lo·ca·vore. noun \ˈlō-kə-ˌvȯr\. Definition of LOCAVORE. : one who eats foods grown locally whenever possible.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver made a pretty big impact on us all.  A highly recommended, educational and thoroughly interesting read.  A must read for any and all.  It should be required high school reading, min.  Seriously.  Do kids really understand where their food comes from and what goes in to the raising of it??  Do you??

Do read.

All the fuel that goes into getting off season food products to us??  Not to mention the chemicals, pesticides, and unpleasant working conditions that it takes to produce what we have come to expect to be available to us year round…..  Bananas, Kiwi, Avacados? Not to mention tomatoes???  Why do you think tomatoes are so mealy and no longer have the flavor of sunshine?  Besides not spending enough time soaking up all that sunshine, the flavor and texture has been breed, out of them.  They can now be picked green and shipped, cross country, so that we can have tasteless tomatoes year round.  Yay, us…  And we continue to buy them…  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good green tomato.  But I prefer them local.  Picked especially for frying.  Preferably off my own deck.

Seeds are no longer being propagated and being allowed to go extinct.  What is up with that?   Why are we allowing this?  Critters that no longer know *how* to procreate without artificial insemination???  It’s a crazy, crazy farm out there….  It scares me.

At this point, we are making more conscious decisions.  When it’s easy, it’s a no brainer and we go for it.  Other times we need to plan ahead, a little better.  But we just keep striving. Every little bit helps.  Don’t you think?

So….  after finally harvested enough of these beauties off of our property…

And these beautiful ramps dug right out of our sandy soil…

We created a delicious sauteed chicken and morel mushroom dish.
We used local chicken, our own ramps,  yes, our morels, garlic, which we do normally grow/have, but have ran out of and a variety of herbs, dried, from our deck, last summer.

Toss a few Michigan, baby, roasted potatoes with garlic cloves, on the side, and what more could you need???

Oh, okay, I hear you!  You thought we forgot something, didn’t you?!  A dish, for each, of sauteed morels, battered in egg, tossed in cracker crumbs with extra black pepper……. and a side of sriracha mayo, you didn’t think we’d forget that, now did you?

Oh my.  We should be spending more time mushroom hunting this time of year <<licking lips>>.

And dessert?  Yes, another, off our property ingredient.

Upside down rhubarb cake.  It was delightful besides being beautiful!  A sight to behold. Had a really hard time keeping hands off of it before it was time.   I think they thought this was a dessert first kind of night.

You can’t see the crispy crumbly, buttery crust, now can you?  It was there, trust me.  Yummy Yummy!  Even the non~rhubarb lover had seconds of this one!

Now to get those asparagus crowns planted……..  And the garden boxes ready, so that we can make an even better effort, throughout the summer and into next year.  And it won’t hurt when the farmer’s markets and Charlie’s finally open for the season!  Canning, drying, preserving, and supporting local farmers, whenever we can, for what we don’t grow ourselves….

Eating local never tasted so good.  Room for improvement, always, but it’s a start.

A darn good one.

And a darn good tasting one, at that.

It’s the most wonderful time of year!!  For a locavore, anyway.