Christmas Dinner

Our Christmas dinner was actually more local than the Thanksgiving one was. For Christmas dinner we had a tavern ham that came from Idaho Falls, mashed potatoes--some of which came from Buhl and some which were grown in the Nampa area, gravy made from the ham drippings (okay, so the gravy thickener came from Somewhere Else, USA), and asparagus--which I'd blanched and frozen last spring when it was in season) grown somewhere around here in the Treasure Valley. It was a simple meal, but it was nice, and it was easy to fix. I confess, the fresh garlic I put into the mashed potatoes wasn't from Idaho, but if the fence-spraying boy scout hadn't ruined my home-grown green onion and leeks, I'd have probably had some of that to use. All in all, it wasn't too bad a holiday dinner on the locavore front, and using one of the few containers of frozen asparagus for a special meal in the wintertime was pretty fun. It felt like a novelty, which of course it was, since prior to taking up the locavore mantle, we never used asparagus at all. Now it's a springtime mainstay and a wintertime indulgence.

I received a big glossy heirloom seed catalogue in the mail recently, and now I think I know what Barbara Kingsolver meant when she wrote about how much she likes to look through them when they arrive. This one, from Baker Seeds, is almost as big as a calendar albeit much thicker, and so full of beautiful full-color pictures of vegetables that it might as well be a coffee-table book in its own right. Sigh. Barring any more fence cleaning/staining issues, I think this book might just have the power to inspire me to try gardening again in 2009.

Rice and Beans

The budget is tight enough to warrent using lots of rice and beans--but rice doesn't grow in Idaho, and the last time I went to get long black grass seed "wild" rice, it was out of stock. So other than some imported rice and barley, we're eating a lot of mixed beans, as many local as I can buy. We have bean soup two to three times a week--sometimes for lunch and dinner. I'm still trying for locavore eating, but it's a real challenge during the winter, when the Huz is clamoring for "green veggies" like fresh spinach and lettuce, not green beans and spinach. Time to start preparing sprouts again. Still, I guess locavore eating for at least six to eight months out of the year is far better than zero months.