And Go!

The challenge has officially begun! For the next five days I will only be eating food that was grown within a 100 mile radius of Spokane. I spent the week preparing by researching local food, buying said food and weaning myself off coffee. That's right, like many other participants of this challenge, I have a nasty caffeine addiction. I realized early on that it could be my downfall, so I limited my consumption leading up to the contest. I have to be at work at 7am (so why am I up writing this?!) and coffee is my constant companion, but this week I'm having an affair with the local dried mint tea that I picked up at the Roots Market at Fresh Abundance on Sunday.

After stopping by the market on Sunday, my friend Amy and I drove up to Green Bluff where I picked up some apple cider, onions, peaches and honey. Add to that the carrots, acorn squash, dried mint, blackberries, comfrey, jalapenos and bok choy from the Roots Market and the zucchini, tomatoes, corn, chard, bell peppers and rhubarb from the Perry Street Farmers' Market and potatoes and garlic from the Spokane Farmers' Market, I'm in good shape so far. I only wish I'd known about the hazelnuts up at Green Bluff. The only allowable grain I've found so far is rolled emmer (farro) and have not yet identified a source for beans/lentils. Fresh Abundance carries camelina oil, grown and processed in Marlin, WA that is safe for the challenge. I picked up a bottle of that for almost $17. The price seems a little steep, but as a vegan, that will be the only fat in my very limited diet this week.

For breakfast, I'll be replacing my usual cereal of quinoa, hazelnut milk, fresh fruit and cinnamon with rolled emmer, honey and blackberries. I combined the remainder of the emmer I cooked up with some sauteed zucchini, onion, garlic, comfrey and heirloom tomatoes for lunch and packed a peach for a mid-afternoon snack. For dinner, I think I'll roast some of that squash.

There are still a few things I need to work on acquiring: more rolled emmer, China Bend wine (after much debate about yeast, this item has officially been added to the allowable list), more fruit and hopefully (fingers crossed), a legume.

green bluff

just north of spokane, green bluff is a grower community celebrating harvest season through out the month of october. my best friend through elementary school lived on the bluff (although her family weren't growers) and i spent endless days with her walking around the bluff and checking out the festivities during harvest season. several of the farms offer u-pick fruit through out the growing season and boast impressive pumpkin patches in the fall. one farm in particular goes all out and builds a corn maze (admission is a little steep) and even brings in other vendors, such as funnel cake and the sort. (unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the vendors are not vegan-friendly.) we celebrated my mom's birthday on sunday and it happened to be a gorgeous crisp autumn day. on my son's suggestion, we headed to green bluff. we stopped off at Sundown Brown's Place and picked some beautiful apples and found these amazing asian pears (pictured above). i'm really only familiar with the pears you find in the grocery store and they don't impress me much. but these fresh picked asian pears were delicious! i have never tasted anything quite like it. never again will i settle for pears from a chain grocery store. we picked a total of 9 1/2 lbs. of apples and asian pears, costing us a whopping $6! there is no better way to buy fruit. green bluff: support your local growers!