Sorry We're Slackers

Just a quick note of closure. We made it! Life got a bit hectic in the end, but have no fear we finished the month with flying colors. The last day in February coincidentally coincided with Sam's birthday so we celebrated in full force with good food, good booze and good company. I made a carrot cake with 90% local ingredients (the exceptions were sugar, salt, spices, and baking soda) even the cream cheese frosting was local!

The End.

Why February?

Good question.

Answer: why not?

It may seem crazy to subsist off of winter produce alone, but we live in Texas. It’s actually easier to grow things through the mild winter than keep them alive through the hot summer. Sure, we don’t have strawberries or eggplant right now but all in due time, all in due time. Winter crops from California to Florida are full of exciting greens and citrus among other fruits, veggies, and nuts.

This diet has proved to be a crash course in seasonal eating. By eating seasonally we eat foods that grow naturally with the environmental conditions (ie lettuce in the winter and bell peppers in the summer), it reduces the energy and resources put into growing water intensive plants in the summer and light intensive plants in the winter. Can you imagine trying to keep arugula alive through August in Texas?

The local element cuts out anything that might be grown somewhat seasonally say in Mexico and trucked up north. Again, we do live in Texas where it is possible to grow food through the winter. This is not necessarily an option for more northerly regions but I challenge you to find one fresh food item produced in your local region in the winter. You might be surprised, mushrooms for example can be grown almost anywhere.

All the seasonality aside, we have been

experiencing a rash of weather conditions here in Austin. Check out these two pictures of my garden, the first taken on Tuesday and the second on Thursday…

Switching gears, here is the best lunch I have had all month!

Grilled and sautéed mushrooms, onions, mustard greens and potatoes on a bed of spinach with a side of black eyed peas topped with cheddar cheese and Guacamole!

The guacamole is one avocado mixed with some diced red onion, tomato, cilantro and a splash of grapefruit/ orange juice. Mmmmmmm

And lastly, the treasure of the day from the Downtown Farmer’s market: Cream Cheese!! This comes from Full Quiver Farms, the same place we get cheddar and mozzarella from. It’s so delicious I wouldn’t be surprised if I finish the tub today.

Our First Reader Submitted Meal

Ginnie took up my offer and submitted the list of foods that she ate for dinner on Wednesday. Since last I can recall she was in The Second City aka City of Big Shoulders aka Hog Butcher for the World I used that as her hometown. Unfortunately, her details were a bit lacking so I embellished as needed. Given that she's the only one to submit the current rankings are:
1.) Liz and Sam
2.) Ginnie

Submit what you ate and try and claim your own piece of Olympic history.

Ginnie's Repast:
Beluga caviar on table water crackers (I assumed only the best here, Carlisle for the crackers and the Caspian Sea for the caviar)
Italian, salt-packed capers (L'isola di Pantelleria vicino a Sicilia)
French brie (also on the crackers) (The French Region of Brie, same crackers waste not want not)
New Zeland Gala apple (Middle Earth)
Belgian Chocolates (Brussels)

We have no idea where 60% of infected carcasses come from

* Synthesizer Trumpets GO!*

It's the final countdown

That’s right y’all; Liz and my locals only diet is in its last throes and the word ya’ll should be indicative of just how serious things have gotten. This time next week we’ll be 24 hours into our month-long coffee, beer, and popcorn tofu bender, but for now we’re still going strong. Although most of our current thoughts are firmly focused on exactly what next Monday will entail (margaritas, popcorn tofu po-boys smothered in cashew tamari, etc) I think it’s worthwhile to post a bit about our motivations for this whole adventure.

This past summer, I participated in a workshop at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis on modeling Bovine Tuberculosis in the United States. As it turns out, this is a non-trivial problem in part because there are few to no requirements for recording where food is born, raised, shipped, and slaughtered. To illustrate this points, consider the title of this post, a reference to one of the most damning statistics shared during the meeting, “Of all the bovine TB cases identified at slaughter only around 40% can be traced back to a herd of origin.” Let that sink in.

