Local Thanksgiving Part II

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful (and successful!) Thanksgiving. Bebeth, Mark, Sabine, Deborah, and Proctor joined Arthur and me in our small apartment for the holiday. We had a wonderful time and we will post more about all that we did (including a 7 hour car ride on Friday!) but for now we will post about our experiment with a local food Thanksgiving.

To achieve our task we spent all of Wednesday shopping for food. We will post all of our sources below for those who live in Michigan, but for those who don't we managed to buy everything we needed from four places, Whole Foods, The Peoples' Food Co-op, Zingerman's Deli, and the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. We are willing to bet that as long as you don't live in Alaska there are similar sources in your area. Here is our menu:

Breakfast:
Local bread (made locally with local flour)
Local eggs
Local bacon
Coffee
Tea

The Main Menu
Appetizers:
Cheese and crackers (1 cheese made with local milk in Mi and the other made in MI)
Wine (local red and white)
Main meal
Local Turkey
Gravy (grease of the above turkey)
Mashed potatoes (Local potatoes, milk, and butter)
Angel Biscuits (local milk)
Local Rainbow Chard
Roasted vegetables (Local carrots, turnips, onions, brussel sprouts, cider)
Stuffing (Local bread, apples, mushrooms, onions)
Cranberry sauce (Local cranberries)
Dessert
Pumpkin Pie (Local pumpkin and eggs)
Apple Cherry Pie (Local apples and cherries)

We managed to make everything we would have wanted without sacraficing (just a little digging) and every dish had at least 1 local item. What we didn't do local was spices and flour (we could have done the flour and salt local, it just would have taken a more planning and driving, so maybe next year), but coffee (it was organic fair trade) tea, and a few spices can just not be gotten locally. We also made cards for each dish identifying who grew the item (if we knew) and how far it came to get to us. It is thought that the average meal travels 1500 miles
(http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1749) to get to your plate, check out our pictures and you will see we didn't do half bad!

Thanksgiving

As a bonus we had local decorations, dried leaves and winter squash.

So it was a yummy, fun, and thankful for our food Thankgiving!

________________________________________________________________

For those who live in Ann Arbor here are our sources:

White wine
Sandhill Cranes Vineyard
Jackson, MI
40 Miles

Red Wine
Bowers Harbor Vineyard (Whole Foods)
Traverse City, MI
250 Miles

Turkey
Ernst Farms (Ann Arbor Farmers Market)
Ann Arbor, 14 Miles

Cranberry Sauce
Blueberry Heritage Farms, Cranberries (Whole Foods)
Holland, MI
160 Mile

Apple Cherry Pie
Calders Dairy, Butter (Coop)
Carleton, 30 Miles
Michigan Cherries (Coop)
Alex Nemeth Orchard, Apples (Farmers Market)
Ypsilanti, 7 miles

Pumpkin Pie
Nemeth Farm, Pumpkin (Farmers Market)
Milan, 17 miles
Sweet Spot Orchard, Eggs (Farmers Market)
Blissfield, 44 miles

Mashed Potatos
Nemeth Farm, potatos (Farmers Market)
Milan, 15 miles
Calders Dairy, Milk (Coop)
Carleton, 30 Miles

Stuffing
Wollfe Orchards, Apples (Farmers Market)
Tipton, 32 miles
Michigan Mushrooms, mushrooms (Farmers Market)
Alpena, 225 miles
Mill Pond, bread (Farmers Market)
Chelsea, 18 miles

Roasted Vegetables
Tanre Farm, Carrots (Farmers Market)
Chelsea, 18 miles
Sweet Spot Orchard, onions (Farmers Market)
Michigan
Murkel Gardens, turnips and brussel sprouts (Farmers Market)
Chelsea, 18 miles

Gravy
Ernst Farms, Turkey (Farmers Market)
Ann Arbor, 14 Miles

Rainbow Chard
Tantre Farm (Farmers Market)
Chelsea, 18 miles

Angel Biscuits
Calders Dairy, Milk (Coop)
Carleton, 30 Miles

Mantoro Cheese
Reny Picot (Coop)
Benton Harbor, 146 miles

Cheese
Calders Dairy, Milk
Carleton, 30 Miles
Made by Zingerman's deli
Ann Arbor, 0 Miles

Local Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time of food and family. This year we thought it might be nice to try to do a local* Thanksgiving, as our way of giving thanks for our food. By eating a local meal we would know where our food came from, who grew, raised, or made it, how far it traveled to get to us, and that it was all in season. So far we have scouted out a local source for:
butter
milk
wine
turkey
pumpkin
apples
carrots
onions
winter squash
cheese
potatoes
eggs
bread (made with local flour too!)

We are still looking for:
Cranberries (they do grow in Michigan!)

So if anyone out there knows of a local source for cranberries or knows any good Thanksgiving recipes for our seasonal and local feast do pass them along! After the holidays we will post again the sources we found and the recipes to go along with them in case any others would like to try a more local holiday!

*The traditional definition of local is with in a 100 miles of your location. We are being a little flexible in that definition and including anything that is Michigan grown (wine and cranberries are grown in Michigan but are with in 150 miles of Ann Arbor). We are also not having a 100% local meal as items such as spices and yeast are not grown in Michigan and will be included in our meal.

Election Day!

It is that time of year again, the leaves are falling, the temperature is dropping, and it is time to vote! Today is election day all around the country. Even though it might not be as exciting as last years vote it is just as important. What is on your ballot is going to affect your day to day life. Will your taxes increase? Will your roads get fixed? Will the local schools get the funding they need? Have a say and get out and vote!

I was voter number 36 in my district, what number are you?

Apple Weekend

What better way to spend to spend a fall weekend than with apples! First we went apple picking and got some cider donuts and hot cider to enjoy while picking. For those who are looking to pick big batches for cooking we found out that if you "pick" them from the ground they are a lot cheaper. We got a 1/2 of a bushel for $7.50 instead of $12.



When we got home it was time to cook up the apples. Today we made apple sauce, apple fruit roll-ups, dried apples, and apple crisp. Now we will have local apples through the winter!

Arthur making apple sauce

Courtney making apple fruit roll-ups

Use less stuff, use less money

One of the main benefits of only buying used stuff is that we save a lot of money. Not only is used stuff cheaper, but we also only buy things that we need.

Check out this new coat rack that I built today. Our old one was breaking, so I decided to have some fun with making a new one. Every single piece of it is from Ann Arbor's Re-Use center (my favorite store in town). I had to get creative and use different kinds of hooks, but I like how it turned out. And the whole thing: the wood, hooks, bolts, and screws are all used. Total materials cost: $1.27.

about 32 cents' worth of cool hooks

ready to hang coats