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!

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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