The 50 Mile Diet

I realize that some cheeses just can’t be moved from one continent to another. I understand that the land itself contributes to the flavor of the cheese. And I would never say that gruyere cheese made in Wisconsin can stand up to the wonderful smell and flavor of cheese from Gruyeres, Switzerland. I went there when I was 13, when I already loved cheese. Growing up in NY, my father’s ideal breakfast was a “cheese egg” with an onion roll and a plate of cheeses to cut from. So it was mine too. Stick a knife in the cheese and slice away…

I walked into town carrying my little instamatic by a strap on my wrist….saw the main square…and shot this photo.

I regularly try Gruyere cheese that I find in stores. I am hardly an expert, and in my mind, nothing was like that Swiss-made cheese. (I feel the same way about the quantities of chocolate I ate that summer in Switzerland.) Byerly’s is selling a Wisconsin gruyere. Is it reminiscent of that taste in my mind from way back then? Perhaps nothing can match my memory. But it is pretty good and I think worth a try. It is made by Rothkase.

You should have seen me run. My arms pumping, my breath hard, my legs moving fast. Me and those marathon-running women in Beijing. In reality, I was at the local health club, on a treadmill, with my speed about 4 mph. My virtual world. But I was actually running… and as far as I was concerned, I was in the lead pack. I dropped out at 45 minutes to go home and shower.

What a great time to try out some local shampoo and body soap. OrangeGinger by SunLeaf Naturals (Chaska, MN) is sold at Lakewinds. I admit that I like natural shampoos and soaps. It’s been many years since I’ve used Herbal Essence shampoo. I’ve tried all sorts of natural and organic products from Aveda’s Shampure to a bright orange carrot shampoo, to a honey bee waxy product, to lavender-scented meadow experience. While they all smell edibly great, they don’t all leave my long hair feeling clean and healthy.

This product is a bit different. It has no preservatives, synthetics, petrochemicals or, for that matter, plastic bottle. It looks exactly like a bar of soap. Okay…..so I hop into the shower, wet my hair and then do as the instructions say: “Simply rub the bar directly on wet hair and work into a lather; rinse.” Easy enough. With long hair, I was doubting it would work. With this wonderful scent emanating from the bar, I rubbed it on my head. It lathered! Rinsing, I had that squeaky-clean Breck kind of feeling. Nice. After showering, I let it dry naturally, because that’s where I can really tell how my hair feels. After the women’s Olympic marathon ended, I checked out my hair. It looked and felt clean, healthy, and wavy not frizzy. Very impressive.

SunLeaf Naturals makes other products as well, including candles and this innovative dish and hand soap for the kitchen. It’s a soap bar on a stick. Again, minimal packaging. Holding the “popsicle” stick, you run water over it for soap, releasing the GrapefruitGinger scent. I tested it on the pan I’d used to make enchiladas. Grease-free!

If you’re curious about these products and looking to eliminate carbon footprint not only from the food you buy but from the products you use in the kitchen and bath, this is worth trying.

I’m no expert on tomatoes, heirloom or otherwise. But heirloom tomatoes often have a distinct “irregularity” to their shape and have colors varying widely from the traditional “perfect” grocery store red tomato. Some heirlooms are downright ugly. In a general sense, an heirloom tomato is cultivated and nurtured, selected and passed down through the generations (seeds with a heritage!).

Their flavor and heritage is worth trying! I found these three varieties at Marshall’s in Eden Prairie: a Nyagous, a green Red Lightning and a Golden Girl. The flavor is really outstanding. And you can’t beat the beautiful colors of this tomato salad…

The first week of August seems early for fall berries. But AppleJack Orchards said the picking was good! My son and I drove the 32 miles out to Delano to see what we could pick.

