100 miles. day 4 and 5 because neither have been terribly interesting.

Do you ever wake up feeling like if you can't eat something with melted cheese on it like right that second then you will probably just die? Yeah. Me too. Just this morning, in fact.

This morning I woke up with that insatiable craving, so I thought "cool, I will make a delicious omelette full of delicious things and it will fulfill me". But then I realized that the eggs I have are not local, nor is the cheese. So then what? I COULD drive down to Community, where I know I could get both of these things, or I could just make it with the things I have. Given that I wasn't quite ready to get out of pajamas yet, I chose option 2. Alas, cheating on the 100 miles yet again. During our discussions in class in Spain (for those of you that were not there) we talked about just how much of a luxury it is to be able to choose to go to the market or Community for groceries, and while at the time I already agreed, this week has really been bringing that idea to life. It is also a huge pain. Why would I drive downtown for milk when I could walk across the street to Safeway and buy more milk for less money with far less hassle? Ah, that's right. Morality.

Again come to this thing I have been thinking about finding a balance between morality and not putting life as you know it on hold to change your personal food habits. Yes, I really, honestly do want to make an effort to eat more locally. But my mother graciously pointed out yesterday that I have likely driven far more than 100 miles, to all corners of this city, in an effort to eat products originating within 100 miles of my home. (Yes, I am going to map that and find out for sure). Now, I'm not complaining about the lengths that one has to take, here. I am simply pointing out how the flaws in our internationally spread out food systems have made eating locally so hard! I get to do it, because I am in a place of privilege, have a vehicle and the financial resources (kinda...) to do so. Eating locally shouldn't be a luxury only available to the upper echelons, but it is! Does that not seem backwards to you?

Anyway, yesterday was a wash as far as interesting food to talk about goes. I just ate my dinner leftovers from Wednesday night like all day! Tonight I have a friend coming in from out of town, and we are going to a party at a German friend's house, where he will be making "authentic" German sausage and delicious treats! Culinary tourism at home, my friends? Dawn? Lisa? Nothing?

Until next time, folks!

100 miles. day 3. (posted a day late because I fell asleep early on real day 3)

Okay so...maybe a few hundred miles...

Today I hit what I guess you could consider a sort of local food wall. Really cute after 3 days, no? But it wasn't a wall in the negative sense at all. The "wall" was the screeching revelation that continuing to live the life I want to live, as it is, using food as a social medium, is impossible in this city if I want to keep my diet clear of anything that didn't originate within 100 miles of my home.

Today, I had a lunch date set with a friend who (thankfully) is very understanding of this whole undertaking. So I tweeted a request for good Calgary restaurants that serve local ingredients. For the most part, I got the same 5 or 6 replies (I'll list them after...). One girl, though, simply posted in reply that finding a restaurant in Calgary that fits within the guidelines of the 100 mile challenge is impossible if for no other reason than the inevitable and problematic SALT. Having this pointed out to me made me start to really consider just how hard it would be to completely shut out all of the imported products that are available to us right now. Yes, we are entirely spoiled by all of the unsustainable products we have access to. They make food delicious! But we also have so many delicious things at our disposal closer to home.

So, I've thought it before but I will reiterate, maybe it isn't completely necessary to cut out all long food system products to have a diet that you consider local and moral. I think it is better yet to eat like you want to eat, be happy with your choices, and feel comfortable in your own morality. Sustainability will come slowly, and each time someone takes a step towards it by purchasing a local food product it goes a long way! So why not find a nice balance and ease our consciences until someday, by some miracle, Calgary's food systems become self-sustaining.

So, that all being said, I still had a great and local food day. Again, granola and yogurt for breakfast! Yum! And then a wonderful lunch with Quinn at Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters in Marda Loop. Who knew their food is all local!? I had the BEST grilled cheese with Sylvan Star Smoked Gouda and house-made ketchup, with delicious apple coleslaw. Yum. The bread the sandwich was on was from Manuel Latruwe Pastries and Bread, another Calgary business, and there was information about the bakery readily available, which I really appreciated. Very impressed, go eat lunch there!

For dinner I made pasta sauce with Silver Sage Beef, peppers from The Cucumber Man, spinach from Innisfail Growers and Alberta sourced and produced canned tomato sauce I recieved as a gift a few months ago. I used packages linguine from Sunterra, rather than making local pasta from scratch. But I do intend to buy some local flour and make my own pasta soon, just for kicks.

