Update for summer of 2011

If you are following this blog you may recall that last summer I spent 1 month only consuming products from the state I live in, Indiana. This year I have taken up a new challenge for 1 month to try and improve the environment I am planting a tree every day for the month of September. I am blogging about it, almost every day, at http://www.kibi.org. I'm just going to post on Keep Indianapaolis Beautiful's website.

The Christmas Tree Dilemna

I know its been awhile since I did a post, but here is one I wrote up for KIB's website. I have one more I'm working on about locavore holiday shopping, but I'm not sure it will be written in time to be useful for anyone.

www.kibi.org

Harvest and Dig-IN!

I am very excited for this weekend! There are so many great things happening in the area. I did a quick preview that was published on Indy Hub's website. Here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/2atca34

Fried Butter

I received a very exciting up date, there is fried butter at the Indiana State Fair! I feel my arteries hardening as I type this. Can't wait for Tuesday, I'll have a full report on all the fried goodness later in the week. For now I am heading to the markets. I will begin gathering data for my farmers market / grocery store comparison.

1 week later

Its been a week since my July experiment has ended and not much is different. Most of the food, cleaning supplies, and health and beauty items in our house are local, but I have had a bit more processed food, and my body has not been happy. I've had some heartburn and a few other bodily maladies that did not happen at all in July. Here are a few of the things that have reverted back for me:

• I have soda, a lot of it. I went to McDonalds specifically to get a Coke, it just tastes better there.
• Last Sunday, Maureen and I went to Qdoba.
• I've been less thoughtful about where I get my gas from. I was down to fumes so I coasted in Meijer, though I think I am going to make Gas America my preferred.
• We went to Costco and bought Cottonelle toilet paper. It is so much softer than 7th Generation (on a side note, in the past month Costco has apparently transitioned from Charmin Ultra Soft to Cottonelle...I'm not sure how I feel about that...more news there as events warrant).
• I'm now alternating between my hair gel and the commercial stuff. Mine works better, it just takes a lot longer to work into my hair.

Most activities will be the same still have a local flare to them. Blake and I are excited to get up tomorrow morning to go the markets. We are picking up cupcakes for his and Pearl's birthday party. We will be having 5 dogs at our house tomorrow to celebrate. Afterwards I'm going to pull the cucumber plants out of my garden so I can plant my tomatilo plant in the ground.

The exciting activity of the week was going to KIB tonight. As a part of IDADA First Friday, they had an art exhibit of paintings and sculptures that people made from the Hoosier Dome roof. They were so cool. I'll get a picture or two up in the next day or two. As August has kicked off I am really excited for 3 things:

Indiana State Fair: Its the year of the pig with lots of great Pork Specialities. We are going on August 10th, because it is the best day of the fair. There are coupons for $2 admission and a lot of the food vendors give smaller portions of their food for $2. Top of my list to find is the deep fried bacon and my all time favorite deep fried oreos. Sadly, I haven't found any mention of the fair doing deep fried butter, but I'll be looking for it!

Harvest - This is Second Helpings annual fund-raiser where some of the best chefs in the city come together to prepare appetizer portions of their food that is thoughtfully paired with wine. The event is @ Second Helpings in the evening on Saturday August 28th. Chefs from the Best Chocolate in Town, Circle City Sweets, R Bistro, Napolese, and many others will be there. There are also great auction items.

Dig-IN - This is a new event this year that you will see me tweeting / blogging / facebooking (is that a word?) over the next month. Here is a description from their website:

On August 29, 2010, Indiana growers will make their way to White River State Park to showcase their high quality locally produced products, and remind Hoosiers there is much more than corn in Indiana. Dig-IN will feature educational discussion panels, cooking demonstrations, urban gardening exhibits, local chef Q&A sessions, wine tastings, beer and food pairing classes, and much more. Combining the freshness of farmer's markets and our state's greatest food minds, this event promises a feast for the senses. Prepare to learn from Indiana agricultural and culinary experts as they invite you on a journey from field to table top. Don't miss the opportunity to help us celebrate all that Indiana agriculture has to offer. See you in August!

That's about it for tonight. I'm heading back into the kitchen for about 10 minutes to bottle 6 quarts of mint iced tea I made tonight. I have found the left over milk bottles from Trader's Point are a great way to store simple syrup or iced tea.

Cinnamon Toats Crunch

August 1st. I made it. I went 1 month where I would estimate that my consumption was nearly 95% Indiana. I found new things I liked and new things that didn't quite work out, but today is August 1st and the month of July is over. Does this mean I'm running to Mc D's for an egg mcmuffin and then headed to Applebees for lunch? Probably not, I didn't go to those places to frequently before hand, but it means some simple things are now back in my daily routine.

The first of those is breakfast cereal. I love cereal. I love the healthy Kashi cereals and the super sugary cereals, so to celebrate this morning I had a bowl of cereal for the first time in a month. I have had local made granola, but no cereal. It was wonderful and I feel I now have a great burst of energy that should last me at least 5 minutes.

I don't expect most other things will change. My garden is just now in full bloom. Yes I've had a few cherry tomatoes available and cucumbers, but now I have everything else coming in finally. I also will continue to source most produce locally.

I also wanted to follow-up on a post from two weeks ago on the Indy Hub website. I had talked about the dairy tour Maureen and I were going to take. That happened yesterday. It wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. My first misconception was that I thought we were
going to the visit Swissland cheese, but it was the Swiss Connection (also a great farm that I have purchased products from). Swissland is one of my absolute favorites, so that was a little disappointing. I did realize this before we went on the trip yesterday, but we had already committed and paid for the trip and it still was a chance to visit 2 farms in Indiana which was pretty cool.

The second misconception was a much bigger one. It was a tour of two dairy farms, but the real emphasis of the trip was on raw milk (i.e. no pasteurization). I knew that there were some dairy farms in Indiana that produced raw milk, but I had no idea of the culture that surrounded it. The other people on the tour were all huge supporters of raw milk and were greatly concerned about their rights to drink it and the governments general stance against it. In Indiana it is legal for farms to either sell raw milk as a product for pets or through a club where you technically own a share of the cow and the farmer is just extracting product for you. It is not legal to sell raw milk to the general public, at least not in Indiana. Had I known that the real focus of the day was going to be on this I likely would have passed and chosen the Best of Indy event at Sunking, particually since it benefitted the Humane Society of Indianapolis.

None of this is to say I didn't enjoy the day or learn a lot. At the Swiss Connection we learned how butter and cheese are made (also saw a demonstration). The best part though was sampling a large varietyof their cheese. At the second farm we took an entire tour. Maureen snapped this picture (not such a flattering angle) of me going into a chicken coop to gather eggs. There were also two amazingly cute puppies at the second farm we played with a lot! It was fun visiting the two farms, but not sure it was worth the 4.5 hours in car to get to both farms and back home.

I may have a second breakfast now, I'm pretty excited about the eggs I gathered, farmhand discount of only $2 a dozen. Can't beat that.

A different type of local

Here is a link to my final regularly scheduled Indy Hub post. I will be keeping this site live at the end of the month. I will also still contribute to the blogs @ Indy Hub and KIB, just not as frequently. Though the experience I describe in my blog isn't a new one this week, it is probably my favorite local experience in Indy.

http://indyhub.org/article.aspx?ItemID=326