It was quiet, sunny, sultry and the plants were full of good sized berries. We picked about 8 pounds of berries. I had forgotten how much harder raspberry picking is than strawberries! With strawberry picking, I found I could sit or stretch out alongside the plants and pick quickly. Raspberry picking is more of a hunt. Sometimes you stand and lean in, other times you can sit, but most of the time you’re looking for that really ripe gorgeous berry next to his less ripe cousins. Perhaps it’s still a bit early? After I’d filled a few containers, I laid down in the hay and dirt between two rows of plants, stretched out my back, and felt that this was a moment to remember…the sheer wonder of all these crazy berries and being able to be out there with my teenage son picking. (at least HE was picking!)

In the evening, I pulled out the pectin, the jars, and the rest of my canning equipment and made two batches of raspberry jam (one with reduced seeds….thanks to the Foley mill). Sixteen more jars of jam for the pantry!

Corn. My son doesn’t like it. My daughter thinks it’s okay. And I think it’s a magical food. Good fresh off the plant, good simply cooked, good with butter and salt. It doesn’t matter much to me. Roast it, boil it, just serve it up.

I visited the Chanhassen Farmer’s market today. Open only on Saturday mornings, and quite small, I don’t go there often. But I think it’s worth making this a regular stop on the local eating circuit. First, by giving them my business, I become part of making it successful. Getting there costs hardly anything in terms of gas costs. And the folks there are my farmer neighbors.

Tom and his wife grow some really awesome corn. Although he claims the real sweet stuff will be ready next week, I can’t imagine an ear of corn tasting any better than this. I’m going to head back next week to get enough to freeze some so I can have this treat all winter long.

This market has a small number of diverse stands — produce, flowers, soaps, meat (happy cows, pigs and lamb), and Great Harvest Bread Company.

Check it out if you’re in the area. Right behind City Hall — with signs out on W. 78th directing you where to go. Look for the little tents. Visit everyone — and don’t forget Tom’s corn.

My favorite part of local eating is the berries. It’s eating berries. And more than that, it’s the picking of berries and deciding all the wonderful things I can do with them. That’s how I ended up with 36 pounds of strawberries. Self-pick blueberries aren’t easy to find in the “neighborhood” (Stillwater, Champlin) and so the season passed me by. Raspberries are next! They have an early and late summer season, as I understand it. I’m ready!

This spring, I planted four raspberry shrubs in the back. I don’t expect much from them this year. I see about four berries all told. It’s pretty sad looking at there. More stick than leaves. I’m watching these berries like a hawk (or like the bunny who lives under my deck). It might be a race who gets to them first. And then I’ll go picking at a farm.

A dragonfly seemed to like the raspberry plants as well — but you can see how bare they are!

I didn’t go to Donna’s At the Farm specifically for a ride. Of course not. There are no rides there. It’s a farm market, after all. I went to share a jar of my mulberry jam. And so after watching everyone stick a spoon into the jam and see what it tasted like, I decided to buy the fixings for ratatouille. I found tomatoes, zucchini (green and yellow), onions, garlic, pepper — but I didn’t see any eggplant. It’s a main ingredient for ratatouille, so I figured I was out of luck for dinner.

“Eggplant? I think I saw one in the garden,” Donna said.
“Can I go get it?” I asked, offering to go down to the fields.
“No, come on. We’ll take the cart.”

Donna drove us down in a little green cart into the fields. Everything was fresh after the incredibly heavy rains we had this morning. Green fragrant, beautiful. As we drove between the plantings, I realized the craziest thing: I didn’t know what an eggplant plant looked like. What better example of the distance we’ve come from our food when you can’t even recognize the plant your vegetable grows on. Lucky for me, Donna knows her stuff. She stopped the cart and walked out into the muddy field and picked me two gorgeous eggplants!

Sometimes it’s the little things in life…

Yes, it’s true. The 12-week fitness class I signed up for comes with a nutritionist. And a healthy eating plan.