All in all, a delicious and eye-opening day!

Now then, try these places on for size!

River Cafe

Boxwood

Dairy Lane Cafe

Farm

100 miles. day 2.

Today was a neat local day! I woke up and had a delicious bowl of granola and raspberry yogurt that...as cliche as I know this sounds...tasted like sunshine! And a crunchy and wonderful BC apple to round it out. I read the granola package more seriously this morning, and noticed that it is sweetened with agave syrup...really really not local.

Since I ate a late breakfast, I didn't really do lunch. Instead I had another apple and a Kananaskis cookie before running out the door to bring my friend's baby pug to Animal Services to have his manhood done away with. When we were leaving Animal Services we were all hungry and thirsty in Inglewood...and I really was intending on either saving my hunger until I came home or going to one of Calgary's great restaurants with local restaurant items.

But instead, after being stuck in downtown traffic for a solid hour, we ate 100 riblets for $4 and drank virgin pina coladas. Now, I am fully aware that for the the little riblets to be so inexpensive there is no way they were even close to local, and I'm willing to bet the pina colada syrup wasn't made in Pincher Creek.

BUT after a delicious "dinner" snack of ribbies with great friends in the sunshine, I had the best local food moment I have had in a long long time. While dropping my friend Tristan off at home he said (I assume half-jokingly) "want a piece of rhubarb?"...from his GARDEN! So I was all over that, obviously. Not only do I adore rhubarb, but licking the end and dipping it in sugar is the most nostalgic summer activity for me! It reminds me of eating it until my mouth felt raw as a child in my grandma's back yard. But I was also over the moon to eat from a friend's garden! (please note his identification in the photo, Alberta license...really local!) THIS is how things should be! It would be so beautiful if everyone could trade food from their own yards with other foods that their friends and colleagues are growing! I know that we have a short growing seasons, and there are only certain things we can do, but man! We should really be making the best of it while we can!

My big food realization for the day is that, the way our food systems are right now, it is very, very difficult to eat 100% local. I am doing the best I can within my means, and I get so excited with each step and each meal that takes me closer to being local. I feel really good about the food decisions I have been making, and will continue to make. A sense of place seems to be quite easy to find...if you want to find it....

On a completely different note, I spent time with an old friend today and it made me smile lots and lots! I love when old friends become new friends all over again!

100 miles. day 1.

So today was a weird food day. I cheated right off the bat and ate birthday cake for breakfast at 7am. But I feel like I get a free pass for that because Monday mornings are never fun and this is going to be a particularly stressful week in many respects. So I earned it...so don't judge me. But then for lunch I ate a big delicious bowl of Highwood Crossing granola and a yummy BC apple!

Around 2pm I got my first real glimpse at just how reliant we are on processed, imported, "convenient" foods. When the afternoon snackies set in I usually go for some Triscuits and cream cheese or (because I am fat at heart) some chips. I was surprised at how much I missed the option to reach for those sorts of things, even though I wasn't particularly in need of them. So, instead, I opted for a Kananaskis cookie and a big glass of milk! I think that tomorrow I will buy some Highwood Crossing flour and bake something deliciously local for myself!

At dinner time I came to the harsh realization that we have no carby goodness at our disposal! It really is a shame that Calgary doesn't have rice paddies. I will get potatoes as soon as I can get my paws on them but, for the interim, I made a delicious dinner without a carb dish. Chicken sausages with steamed Innisfail asparagus and sliced vine ripe tomatoes. I cheated a little bit here and put just a few drops of my delicious liquid gold, Nunez de Prado olive oil purchased in Spain, on the tomatoes. I intended on using the Highwood canola oil, but I saw the Spanish wonder sitting there and just couldn't resist. But, here is how I see it. The point of this local food endeavour is, to me, eating "morally", and focusing my diet on food that brings with it a sense of place. While for the most part, eating from the Calgary area is the best way to do that, I feel completely morally sound when I eat oil from an organic family-owned press that I was lucky enough to tour with the olive father himself. And I feel a relationship to my food, which is what I am quickly beginning to feel this is all about.

Quick blog tonight, because I am overtired and need to go to bed. But more updates tomorrow!

100 miles. groceries.

So today was grocery getting day for this whole 100 Mile endeavour I have decided to undertake for a week. After the three hour long process I had an epiphane that I am sure will strike you as decidedly unsurprising: eating local in Calgary is hard.

