Rhode Island 100 mile

…today was a day spent away from home for both of us…I was at a seminar in Boston and Ingrid had one at URI, so seeing that they were for work, we were able to get what we wanted to eat…dinner was a different story, however because we were back on home turf. We pulled out Ingrid’s cornmeal pasta dough experiment that she started and cooked up some of the rolled frozen pasta that she made up…we put them in boiling water for a few minutes and then sauteed them up in some butter and sage from the herb garden…they came out very bland, but with a little salt they became a little more palatable (some bacon would be really good too and we found local bacon at the Casey Farm farmers’ market last weekend). I think part of the problem is that the grains of cornmeal are too coarse…we’ll have to find some corn flour that is milled to a more refined consistency…stay tuned to see what we find…

So we are at the end of our second week of the 100 mile diet and I have to say (this is Ingrid writing) that I am dying for some chocolate. I think I miss it more than Josh misses his beer! I miss my bread – I would have loved to have had a heavily buttered piece of cinnamon raisin toast yesterday – but I really miss chocolate. I didn’t realize how much I eat it or enjoy it until I haven’t been able to have it. When I was living up in New Hampshire, I spent a lot of time at Cacao right over the border in Kittery, Maine. Susan, the chocolatier and owner of Cacao, made the most incredible chocolates – the fleur de sel (caramel with a dark chocolate shell and salt on top) was my absolute favorite. There is a place in Rhode Island - Ocean State Chocolates in Wickford RI that has similar super-good chocolates but no one grows cacao around here so we can’t have it. If someone grew cacao around here they could make a lot of money off of me! All I can think of is the Rolling Stones’ lyric- You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need! Though Josh made a fabulous chicken tonight, I just don’t think it filled the chocolate craving. You know where you’ll find me when this challenge is over – passed out on our kitchen floor with hand full of empty chocolate paper cups and a belly full of Ocean State Chocolates!

…after a night of gourging ourselves on homemade pizza and the best salad that we’ve had in a while up at the Carpenter’s, we find ourselves craving some more carbohydrates, so we ran a little experiment with some cornmeal that is produced right here in RI. The recipe calls for some things that are not available to us, but because of the rule that we can use existing ingredients that we already had on-hand we decided to try out some cornmeal muffins. The recipe calls for some conventional flour, but we just used 100% cornmeal…we came up with a muffin-like object that was converted into a dessert with some strawberries and honey. The preceeding dinner consisted of a bun-less hamburger, sauteed shallots and a salad all made from local ingredients…

…we picked our first home-grown squash today. I swear it was a little tiny thing on Thursday- it must have tripled its’ size in the last couple of days. Our tomatoes are moving along as well…we bought a bunch of heirloom tomatoes from the Good Earth in Cranston, RI. Hopefully we’ll have some nice fresh tomatoes pretty soon!

…not too much going on food-wise today…we hit the farmer’s market at Casey Farm this morning and tonight we’re off to a friend’s house for dinner, so we’re off the 100 mile hook for this evening.

One thing that is becoming very noticeable is the lack of carbohydrates in the 100 mile diet. The reduction of grain consumption has been pretty noticeable…the funny thing is, we haven’t gone nuts eating ourselves silly trying to replace them in our diet. Today, however was the first day that we’ve seen potatoes at the Farmer’s Market. We bought a small container of them that will probably end up on the grill and will most definitely satisfy our carbohydrate cravings.

Hard Boiled Egg, that is! I’ve found that having a bunch of hard boiled eggs on hand has been an easy breakfast/
snack/additive to give whatever we’re eating a little more sustenance. They’re easy to do and easy to prepare, how can you go wrong? I primarily eat mostly the whites and the occasional yolk due to cholesterol concerns…and price-wise they have been our cheapest protein source that we’ve found. We usually get them at the Goddard Park Farmer’s Market or Dave’s Marketplace. Dave’s carries eggs from Little Rhody Egg Farms which fall within our 100 mile zone…

</
…Ingrid came home today with a bunch of red raspberries that she hand picked down at the Farmer’s Daughter. She patiently managed to fill 4 pint containers…we can probably eat them quicker than she picked them! The good thing is that they will have them all summer, so we’ll be able to stop by when we run out…

…today was pretty hot, so we wanted to do something pretty simple and preferably outside on the grill to keep from heating the house up any more, so I went over to my favorite fish vendor- Di Mare Seafood in East Greenwich to see what they had. They used to be a lot closer to our house, but they moved to a new space and now offer dine-in and take out and they usually have a great selection of fish and shellfish. I picked up some flounder today to try out on the grill…nice and light for the hot day! My newest thing is to place our cast iron griddle on the grill, heat it up and saute vegetables on it- that way nothing falls through the spaces of the grill and you still get a little of that grill flavor. I cut up some carrots and onions we got at the Providence Farmer’s Market and threw them on the griddle with some olive oil (we already had). For the flounder, I just put some oil and dill on a square of foil, laid the fish on top, added some more oil and dill and sealed it up tight…4 minutes per side on the grill was all it took…

Well, week one has come to an end! While we haven’t really exhausted all of the food that we had upon commencing this little experiment, we have begun to notice some of the things that we use every day which we can’t get within 100 miles…coffee, grains (bread, rice, pasta), sugar and chocolate have all been thought about and missed by our bellies…although there are semi-replacements, there still is nothing like the real thing(s)! As the month progresses, we’re sure that there will be other things that we’ll miss and more things to discover…that’s the good thing about this challenge- finding new things that we can incorporate into our daily lives as we move forward. Tonight we tried some excellent goat’s cheese from two local farms in Massachusetts and some bison burgers – both were really good. As we head into week two, it looks like some of our own vegetables might make it onto our plates…and the farmer’s markets will have more to offer…so stay tuned to see what we find! I+J