating local.

To some extent, I do better at eating locally because I am more committed than ever to the idea, to the benefits. I do best, though, because I have time and experience behind me (and ahead of me). It takes time to know how to eat local, or should I say that it takes experience to eat local. The biggest thing we learned, a big duh moment perhaps, but the biggest thing we learned that was even with two refrigerators, we did not have enough freezer space to effectively stock up. Related to that, we learned that extra freezers hardly cost. Costco had chest models for under $300. We ended up splurging on a huge stand up freezer for less than $500 from Sears. We have been freezing away.

Berries go flat on a tray for a day then into ziplocks; cherries get pitted and then put into various containers; we blanch the vegetables, green beans and asparagus and peas and most of the many ears of corn that arrive each week in the CSA; we will do the first wet pack peaches this week and soon it will be some tomatoes. The volume of the freezer is a luxury we adore. This will be our produce when the harvests end.

We still need time. We know that last year by mid-winter, we had barely any local produce left. Then, we were not even eating in as much, being local enough. Now, we use more but expect to need more. Will we have enough until next spring's first harvests? It will take at least a few years to know how much to store. Eating local is not just a challenge. It is a destination.