The author and her daughter in the kitchen (Photo courtesy Jessica Stegner)
I’ve always imagined that someday I’d be the kind of person who cooks completely local meals with my family, inspired by whatever is in season. I’d pick up a beautiful beet at the farmer’s market and know exactly what to make with it. In this perfect version of me, maybe I’d cook everything from scratch and take up canning.
But the harsh reality is that I’m not that person. I don’t have the time or bandwidth to ever be that person. Instead, I plan the week’s dinners around what is fast and easy, healthy, fits our busy schedule, and matches the changing weather. That list dictates what I buy from the store.
And lord knows, I don’t need another variable to throw into the mix.
But this summer had me thinking more about where the ingredients I feed my family come from. Recalls on lettuce and jalapeños and eggs (and pretty much all food) left me feeling a deeper need to actually feel a connection to my food sources.
Every summer, my family enjoys our neighborhood farmer’s market. Typically, we end up buying the same things: berries, peaches, maybe one other thing that looks good. But this summer, I started intentionally buying actual ingredients for meals instead of just the berries we finish eating before we even get home.
It felt good.
September is officially Eat Local Month in Washington. But as the weather cools and the summer market ends, we probably won’t make many special trips to other farmers’ markets because honestly, we just won’t have time.
So what do I do now?
I asked a couple of local chefs to help me figure this out.
Chef Maty Rowley, owner of Red Clog Kitchen, focuses on local seasonal ingredients (Photo courtesy Maty Rowley)
Maty Rowley is the owner and chef behind Red Clog Kitchen, a prepared meal delivery business that builds its weekly menus around local, seasonal ingredients.
Her favorite vegetable to cook with right now is corn.
“We’ve gotten a lot this summer from Alvarez Organic Farms and have used it in everything from corn cookies and summer picnic dips to pasta salads and chilis,” she said. For busy parents, she recommends cowboy caviar.
My daughter and I actually made cowboy caviar this summer, and she loved it.
But we used canned corn. Why didn’t it even occur to me to use local corn while it’s in season? In fact, I currently have leftover corn on the cob in the fridge and an heirloom tomato on my counter from the farmer’s market.
Cowboy (Photo courtesy Jessica Stegner)
I can make this same thing more local. I don’t necessarily need to change what we cook.
Chef Rowley also loves beets.
I love them in restaurants, but cooking them at home has always felt intimidating and messy. She told me they’re basically as easy as cooking potatoes.
So I gave it a shot. I baked them in foil.
And she was right. The skins slid right off with a paper towel.
Another chef I talked with, Josh Ryder from Betty Bar and Restaurant in Queen Anne, opened my eyes to another idea.
“Pears are overshadowed by apples, but don’t sleep on pears!” he told me. He suggested adding them to pancakes with cinnamon or making grilled cheese with Brie, pear slices and hot honey.
Coincidentally, my family had just picked up some beautiful pears at the grocery store. We could eat them plain, like always, or feel real fancy by incorporating them into a meal like Josh.
Now, I plan to add chopped pears to our pancakes this weekend.
And Chef Ryder brought up another point: Some Seattle grocery stores offer fantastic local produce. While getting groceries this weekend, I started paying more attention to labeling. Some stores even put big, obvious “local” signs over it.
I think that’s my biggest realization from all of this. Eating locally doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I can make the meals we already love with a local ingredient, notice what’s in season and let it inspire next week’s meal plan, or simply choose the local option when I see it.
And hopefully, as I get better about noticing where our food comes from, my daughter will grow up thinking about it too.
So am I going to become the idealized version of myself overnight? No. But I can make a few easy adjustments to get closer to her.
I can pay more attention. I can buy more from farmer’s markets than just the berries and flowers. I can swap ingredients for locally grown ones when available.
And apparently, I can even buy the beets.
Local beats are as easy to cook as potatoes (Photo courtesy Jessica
Dining and Cooking