Animal, Vegetable, Kristen

Saturday was busy! First up was a lovely yoga session at Millenium Park downtown. Both Jessie and I were dragging ass to get there, but I am so glad we did; our favorite hippy-dippy instructor from last year was back! She's amazing; her routines are all about breathing and reaching to the sky and rooting yourself in the earth like a tree, but about halfway through you realize you are sweating your brains out and pushing your body harder than you would think from her manner and language. "Namaste, you guys! Awesome!" is her catchphrase. I love her.

Then we headed out west to pick up Babyfriend's mother and grandmother to go to the Oak Park farmer's market. Oak Park is great because there are lots of heirloom breeds of everything, plus cinnamon-sugar donuts and roasted corn cooked right at the market. I had one of each. :)

The skies opened up in the middle of our trip.







There was not a baby in that stroller. :)




It was even coming down between the cracks in the tent. Didn't let up for about 15 minutes. I bought some cippolini onions to pass the time. (And melon, and blackberries, and new potatoes, and red wine vinegar with garlic...)

Lunch was at Marion Street Cheese Market, where all the ingredients are purchased locally. It was stunningly good. There was roasted garlic soup with rutabega that I would kill to eat again, and a grilled cheese sandwich with 4 kinds of cheeses and a seeded wheat bread that fulfilled all my expectations.

Later that night, Hubby and I tried to go to the rooftop bar (Tabitha, it's at Old Orchard and called the Rooftop Bar at Wilde & Greene), but it was closed because the rain had been so bad all afternoon. Instead we went to Bonefish Grill, where we had a brilliant idea; since we weren't very hungry (and I had indulged at MSCM for lunch), we each ordered a drink and an appetizer (sashimi for him, wagyu beef and ginger dumplings for me). Hit the spot perfectly.

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Art display from the top of the Art Institute downtown.




Same shot using a fisheye setting.

Sunday was more topsy-turvy; after some yogurt, berries and cereal, I had to go into work to finish a critical project (ugh!). There may have been some peanut M&Ms during work. After that I stopped at McD's for a cheeseburger on the road. We made up for it with dinner, as Hubby grilled all of our favorites: plums, corn, onions, zucchini, and mushroom brats for him, wild-caught salmon burger for me. 

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Two books in rotation currently for me are Mark Bittman's Food Matters and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I finished AVM this weekend, and had a long talk with Hubby about it. Both books are about the "slow food" movement, the idea of moving away from convenience foods back to whole, homecooked meals. AVM covers one family's year of eating only locally-grown foods; most of what they ate they grew themselves on their farm, which of course is ridiculous for us. I can't even keep a basil plant alive.

That said, I can find a lot of locally-grown foods; Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan have many small farms around, many of which are part of either the farmer's markets in every town or are in a CSA (community-supported agriculture) association. We got a CSA box for a few years but the amounts were too much for us, and there were too many things we don't like. Farmer's markets (and Whole Foods) are better for our lifestyle because we can control the amount and types of foods we buy. There is also a local chicken store. Chicken! And eggs, and turkey, and all kinds of good stuff. (Hubby hates the smell of the place, but I don't mind. Fresh, free-range, no-hormone chicken, cut up anyway I like. I'm in!)

We've already started incorporating more local foods into our diet this summer, but now it will be more of a concerted effort. Kingsolver talks a lot about reducing one's carbon footprint (your food doesn't use as much oil to travel as far) but for me, the reasons for doing so are more selfish.  Eating locally forces us to eat more seasonally, to select foods that are available NOW and are at their freshest, and most delicious. We already do a lot of this, just from my years on Core:
-salads, peas, asparagus, and strawberries in spring
-zucchini, corn, new potatoes, cherries, berries, melons in summer
-pumpkin, squash, potatoes and Brussels sprouts in fall

Winter is tougher, of course; Kingsolver canned, froze, and pickled their summer bounty to get them through the winter. That's way beyond anything I am prepared to do. But we can continue with many of the fall veggies that are still available through the leaner months, and will probably indulge in my beloved citrus then (navel oranges!!!).

The slow food movement also pushes us to stop our reliance on processed foods. Again, we've already been moving in that direction; fast food has become an infrequent stopgap instead of a daily one. That stop at McD's was the first in weeks! Most days, cut up oranges and berries have replaced the candy bar on my desk. I am hoping in the next couple of weeks I can convince my husband to try homemade pizza for dinner; he used to make a great one when we first got married.

I am also ordering Deborah Madison's Local Foods. Her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone cookbook is amazing, even for a devoted meat-eater like me.

But mostly, it's about continuing to move in the direction we are already going: more vegetables and fruits, less processed foods, balanced and healthy meals.  And getting as much of that as we can from local vendors.

What about you? Do you try to eat locally? Any great tips to share?