I made dinner the other nite for my parents' 28th anniversary. (That's them in the picture.) We had a large green salad with goat cheese and a shoulder roast that I crock-potted with potatoes, rosemary and bay leaves. Very simple but savoury.
It wasn't until afterward that I realised this meal had been almost entirely composed of locally-sourced ingredients. Until this year, it has seemed difficult, if not outright impossible, to be anything near a Locavore. Now to my satisfaction, almost everything on the table had been effortlessly found, practically in my backyard.
The beets, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes for our salad came from local farmers. (The only reason the lettuce wasn't is that with the extreme heat, no one has lettuce left. Or if they do, they're hoarding it.) The goat cheese was made and gifted us by a farmer friend of ours. The roast (oh, the roast... the best, most moist, most flavorful I've ever tasted) was raised on a ranch not 15 miles from us. One hundred percent grass fed meat can be tricky to find (even pasture-raised cows are usually supplemented with some grain), but to my delight I recently found a rancher who is strictly letting his cows graze on grass (nothing else) and of course not adding any antibiotics or hormones. He has taken several years to breed his steers to get the flavor and tenderness of the meat just so. Meat as God intended it!
The potatoes in the roast were from a farmer's market, and the sprigs of rosemary I used came from a friend's garden. The wine, I will confess, not local - in fact it was an organic Malbec from Argentina (about as far from local as you can get. Should I happen to find a vineyard somewhere nearby that raises grapes organically, I would be glad to support it.)
Of course, the reasons to buy local are many (healthier, economical, there is much value in supporting local farmers rather than huge food corporations) but one thing that I consider important as well, is the taste. Fresher, more vibrant, unhindered by chemicals and additives, food comes alive. Everyone comments on the flavor, when your table is spread with local food. And that makes for a very lovely anniversary dinner.