Now you may think that cows and pigs have it bad, and they do, but poultry by far has it worse. There are nearly 300 million laying hens in the US confined to cages so small they can’t even spread their wings, all while their slaughter does not fall under the US Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. These huge factory farms are literally breeding grounds for animal diseases. Fact - The recent swine-origin H1N1 emerged from an industrial hog farm in central Mexico. Let that sink in.

Time to take the wind from the vegetarian sails. Pesticides cause irreparable harm to the environment, fertilizer is generating clouds of death that extend hundreds of miles from the mouth of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, and bacterial (think e. coli and salmonella) outbreaks are becoming more common every year. Fact - even though industrial dairy farms don’t slaughter their milking cows they can be nearly as inhumane. This is why all milk has to be pasteurized.

Which brings us to our current state of affairs. You don’t have to eat locally for a month to make a difference (in fact even if you did it still wouldn’t make a difference), but you can make a conscious effort to eat only products that are farmed and processed in an environmentally friendly, sustainable, and humane manner. It’s easier than ever to take food assurance into your own hands. Not only will you end up living a healthier life, but I’m sure you’ll be impressed with how wonderful food can taste (we’ve all been missing out).

We also challenge you to consider the environmental impact of your food choices in terms of both production and transportation. As motivation, consider the above map. Each line connects either the farm where our food was produced or where we purchased it to our houses in Austin. Now tomorrow think about what your map will look like. Fact - If you send me location information on the food you eat and where you live I’ll make the map for you and post it to the blog. Contest anyone? Happy responsible eating and sorry if the final countdown is stuck in your head, it’s still is in mine : ) * Synthesizer Trumpets GO!*

"The line of the buildings stood clear-cut and black against the sky; here and there out of the mass rose the great chimneys, with the river of smoke streaming away to the end of the world." – Upton Sinclair The Jungle

Fat Tuesday Sweet Tooth Recipes

We knew this blogging thing would eventually slow down, but here we are back in action! It’s Wednesday (Ash Wednesday at that, Happy Mardi Gras), which is synonymous with CSA basket day. Still gettin’ a lot of greens but as I was unloading the box into my grocery bags a bright shinning beacon of hope was tucked away in the back corner waiting to surprise and delight me… an Avocado!! I knew they grew in Texas but had no idea about the season or region. Apparently this one came from the citrus farm that also supplies our CSA with oranges and grapefruits. There were no more to be found today but maybe we will spy some at the Saturday market (one can only hope).

The beans have been a great boost to our diet. Egg protein is starting to get a little old so it’s nice to throw in the complete rice and bean protein now and again. Although the woman I bought eggs from today gave me a half dozen for free! So now I have 18 eggs to try and consume. I guess it’s a good thing we have so much dill and mayo. Speaking of mayo- here are the latest recipes:

Notice the use of BUTTER. Way Back When Dairy sells butter along with yogurt milk and cream at the sunset valley farmers market. What a treat.

Orange Pecan Cookies

3 Tbsp honey

3 Tbsp butter

6 Tbsp flour

grated orange peal

toasted and chopped pecans

-mix honey and butter in a pot on low heat. When uniform, add flour, orange and pecan. Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes. They go great with peppermint tea.

Rice Pudding
2.5 cups whole milk
1/3 cup white rice
two heaping spoonfuls of raw honey
splash of vanilla
pecan pieces
-Bring rice and milk to a boil and stir occasionally to prevent sticking and scalding. When rice is al dente add honey and vanilla. Stir until honey is dissolved and keep on low heat until milk has thickened to desired consistency. Serve hot or cold. To get a nice skin formed on the top- let cool uncovered before storing. Mix in pecans right before eating.

Herbed mayo
One egg yolk or full egg
Juice from half an orange
½-3/4 cup olive oil
chopped parsley and dill
-put egg and orange into food processor with normal blade and run for a minute. Very very slowly add oil through feed tube while the blade is still running. You should start to see the mixture thicken up. Stop a few times to scrape down the sides and make sure the bottom is mixing in. Add chopped herbs when you reach your desired consistency. Just using the egg yolk will produce a very thick “peaky” mayo. Adding the whole egg will make it more of a puffy dip. Ordinarily I think you are supposed to use a less flavorful oil like canola because this mayo tastes overwhelmingly like olive oil. Not necessarily a bad thing, but just a heads up.