Does local eating equal healthy eating? Yes, but. The choices of food one gets when one eats healthy are — with the exception of my wonderful ice cream and chocolate — quite healthy. And having eliminated all boxed foods (except for occasional cereal) and all foods with preservatives and corn byproducts is healthy as well. But I suspect that my high fat diet has had an impact on the degree to which my local diet is healthy.

Alas, Lindsey. She explained how this nutritional plan (also known as a diet) works. She explained this to me while I jogged on a treadmill (when you’re short, 4 mph is jogging) with my heart rate at its threshold. (Threshold defined as the point where my breathing is labored, my muscles burn, and I sweat.) I think the timing was good. Anything to distract me from what my body was doing was a good thing! I agreed to whatever she said. And now, not only am I working out with the class three times a week, but I’m keeping track of what I eat.

I took a trip out to Donna’s At the Farm to see what local produce I could use for this new strategy — to eat local, get fit and lose some weight. As I already had figured out, the farms are about 3 weeks behind schedule. I did get a local onion, tomato, musk melon and some Michigan blueberries. In addition, I got some other non-local fruit. As I noted at the end of last summer in evaluating my local eating diet, my goal is to be aware of my food and its path to me, to know if it’s pesticide free or not, to buy local when I can and to support the local farmer. So despite my discomfort at buying southern nectarines and plums today, I bought them….and man, that nectarine was simply amazing!!!!

For one thing, eating these sugar snap peas might bring back memories of when you were a kid. They did for me.

But I haven’t tasted any peas as sweet and wonderful as these from Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables (Winona, MN) that I found at Lakewinds today. Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables is an 80 acre family produce farm, certified organic. These peas are outstanding. Oddly enough, I couldn’t decide if I should pop the whole pea in my mouth or open it up and eat just the inner peas.

Does it really take this little to make me happy?

I waited patiently for the strawberry picking season to begin. Close to home, in Waconia, MN, is Mike Klingelhutz Berries. Armed with an assortment of containers, I headed out early this morning. Owner Colleen showed me my row. My row. I began at one end and kept going. Like a compulsive gambler, I kept going. Up one side of the row and then down the other. I laid in the straw, leaning into the plants. I couldn’t help myself. I kept picking.

Did I know it was a lot? Not really. Did I know it was a lot when she weighed the heavy containers? No. Did I know when Colleen gave me my total of $39 and said it was 26 pounds? No again. All I knew was that I was lucky, going home with the most gorgeous and delicious strawberries I’ve eaten ever. Did I know it was a lot when I got home and my daughter said, “Wow!”? Nope. Did I know it was a lot when I made four batches of jam in one day, froze 2 quarts, and still have a lot left? Yes. Now I know. I picked a lot of strawberries. I’ve made a lot of strawberry jam. And some decisions remain about what to do with the rest. Perhaps tomorrow I can make some more jam?

But let me tell you something. Stretched out in the row pulling berries from a bush, the swallows and crows overhead, the smell of the fresh strawberries…I was in heaven.

These berries don’t look like the ones in the plastic containers at the grocery store. These berries are so perfectly shaped, so temptingly red, you just can’t wait to pop one in your mouth. I was picking in a row of honeoye variety strawberries (they have others too). This isn’t the only local farm growing pick-your-own strawberries. But I highly recommend this farm. Also delicious honey from bees on their property. Call them for directions or for picking times and conditions at 952-442-2515. But don’t wait. It’s the season now!

It’s been busy in my garden. It’s not a big garden, but finally, the strawberries are ripe. These are not jam-making berries. These are pop-them-in-your-mouth quickly berries. These are the berries you eat to remind yourself how fresh local food can taste — and how local your own backyard can be. Strawberries picked out on a beautiful nearly summer day are warm, so warm that when you bite into them they are surprising and soft, the warmth simply not what you expect from a strawberry.

