In preparation for the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Campaign and the Kanu Eat Local Challenge I am eating only locally grown foods for 60 days.. starting on September 3rd. To me “locally grown” means only foods grown, harvested, hunted and fished in Hawaii. I will try to source first from my North Kohala community, then Big Island and then the State.
9/2
I don’t know why, but a strange junk food craving has set in immediately prior to my perceived deprivation. I am on Maui for a few days staying at my girlfriend Mary’s house and she brought home Milano cookies and Cheetos. How did she know that I have a deep and ancient relationship with Cheetos? They were my preferred snack food when I was growing up. It was hard to separate me from that bag. Thankfully, Mary had a bit of a stomach virus and I had the whole bag to myself.
I wanted to start my experiment on September 1st, but since I was taking a trip to Maui I revised my start date to September 3rd. That meant that I would have no time for lengthly sourcing or preparation, I would just have to start winging it. Today I flew in from Maui and only had time for a quick stop at the KTA food store in Kailua-Kona before heading home to Hawi and starting to eat local the next morning. KTA has a long history of supporting local farmers and locally made products through their Mountain Apple Brand. I came out with: Mountain Apple Brand milk, Molokai Sweet potatoes, fresh soy beans, two types of cucumbers, red cabbage, green cabbage, celery, Hamakua Springs tomatoes, bananas, eggs, Puna Goat Cheese feta and spreadable and ka’u oranges.
One of the comments that I often hear is that eating locally grown food is more expensive than imported food and, therefore, only for the food elite. In order to examine whether or not this is true, I am keeping track of all my expenses. I am not sharing my food with my husband and son (I am not known for being the family cook, anyway!) so I can get an accurate accounting.
Since I am very into local foods, the night before I started my experiment I was craving one of my native foods- pizza. There I was cramming a not very good frozen pizza into my mouth at 9:30 pm at night. Shameful, really. Not even something I normally do, but it felt right in the moment.
Today was one of those embarrassing haole days. After dance class (Nia) I stopped by the Hawi farmers market to do some connecting with people about the North Kohala Eat Locally Grown Campaign and to try to score some food, of course. What I got was local food, and an education in “local” local food, as in Hawaiian foods. I have always steered clear of “local” local food because I don’t eat pork, prefer brown rice and can not abide the calories in even one scoop of macaroni salad. However, I love real local Hawaiian food. A booth at the corner caught my eye…squid luau, opihi, limu and crab. Score! I ordered all of the above, but realized that I didn’t know what to do with the limu, opihi or the crab. I have had opihi and limu at luaus before, but they were prepared for me. I have never eaten the Hawaiian crab. Totally embarrassing! How could I have been living here for 20 years and not know how to prepare those foods. And worse yet, I don’t know how to harvest those foods. No wonder why locals give me the sideways eye when I talk about eating locally. I know nothing about eating “local” locally! Someone teach me please!
When I got home from the market, I delved into making my local lunch.
Costco and Crabs: Day 3- My Experiments with Food Truth- 60 Days of Eating Locally Grown
Yesterday I bought the “local” local food and today I ate it- my first experience with the local crabs (live on video, below!). Today I took a trip to Costco to pick up some pictures and took the opportunity to check out the local food scene.
Costco, the place where many people (more confessions, myself included) buy a lot of their food, has quite a bit of locally grown vegetables and some fruit.
I did not see any organiclocal fruits and veggies at Costco and most of the produce was from Oahu, with a few exceptions- the Papayas from Hilo (GMO papaya? I am not sure), purple sweet potatoes from Molokai, Hamakua Springs tomatoes and Hamakua Mushrooms. I am guessing that in order to supply Costco a farm would have be pretty well industrialized and is probably not practicing sustainable and regenerative farming techniques. (I would love to be proven wrong- send examples if you have any!) I think we would all agree that our preferred future would not include adding chemicals to the soil or spraying our vegetables. It would also be ideal, in my humble opinion, if our food was produced on smaller homesteads or diversified family farms- and if this food was more easily accessible. Farmers markets are hot these days, to be sure, but most people still buy their food at the food store or at Costco. Do we need more co-ops? Do buyers need to be more flexible? Do we need more direct farmer-to-consumer distribution systems? Knowing we are currently importing 90% of our food- do we need large scale local farms to tip the import balance? I love the idea that we all produce food and trade…but it is more of an ideal than a reality for me. I am more of a shopper than a grower, more likely to help organize food systems than supply the food. If I had to survive on what I grow in my yard today I would starve. (I did cook up some of my container garden grown kale in my kale, Hamakua mushroom, Puna goat cheese, green onion, Mountain Apple Brand Egg omelet this morning!)
So go ahead blog readers, give it to me...are you pro buying local food in Costco or anti buying local food in Costco? When expressing your opinion, I would like to know how large a family you are feeding and how that effects your purchasing behavior.
Now to the crabs…
By the way- what I ate today:
squid luau
crabs
opihi
cucumber with goat cheese
carrot-ginger soup
omelet with goat cheese, hamakua mushrooms and green onions
mango
banana
Sweet and Dry: Day 4- My Experiments with Food Truth- 60 Days of Eating Locally Grown
Solved the problem of the local buzz today when some friends gave me some mead- sweet, dry and rose. I will report back when I imbibe. I also scored some homemade lilikoi jam and a huge taro root. Not having bread or crackers is a bit of a challenge, I am dying to put the lilikoi jam on a cracker! Anyone have any kiawe, ulu or taro flour?
The biggest challenge I am having so far is really one of preference, not of availability of food. There is plenty of local food available- and a wide variety at that- but what I want is another story. Sure, I can have poi with honey for breakfast, but will I continue to do that? Unlikely. I will probably go back to toast. That being said, eating no processed foods makes me realize how eay it is to slip into a diet that has way too much bread and pasta going on. I am feeling great- lighter and stronger.
What I ate today:
-Mountain Apple brand Eggs Omelet with kale, Hamakua mushrooms, Puna goat feta, basil and green onions
-Carrot-ginger soup
-Opihi
-Crabs
-Spinach salad
-Mango
-Steamed Soybeans
-Cucumber with goat cheese
-Sautéed Eggplant
Butter, baby: Day 5- My Experiments with Food Truth- 60 Days of Eating Locally Grown
It’s a good day on the local foods front when one scored LOCALLY MADE BUTTER! I saw local butter on Vivienne Aronowitz’s Eat Local Week Menu Ideas, but I didn’t know where to score it. A fortuituos meeting with Mala’ai Garden leader Amada Rieux brought me to the butter. Amanda led the way to Tropical Dreams Ice Cream at the Lalamilo Farms lots where I met Kevin Cabrera of Sandwich Isle Bread Company (No I didn’t eat the bread, although, believe me, I wanted it BAD). Kevin’s wife Kay Cabrera is making the butter, brand name Hula Cow, with Tropical Dreams. Tropical Dreams, by the way, makes delicious ice cream from cream from local dairies and local fruit! What better way to enjoy this creamy butter but on fresh local corn? (I admit I did eat a big glob off a butter knife first, it’s that good.)
You can buy the butter in Waimea on Saturday at the Parker School Farmer’s Market, Tuesday afternoon at Kekela Farms (down Mana Road on the left) and if you catch someone there at the Tropical Dreams office at the Lalamilo Farm Lots.