Update on the Paneer
I was a little skeptical of making it with grapefruit instead of lemon and the result was a pinkish curdled mass. However when I pulled it out of the fridge yesterday it was a perfect cheese texture and browned up nicely in a stir-fry with rice and roasted veggies.

And just for fun here is a picture of how I start about 70% of my meals- Mushrooms, green onions, olive oil and my favorite cast iron skillet

Beans, Beans, They're Good for Your Heart...

And our morale.

We've known since well before launch day that a company in Dallas, Green Valley Food Corp., grew black eyed peas and that in theory one could purchase these beans at Wheatsville in Austin. However, every time we asked we recieved one of three answers:

1. "They'll be in tomorrow."

2. "Sometime next week."

3. "No way will we have those before May."

Liz and I had effectively given up hope and turned our fantasizing efforts toward something more concrete (e.g. we're half-way towards coffee). Actually, I can only speak for myself in this regard and in all honesty we're having a blast with the diet and really only miss a few select items. Digression aside, last night I made the trek through our lovely El Nino weather, 40 and raining, to Wheatsville with the intention of replacing my exhausted dairy stash, but low and behold during my usual and again fruitless search of the produce section for local hot peppers I came across 6 bags of Green Valley Food's black eyed peas. I bought them all.

Sam: I have a black eyed present for you.

Liz: YES! YES! YES!

Sam: Eat huevos rancheros (unfortunately minus the hot peppers) the following morning.

Things were a bit crazy this week, but I'm still planning a post on food assurance in the US, which will probably happen sometime this weekend. In the meantime enjoy my recipe for ranch eggs sans hot peppers and please post any black eyed peas related suggestions.


Beans:

bring 7 cups of water and 1 cup juice from Pure Luck Feta cheese container to a boil.

Add 2 12oz packages Green Valley black eyed peas, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour

Add 1 huge ass sweet potato, 2 beats, onions, garlic, carrots, and spices

simmer for 1 hour

Add de-stemmed kale

simmer for 30 minutes or until the beans and sweet potato are ready to eat

Ranch Eggs:

Prepare 2 flour tortillas (I've found that making up a huge batch and keeping them uncooked in the fridge is the way to go)

2 eggs in the key of over easy

warm the beans in a skillet with a tomato

place the eggs on top of the tortillas and submerge in beans

place huge grin on face

enjoy

But tell me how you really feel

1 week down, 3 to go.

This project has not only dictated a change in diet, but social environment as well. Preping and cooking every meal at home is quite an adjustment from the everyday routine (so many dishes, so little time) but there is also a certain element of social interaction that has been altered by lack of coffee breaks, going out to weekly lab lunch or grabbing drinks before rocking out to a Queen cover band. However, the inability to purchase practically anything has not led to total isolation.

My solution to the bar problem maybe frowned upon by some but it involves forethought in wine purchasing, a nalgene bottle and an empty pint glass. Not the classiest vessel for vino but I don’t think they have corking fee policies at Lovejoy’s or the Beauty Bar. The same might go for food at a restaurant although I can’t say I have tried that yet. My hope is that if you are there with a group of people and explain to the manager that you have a highly restrictive diet then they should let it slide. It would be the same thing if a gluten intolerant vegan allergic to most brassicaceae wanted to sit with their friends at a restaurant right?

As for the physical response to this diet the only thing I can say is I feel tired ALL the time. This is quite possibly due to the fact that school has just started back up, I have 600 things to do, and its February during an El Niño year. Check out the Austin weather for the next week. And while I do love a rich hot cup of french press coffee now and then, my caffeine cravings are no where near Sam’s who relayed this anecdote last week; as he walked down the hall in the afternoon every desk in every open office had a cup of stimulant on it. I think his withdrawal headaches have subsided though.

