Some people may have mistakenly believed spring arrived here in Boulder county on the 20th of March, but for our family, it returned at 8am Saturday morning with the Boulder Farmer’s Market. For weeks I had been enviously reading blogs from the Bay area talking about the good eats available at their farmer’s markets, so I was more than ready to pack up my cloth bags and make the trip south to visit the market.
Despite the fact that we’re more than a month from the frost-free date here and still getting snows (snow predicted for tomorrow and most of the week, in fact) we were not disappointed! We came away with the following:
- Mixed braising greens and a pound of arugula that we intend to make into pesto using a recipe sampled at the market.
- A pound of fresh local Cranberry beans (a type of kidney bean). Finding a source of local beans was a requirement if we were going to undertake the 100-mile challenge (more about that later!), so we’re very excited to try these.
- 5 pounds of local, fresh-milled whole wheat flour – another requirement for the 100 mile challenge.
- Queso de Mano & a “Peak” from Haystack Mountain–oh how we’d missed our favorite two goat cheeses!
- MouCo camembert
- A bag of assorted mushrooms.
- A big loaf of Udi Ciabatta, along with some assorted pastries for our breakfast…
- Garlic (both edible and seed garlic–I can’t wait to plant it!)
- Peach jam – Can you believe we finally ran out of jam after two years of eating what I canned in fall of 2006?
We had the cheese, bread, and jam as a cheese plate with some friends at dinner on Saturday night and it was a delicious way to round out the first real day of spring 
Oh, and what’s all this about the 100 mile diet? Well, this is a grass-roots challenge to anyone who is interested in local food: can you source all of your food within 100 miles of your house. While some places with warmer climates might lend themselves to a more local diet, doing the 100 mile challenge in Colorado is going to require some work. So now that I’ve convinced Matt that we should try this (and trust me, it’s taken me months!), we’re going to research local vendors of what we consider staple goods over the next six months and hope to be eating and drinking 100% (or as close to that as possible) by this-coming fall. You can bet I’ll be posting more about our research and adventures here!
5 comments
Hatchet says:
April 7, 2008 at 11:27 pm (UTC 2 )
I bet there are a ton of recipes out there. You could try to make some now and experiment over the summer with your own tomatoes, putting some up over the winter as well!
BTW, what tomato variety did you want me to bring to the Wednesday thing?
Julie says:
April 7, 2008 at 9:17 pm (UTC 2 )
Well, we’re really planning to do the 100 Mile Diet starting Septemberish, so you’ll be seeing a lot of posts on this topic with good local resources. Do you know, the things we’re in a panic about are so strange? Like, what if I can’t make my own ketchup (or at least my own GOOD ketchup)? And what about tater tots (and that’s not just the kids, Matt & I are addicts too!)…
Hatchet says:
April 7, 2008 at 6:22 pm (UTC 2 )
Keep me posted, if you would. If we have to rely on me to call anyone it will never happen. My brain is totally melted these days. I would like to buy more local food and I go through a lot of flour.
Julie says:
April 7, 2008 at 10:11 am (UTC 2 )
Butte Mill Flour Company right here in Boulder County (3889 75th St in Boulder). I’m hoping to contact them to see if they have other types of grains (we got hard red winter wheat flour, which is fabulous, but very coarse, so I might like some rye or other flour to lighten it a bit for baking) and if I can buy from them over the winter when there’s no farmer’s market. I’ll keep you posted, or you can call them at 303.440.0750.
Julie
Hatchet says:
April 6, 2008 at 10:37 pm (UTC 2 )
Ooh! Who was selling flour?
Sounds like fun! I had meant to go, but…you know, I can’t even remember what happened on Saturday, much less what kept us from going. Sigh.
I blame the twins.