C'mon and sign up!

Okay, so no one has *officially* signed up here for my July local food challenge. That's okay. I'm still totally excited about it! I've been attending my farmers' market and contemplating recipes, meal plans, and such, and I'm almost ready to start in a couple of weeks.

I'd like to clarify a couple things, in case you're interested but maybe overwhelmed by the idea of eating 100% local food for an entire month. For the record, we're probably going to eat about 85-90% local for the month. I think a few exceptions that we're going to have will be spices and seasoning (salt & pepper), almond milk (paul is somewhat lactose intolerant, and this is a staple for him), coconut oil (it's REALLY healthy, and we use it fairly frequently), olive oil, and vinegar.

Because this challenge is really an experiment (I don't plan to eat entirely local when this is over--there are things like pineapple, avocado, bananas that I intend to keep in our regular diet), I invite you to set your own goals and rules and join us! Even something like just dinners or even one meal a week can be a fun way to experiment.

For those of you still unsure about shopping at your farmers' markets, I just wanted to show you my finds from this last Saturday. I bought a bunch of carrots with greens, a pint of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, a pint of sugar snap peas, about 8 baby cukes, a yellow squash, a yellow zucchini, 2 gorgeous big red tomatoes, about 3 pounds of mixed greens, a couple pounds of green beans, and a pan of Amish dinner rolls--all for under $34! And I bought it all directly from the farms. I can't wait to see what next week brings us!