While this does seem to be a bit of a burden I do feel good after every meal I have. The lack of salt disappointment has passed and I seem to get more joy out of every experimental creation I produce in the kitchen. I believe it’s the same phenomenon that happens when backpacking where everything you eat tastes that much better because of the hard work you just put in before eating it (be it peak bagging or ingredient hunting and mental prowess).

Here are some of the latest additions to the menu:

Paneer- made by boiling milk, adding grapefruit juice to get it to curdle, and straining through cheese-cloth.

Pecan butter- pecans plus food processer. Great with carrots.

Orange yogurt smoothie- I think our vitamin C counts are through the roof with the amount of oranges we have consumed

Turnip chips- thinly slice, drizzle in olive oil and pop in a 400 oven until they are crispy

PIZZA!!- Sam’s tortillas, tomatoes** mixed with fresh rosemary and fennel and mozzarella cheese

**I found the tomatoes at Central Market yesterday. They are from a mom and pop farm outside of Waco. Additionally, Texas does have a large quantity of hydroponic tomatoes but we were lucky to catch these because I think the grower is almost out.

Miracle Wheat

One of the staples of our diet has been hard red winter wheat flour from Richardson Farms. Joe Richardson shows up to the Sunset Valley farmers market and sells a variety of meats however recently (last year I think) he started harvesting and milling wheat on his farm. On January 30th we bought two 5 lb. bags for $10 bucks a pop and a bag of wheat berries as well. I’ve maybe got a pound and a half left and I think Sam has about the same. Here is the plethora of recipes we have been using to keep our carb count up.

Natural rise sourdough bread

Starter:

2 c. water

2 c. flour

Whip this up a bit and leave in a bowl with a loose plastic lid in a warm spot. Stir up the mix twice a day. It took about two and a half days to start seeing bubbles and there was a bit of a funk smell as well (I’ve been told its ok even though it smells nothing like sourdough). On day 4 I split the starter in half and gave one to Sam. One day later I fed mine some honey and the day after that I put it in my food processer and added a bunch of flour and mixed with the dough blade. I’ve never used that attachment before and it seemed a bit harsh for yeasted dough, however I hear its great for piecrusts. I let the dough ball rise for another day and a half, mostly because it seemed to have lost its rise ability. Today I was tire

d of waiting and threw a hunk of dough in a low temp oven. I thought it had totally failed but about an hour later I broke it open and it was real bread! The second batch I did was in a 350 oven for 30 min and then I bumped it up to 400 for another 30min. Not the prettiest loaf I have ever made but it goes great with cheddar and olive oil.

Griddlecakes

1 cup milk

2 tbsp honey

splash of vanilla

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 eggs

1 cups flour (I think)

Warm the milk on the stove without scalding and dissolve the honey in it. Pour in a bowl with oil, vanilla and eggs and mix well. Add the flour until you get a nice batter consistency. Cook up in your favorite pancake pan or pour a thin layer of batter in a cake pan and pop it in the oven. These are fairly dense but have a nice sweet flavor that really hits the spot. I have been eating these in the morning with yogurt and also carrying them around in my

bag as a mid afternoon/ post drinking snack.

Parmesan Crackers

2 cups flour

1 cup milk

1 tbsp oil

grated parmesan

Mix flour, oil and milk until it forms a sticky ball. Press into a thin layer on a cookie sheet and top with parmesan cheese. Bake until the bottom is nice and brown and the cracker is hard enough that you have to snap a piece off. A higher heat oven seemed to work better

Quiche

Dough:

¼ cup cold water

¼ oil

1 cup flour

Wisk the water and oil so it looks cloudy, this simulates the fat globules you would get from butter to make a flakey pie crust. Add the flour and press into a pie pan.

Filling:

4 eggs

½ cup milk

sautéed veggies

Mozzarella

Put veggies into crust, pour egg and milk mixture over them. Top with mozzarella and bake at 400 for 45 min or so.

I was pretty excited about the browned motz on the top, it was delicious.

