First Post - A Little Advice

Hi!


Welcome to my blog about my exciting exploits in eating local! My aim in writing this blog is to share my endeavors and to connect with other local foodies in Ottawa. If you aren't a local foodie, and just want to laugh at my rotten cabbages and carrots, feel free to follow! Hopefully I get some successes along with the failures.

Ottawa is the center of what I call 'Local', but I don't have strict rules on what I will and won't buy. Basically if I can get a closer alternative, I will. However, everybody knows coffee and chocolate grow in Ottawa, right?

I started eating local three years ago in January 2008. First piece of advice, don't start eating local in January, because it sucks. A big part of eating local is about food storage and I quickly realized that I was completely dependent on merchants to store and ship food. This packs on the carbon emissions with fridges, freezers and trucks. Also, the variety of what you can buy in January is, let's just say limited. Although I strive to eat local, that doesn't mean I don't indulge in the occasional banana. I try to apply the mandate with some common sense, even though my family would disagree.

In year three of the plan, I have expanded into exploits in food storage, which is what spurned me into posting today. The reason I'm working at storing food is two fold: 1. What we think of as 'regular' grocery stores ship 100% of their food from warehouses in Toronto and Montreal. I look at all the beautiful farm lands around me and ask why my food has to spend 5 hours in a truck consuming the world's limited supply of fossil fuels. I think there has to be a better way. The second reason that you can never be too prepared for the apocalypse. You laugh now, but you will be knocking at my door on peak oil, and I ain't sharing. Mom told me that Mennonites store 7 years worth of food. I googled that, but couldn't find it. I may or may not be true.

Today's exploit: Failed cabbage storage. Reasons I wanted to store cabbage because they are readily available at the farmer's market in the summer and I love cabbage rolls. I heard you could just hang them with their roots in a cold room and store them all winter. NOT TRUE. I have a room off the back of the house which I keep about 7C. I bought cabbages about the first week of October with their roots still on. I hung them in the cold room with visions of sugar cabbages dancing in my head. About a month ago I made some borscht with them. At that time I found little bugs on the cabbages. After some internet searching I decided they were probably not harmful, although I couldn't confirm what they are. They are small (2 mm) long green-black bugs with wings living on the stem of the cabbage. I just took off the bugs, washed the cabbage and was ok to go. If you think you know what they are, tell me.

However, I went downstairs today in anticipation of making cabbage rolls and all my cabbages went moldy :( Sorry for the blurry photo, but you get the idea. I guess all cabbages are not created equal. Next year I'll try to get some cabbages specifically designed for storage.

Next post, will be a success story!