Fall Favorites

Tomorrow is the first day of October. Where does the time go? It is funny how you can see the season progress through the farmers' markets. [BRB, have to watch a news segment on skinny whales as requested by mom.] I don't have any pictures yet but here's a quick run down of the bounty at the local market: apples- lots of them (it seems like everyone has apple trees), corn- very tasty, potatoes, onions, squash (incl. pumpkins), greens, beets, carrots, and still some tomatoes that they are trying to unload but at this point everyone is sick of tomatoes. If you didn't buy them, no doubt you know someone who grew them and had PLENTY to share with neighbors. I've gotten to the point where I am now buying stuff to cut and freeze for the winter. I'm too lazy to figure out canning, pickling, etc. but I can slice up a few peaches to save for later.

Last week I made my first apple pie of the season; it was a huge hit! (Tip: It's all in the crust and keeping you fats as cold as possible until it's ready for the oven.)

When you have a moment, check out this link http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ about sustainable communities. The website asks you a series of lifestyle questions and figures out how many earths would be needed if everyone lived like you do. It's a bit of a silly exercise because there is no way everyone would live the same way but it gets you thinking about stuff like your commute to work.

Animal Attraction

This post actually has NOTHING to do with my eating local experiment but something very strange happened today that I thought I'd share.

So no sh*t, there I was... sitting by the lake in Lincoln Woods this afternoon when things got weird. After sitting on the rocks, not 1 foot from the water's edge, 5 Canada geese swam over to me. They were closely followed by 2 ducks. The parade of pan-handling birds obviously thought I would give them food. When they realized I didn't have anything, they literally turned their tail feathers in my face and swam away. About 15 minutes later, after the birds had moved to others along the shore, I looked down and there was a minnow in the water. This minnow was swimming as close to the waterline as possible and still stay submerged. I wasn't feeding him either. The minnow must have sent out some sort of bat signal because 2 more fish swam up to me. The water in the shallow area was pretty clear so I KNOW they saw me.

While observing all this I was thinking that in the most remote parts of the world where animals don't see humans, they don't know to fear them. However, Lincoln Woods is pretty popular with people so I figured these birds and fish are being fed and are a bit more domestic than your garden variety wildlife. Please Don't Feed the Bears. Put the "Wild" Back in Wildlife.

Global Warming- Weighing the Risks

Have you seen Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth?" . Although it tends to be a bit on the extremist side of things, there are a key issues that are worth thinking about. Check it out if you can. My friend Marco recently sent me this clip from You Tube where a guy talks about the risks of our actions vs. inaction when it comes to addressing the human impact on global warming. Check out the clip at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ.

Hope High School Farmer's Market

Farmer's Market Saturday! For Tara and Jeff who will be moving to Providence in the fall, here is what you guys can look forward to on Saturday mornings. The market is open Saturday mornings from 9:30 until 12:30. I suggest going early otherwise some of the lines get long. There's usually some guy playing music there as people mill about from stand to stand with their dogs and kids in tow.

Fruit is in season now and my new treat are sugar plums. They are little plums about he size of those really large gumballs. And true to their name, they are sweet.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods is now carrying produce from some of the local RI farms! But, get to the local farmer's markets if you can b/c the lettuce at the store was much smaller than at the stands and for roughly the same price. Good to see them in a large chain store though.

More Bounty

The Farmer's Market down at Hope High School in Providence yielded a bounty of goodies (see photo). I was so excited to see the berries and the cherries (grown in CT). The large zucchinis will be used to make zucchini bread. The fruit and beans will be snacks. The arugula will be part of a salad with roasted beets and goat cheese from Massachusetts.

I think I've out did myself with tomato and mozz. sandwiches lately so I'm going to have to come up with other ideas for lunch.

Local Liquor

There is an abundance of local brews but recently I came across a fun find. Cold River Vodka is distilled in Maine in Maine from Maine potatoes. I haven't had vodka in a while, this one is very smooth and runs a bit on the pricey side. I also saw a vodka from Nantucket which came in flavors.