Day 2 - The Benjamins

Eating within a 100 mile radius is expensive.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the events I attended yesterday, I also blew a lot of money on food – and only enough to last one person about a week. If I am going to continue eating locally and not give my husband a massive coronary I will need to be picky about prices, too.

Economies of scale allow the food industry to mark down prices on food that's not so good for us, and hidden costs in non-local, processed, and non-organic foods (diabetes, autism, environmental effects, unstable economic conditions, unfair labor practices) far outweigh the increased prices of local and organic foods. The hope is that with more demand on the local food system and the organic food system, we can change this. Here is a great article on the costs of organics if you’re interested.

For about $130 I was able to purchase:
1 medium chicken, 4 peaches, 1 head of lettuce, a basket of baby artichokes, a small bag of pistachios, a basket of yellow cherry tomatoes, 4 beets, a dozen eggs, a bottle of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, 2 small jars of apple cider, ½ lb. cheese., a dozen oysters, 1 lb mussels, and some honey.

Now I realize that I was also purchasing mostly non-produce, which is why the tab ran me so high, but we receive a Community Sponsored Ag (CSA) box weekly from John Given’s Farm, and I needed things to supplement the produce we’re already getting. These produce boxes give us more than we can even eat on a given week (that should change with this challenge), and it is affordable and fresh. If you’re interested in joining a CSA, you can check for one in your local area here.

Something I won’t be buying local again, to my great dismay, was the cheese. I spent the morning researching local cheeses, only to find one dairy within my purchasing area, Rinconada Dairy, that raises the animals, makes the cheese, and is sold here in town. I bought 2 types of the Rinconata Cheese, ‘La Panza’ and ‘Chaparrel’ at C’est Cheese on Santa Barbara St. (sidenote - I could spend all day here). Although the cheese was delicious, at $28 a pound, not the type of everyday cheese I was looking for.

Artisan cheese from SLO. This is what $28/lb cheese looks like:

I was invited over to my friend Blair’s mom’s house for dinner. Blair's mom, Leticia, is a local-eating guru. She doesn't waste anything, down to rabbits that her cat Mocha drags into the house. She and her husband Tim grow most of their own food. They had fig, orange, lemon, grapefruit, and pomegranite trees, peppers, corn, fennel, tomato, brussel sprouts, lettuce, etc, etc, etc. I was really happy to see jars and jars of home-canned fruits lined up in their kitchen. This is something I've been meaning to learn how to do. Now isn't this a good way to lessen the cost of eating local? Unfortunately not all of us have such nice, lush gardens, but most of us do have a little room enough for a tomato bush or herbs, right? Also, canning that leftover fruit and vegetables from our CSA boxes will be great in the winter when the variety is limited.

Leticia and Tim's Garden:
Fig, Honey, and Cheese plate (fig compliments of their garden):
Something exciting about eating locally is the wine! Lucky for us we live in one of the best places in the world to buy local and organic wines. I'm using this challenge to my full advantage and am planning on sampling a number of them.

Pigeon feathers stuck in the label of one bottle made me smile. This wine must not have travelled far to get to my glass.

What did I eat?

• 2 Peaches from an organic farm in Lompoc (54)
• Free-Range chicken (44) from Healthy Family Farms cooked in Leticia's lemon (0), rosemary from our yard (0), avocado blossom honey (9.5) from San Marcos Farms, and mmmm my favorite local olive oil (34) from Olive Hill Farm
• Santa Barbara Pistachios (64, farm in Maricopa)
• Santa Barbara Winery Chardonnay - (51, grapes grown in the Santa Rita Hills, made in Santa Barbara)
• Rinconada Cheese (104) with Leticia's figs (0) and honey (counted above)
• Mill Rd. Apple Cider - oops! This apple cider was over 100 miles, from Paso Robles - minus points! (123)

Grand Total: 483 miles