One Local Summer: Southern, week 12 & 13

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Wrapping up the summer here in the Southern region with a 2-week double-header report. It’s hard to believe fall is already here but I think I speak for the group when I say we’ll be continuing to celebrate our local food sources well beyond the end of the challenge.

Tennessee

Kristina the Tennessee Locavore reflects on “a world where we don’t have to see the consequences of our actions, at least when it comes to the meal on the kitchen table.” She describes her guilt at catching fish for dinner, and the need to treat our food and farmers with respect and reverence. She cooked the trout with brown butter sauce and capers and served it with roasted Dragon Langerie, Masai and Purple Trionfo Violetto beans from her garden; for dessert, a blueberry cornmeal cake made with local blueberries and local cornmeal.

Melissa of Bridgman Pottery is also in a contemplative mood, reflecting on making more with less, and shares a meal of corn grits topped with sausage, roasted eggplant, garden tomatoes and basil.

Sarah of A Girl Named Go finds room in her produce-crowded kitchen to make homemade roasted red pepper hummus. Is there any better party appetizer?

District of Columbia

Erin of New at the Market prepares a simple meal of Russian banana peppers, a hard boiled egg, tomato slices and berries, just like in France but without that gorgeous scenery (or obnoxious tourists).

Virginia

Nancy of Summer Sky: Learning As I Go made Julia Child’s mayonnaise for local BLTs, that quintessential sandwich of summer, along with cold corn chowder last week; she went all out for the final meal of the challenge and made all-local, totally-from-scratch vegetable lasagna. Even the noodles! Go check it out.

Jasmine of Knitting 40 Shades of Green attended the 7th annual Slow Food dinner at Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm, and documents the local feast for the rest of us to experience vicariously. Personally, I’m drooling over the crab cake atop fresh sweet corn.

Nana Sadie of Nana Sadie’s Place found all the ingredients for ratatouille in her CSA bag last week, another perfect end-of-summer dish.

Here at FoodieTots, we round-tripped north in pursuit of artisan, farmstead local cheese (including a visit to the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival), preserved a small batch of tomatoes, made cold plum soup, and plotted to keep the “eat local” love alive into the fall harvest. Please stop by and share what you’re cooking or preserving for winter.

Thanks to Farm to Philly for hosting another great OLS year. See you next summer!
- Colleen