And what did I mean by “busy?” I finally figured out why my dog has been circling the garden, wagging her tail. I found a bunny nest, lined with dog fur right in the tall grass that grows against the garden fence. (the rabbit fence) The bunnies were born and then crawled right under the fence into the garden. Too small to reach the strawberries. But interesting enough creatures to make the dog excited.

Butter is a wonderful thing. I like it on bagels and toast. I like to sautee onions in it. Despite this, I don’t eat too much butter, so I figure I’m better off eating it than margarine. Read the ingredients on margarine…you might not want it after that. If I want to eat corn, I’ll eat corn.

The question is, which one of the local butters should I buy? Answer: All of them. And do a taste test.

I found some willing tasters over at the PROP Shop, a terrific local resale store staffed by volunteers. I figured no one would mind if they took a few minutes off to taste test butter since no one was being paid. Seven people sat down to test the butter.

The butters were numbered but unlabeled, and sliced on plates. Fresh Italian bread was sliced into pieces. Each person got to try each butter (and try again) and then comment. Four butters were served, Grassland salted ($3.49, Wisconsin), Organic Valley unsalted ($5.79, Wisconsin), Pastureland unsalted ($5.99, Minnesota) and Hope unsalted ($3.69, Minnesota).

Two are organic — Pastureland and Organic Valley, which may explain their higher prices. And Pastureland’s paper wrapper has the most compelling description of the butter, if one is so inclined to read the packaging.

But this was a taste test. Let me comment that none of the tasters regularly eat butter on their bread, something I found interesting. But here’s what they noticed.

When all four butters were set out on plates next to each other, they found the yellow color of the Organic Valley and Pastureland disturbing. The other two butters were much paler in color. They almost unanimously preferred Grassland’s taste, texture and color. Some also found Hope butter flavorful and tasty. The Organic Valley butter was described as “oily,” and “slippery.” This was overall the least favorite of the butters. Pastureland was “okay,” and “nothing special” but still seen as tasting good.

If you’re after organic, try Pastureland. If organic is not a priority (like for me), give Grassland butter a try. It was the salted butter in the four, but nobody noticed it as salted, although it may explain its preferred taste. For me, given the price and taste, I think I’m going to add Grassland butter to my purchases, but I’ve been a fan of Hope butter since I began focusing on local Minnesota products.

We do eat instant oatmeal here both for breakfast or snacks. My son prefers Quaker Instant Oatmeal, regular flavor. Regular flavor means no flavor to me. To him too since he adds 1/4 cup of brown sugar to it. I, however, have been searching for the perfect instant oatmeal. Since I’ve had so much trouble finding local breakfast food other than eggs, I have decided that at least I’ll buy the healthier kinds of cereals, wherever the state of origin.

Quaker has come out with a new product (or perhaps just new packaging) called “Simple Harvest” All natural instant multigrain hot cereal. The packaging is really well done — it’s a clean “natural” look and has see-through bags so you know just what you’re buying before you get home. I’m halfway through a box of it — the Vanilla, Almond and Honey flavor. It is super!

The ingredients are only: whole grain rolled oats, whole grain rolled wheat, rolley barley, whole grain rolled rye, sugar, almonds, whole flaxseed, oat flour, natural flavors, salt and molasses. (This begs the question, what does rolled mean?) Despite the fact that I don’t like the fact that there are natural flavors that are unmentioned, and that vanilla is not mentioned … it is really good. The other products have far more ingredients that need a chemistry book to understand (yeah, even the Kashi product).

Nutritional comparisons of the regular Quaker Oats, this product, and my standard fare Kashi oatmeal are hard to do given different size packages (Quaker Oats/regular are smaller than the others). This new oatmeal is lower in sodium than the others. Protein is similar to the Kashi, but higher than the regular Quaker product. It has less iron — something that is listed as an actual ingredient on the regular oatmeal. It has less of various nutrients, but I think that’s because of the fewer additives to the product.

If what you want is good taste and ingredients you can pronounce and identify visually if you saw them on the counter, try this new product.