After loads of researching on the 100 mile "rules" and Calgary-area producers I set out with a list of possible places to go and things to look for. For those of you interested, these are the sites I used:

http://bit.ly/isR3Hb

http://bit.ly/jPBgeW

http://100milediet.org/get-started/getting-started-guide

Since a whole bunch of the local producers listed it as a retail location, I started off the big shop at 10:30 this morning at Co-op. I, of course, walked in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, expecting to breeze through in 20 or so minutes and sail out with a basket of delicious local goodies. Yeah...not that easy. We started at the butcher counter thinking “there are signs everywhere that say Alberta Beef, this is going to be a cakewalk”. But as it turns out, there are only select fancy rib-eye cuts and the like. The majority of the meat, while still admittedly Western Canadian and “local enough” to be easy on the conscience, did not fit my 100 mile rule. So then I ran around the rest of the store looking for 100 mile canola oil and veggies. And then I found neither of those things. What I did find, though, were Boccalino Grotto dressings, made in Canmore, that looked super yummy. But since I knew we still had more stops I left it there and we left Co-op empty handed and a little discouraged.

At that point, I was feeling more inclined to just head to where I knew (read: assumed) it would be easy to get what I needed for the week, so down south we headed to the Calgary Farmers' Market. It was fairly easy to get meat out of the way. Spragg's Meat Shop carries pork from Rosemary, AB and chicken from Bowden. I'm not sure if these are EXACTLY 100 miles away, but we estimated that they were probably close enough to count. Silver Sage Beef, Olson's High Country Bison (listed on the Slow Food Calgary site, I might add) and Missing Link Sausage rounded out our proteins. Then we picked up some veggies from Innisfail Growers and The Cucumber man. Now, I am fully aware that neither Innisfail nor Redcliff (The Cucumber Man) are actually 100 miles away from my house. But, they are within the same area code and Innisfail is where my grandparents live. It didn't take me long wandering around that market to realize that it is just as moral to purchase food from 300 kilometres away when it is from a place I feel close to. There is that sense of place we are all looking for....

The one thing that I knew was going to be hard going in, and was completely proved right about, was fruit. And I need SOME fruit, even just some raspberries. But man alive, the lack of 100 mile fruit at the market really made me understand why people scoff at the idea of eating locally in Calgary. There was NOTHING. And I mean nothing. Radishes and that was it. So...I cheated, and bought a 5 pound bag of granny smith apples (and a whack of garlic) from Souto Farms in Oliver, BC. Don't tell anyone though...such a cheater...

Finally we went to Community Natural Foods in 10th Ave to round out our shopping, and bought a few small things. LOVE that place! I know I will end up back there in the middle of the week for local milk and eggs, which are marked clearly in the shelves just calling my name!

So, in the end, this is what I bought. It should get us at least a few good meals...all garlicky with my cheater BC garlic...

At the Calgary Farmers' Market:

The Cucumber Man, Redcliff AB ($15.03)

- 5 vine ripe tomatoes

- 5 assorted bell peppers

- 1 large English cucumber

- 1 eggplant

Innisfail Growers, Innisfail AB ($10.00)

- Big bag of spinach

- Bug bunch of asparagus

Good for You Snacks, Calgary AB ($7.00)

- Dill pickle corn snack things

Spragg's Meat Shop, Rosemary and Bowden AB ($23.29)

- 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts

- 2 centre cut pork chops

Olson's High Country Bison, Bragg Creek AB ($21.80)

- 2 tenderloin steaks

Missing Link Sausage, Calgary AB ($9.00)

- 1 lb chicken sausage

Souto Farms, Oliver BC ($9.00)

- 5 lbs granny smith apples

- 7 bulbs of garlic

Silver Sage Beef ($5.05)

- 1 lb lean ground beef

Community Natural Foods ($45.40)

- 2 bags of CheeCha Stacks, Calgary AB

- Highwood Crossing Sunflower Flax Seed Granola, Aldersyde AB

- Highwood Crossing Kananaskis Cookies, Aldersyde AB

- Highwood Crossing Cold Press Canola Oil, Aldersyde AB

- Bles-Wold Raspberry Yogurt, Lacombe AB

So there we have it. I did the best I could, in the 3 hours I had to spend doing it. I am fully aware that none of this is 100% 100 mile. I know there are ingredients in some of the things (the granola, for example) that can't be local. BUT, I think this is pretty damn fine for a first attempt. So...we'll see how she goes!