Comments on: Why Eat Local? Enjoying Local Abundance

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:30:48 +0000

Great information! I so like to see all the people who are going back to a more traditional/sustainable way of living and eating. For many people buying groceries is a chore that’s not much fun, but I relish every minute of it! I go to the farm and get to play with the animals, learn new things and see where my food comes from. My kids love it! And having our own garden is so much fun too! We’re slowly but surely getting our farm up and going and someday hope to be able to provide “slow food” to our family and neighbors.

By: Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home

Stephanie @ Keeper of the Home — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:20:47 +0000

Oh, you’ll enjoy those tomato plants so much! My first summer gardening I had four plants (one was cherry), and we had way more tomatoes than we could eat. You should definitely be able to do some canning. I think you’ll just love it once you get into it- gardening is becoming addictive to me!

You’ve got me excited about the Farmer’s Markets opening up here. Only one more week until June- hurray!

I so wish that we could do a CSA. It sounds great every time you talk about it. Unfortunately, they haven’t really caught on in Canada yet.

Great post!

By: Mrs. Taft

Mrs. Taft — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:37:52 +0000

Great post! You should share your tomato secrets, I want to do the same!

By: Michele

Michele — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:08:26 +0000

I love your restaurant list! I used to order Hot Lips Pizza for college events, when I was in student government.

I wonder if Old Wives Tales (www.oldwivestalesrestaurant.com) uses local ingredients too?

Another one of my favorites is Intaba’s (in Corvallis). Oh, it has a new name now: http://www.fireworksvenue.com/main.html

Great post! Thanks!
Michele
http://www.frugalgranola.blogspot.com

By: Lynn

Lynn — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:21:33 +0000

It is so nice you live in an area where buying local and organic things are much easier. I grew up in the Portland area. It is so much easier to get health food items in the NW. They really encourage it in your area. I now live in OK and find it much harder to get items. The closest CSA drop off is over 30 minutes away and I live in a suburb of a large city. We don’t have Costco and our Sam’s club carries very little organic and local items. I am not meaning to complain too much but I sooooo wish health foods were easier to get here. But your ideas are great. I do miss burgerville. So much better then the other fast food hamburger places. And Nick’s in McMinnville brings back great memories. My husband and I had our engagement dinner there. They have great food for an out of the way small place. It is a very nice place. Thanks for the great post.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:05:12 +0000

This is a fantastic post. I agree strongly with reason #2 of why to go local. It is so important for Alaska to support our own local farm economy. It may not be cheaper up here to buy locally grown veggies because materials and living are just so expensive, but I want the reassurance that if all of the trucks stopped running tomorrow, that we could live off of what the farmers in Alaska produce. Right now, if that happened, I KNOW that our population of 600,000 people could not survive off of a few small farms. What is sad is that more and more farm land is being sold as real estate every year because we can just eat food grown in South America or New Zealand, right? I want to be a part of supporting our local farmers. The good news (sort of) is that CSAs are so popular here that there are long waiting lists to get a box of locally grown veggies. I hope this encourages farmers to expand and helps our state to become a little more self sustainable food wise.

Phew. I’ll get off my soapbox now! All of your suggestions are great and fitting themselves into my new mentality.

By: Cyndy

Cyndy — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:08:14 +0000

These are some great and inspirational ideas. We are trying to produce more of our own food…we even have chickens!
BTW – I recently purchased one of your families skirts from Christa Taylor…I LOVE IT!