…and for you meat eaters, Sam’s Carne Guisada Style Buffalo Tacos

tortillas:
2 cups flour
1.5 cups warm milk
olive oil
whisk together milk and oil
slowly add milk/oil and knead for a couple minutes
cover for 20 minutes
make 8 balls
cover for 20 minutes
roll out to about 6-8 inches across
cook on a dry hot pan

Filling:
marinate 1lb buffalo meat in grapefruit and orange juice with parsley, onions, garlic
sauté mushrooms with garlic and onions
cook meat with oil, onion, garlic, and some marinade until desired temp (medium rare for me)

savor

There you have it, our wheat repertoire (including pasta too). I never thought we would be able to bake so many different things with so few ingredients. Its amazing that liquid and wheat can take on so many forms with a minor tweak in texture and heat method. We are still looking for a local butter (or raw milk) source. With the addition of another fat source the possibilities are endless.

Poor Man's Food (which I eat even when I'm not on a local kick)

Liz and I picked up our CSA basket on Wednesday and now have winter vegetables, mostly in the rootaceae family (e.g. carrots, turnips, onions, garlic), but we also got plenty of winter greens and a smattering of citrus. I used a trove of these vegetables and some wheat berries from Richardson Farms to make wheat berry soup. Admittedly, it did end up a bit thin and inspired my adviser to say, "It's only been 4 days and you've reduced yourself to gruel," but the taste was great and the wheat berries provided some much needed carbohydrates.

In addition to the CSA basket, I also discovered the first local cheese that actually tasted like cheese, this winged savior was Pure Luck Dairy's Goat Feta. Pure Luck is just down the road in Dripping Springs. I've enjoyed their cheese with salads, gruel, in omelets, and straight up with a class of wine. I'm looking forward to finding more cheese and hopefully some goat milk from their dairy.

Wheat Berry Soup

2 cups wheat berries
collection of vegetables
1 tbl spoon olive oil

saute onions and garlic in oil until soft
add wheat berries
add whatever spices you want
cover with water
boil
turn down heat and simmer for ~20-30min

add peeled roots (in may case turnips and carrots)

simmer for 30 min

I like to add a few slices of Parmesan cheese to my bowl right before eating, but before this step the soup is vegan.

Pure Luck Omelet

3 eggs, cracked
1 dollop of milk
copious Pure Luck Goat Feta

Whip it Good
cook eggs in an omelet manner
add feta
fold and flip without ruining

I've found a drizzle of honey to be the perfect topper, but that could also be due to an intense desire for anything sweet.


Contrary to popular rumor, Liz and I are a team nothing more. Here is her separate soup recipe as proof...Notice I'm not in the picture.


Liz's cream-of-farmer's market

Sauteed onions garlic and mushrooms in olive oil
Throw in chopped collards, open leaves from the top of a brussel sprout stem, turnips and carrots and sear them a bit
Add water and let everything stew
(I threw in some old rice at this point)

Once it cooks down add a bunch of milk and let it heat up until just before boiling. I used an immersion blender to get a uniform texture but its not necessary

I topped it off with a sprig of parsley and a bunch of cilantro from my garden

Pass the salt please

Salt, a seemingly ubiquitous entity, has somehow escaped our 200-mile edible radius.

After reading Salt: A World History (quite an informative if not incredibly dry read written by Mark Kurlansky author of Cod) a few years back, I learned that salt basically drove the trade routes of the ancient world and was practically worth its weight in gold. I guess this makes sense seeing as the mineral is essential to animal life (although usually quite detrimental to plants) and was the primary means of food preservation save the past 200 years. However, due to vast advances in industrial mining, salt went from being a hot commodity to a run of the mill commodity. Basically it went from gold to cheap and easy (to find).

So if salt is so abundant, where can we get some?

I have already received enough questioning looks and scoffing remarks in the grocery store asking about the origins of sprouts and rice but try asking someone if they have local salt. Not even Whole Foods and their fancy bulk salt bar with 8 different colors and sizes and entire shelf of exotic jars can help me pick out something they know for sure is even from the US.

After 5 minutes of google research I found that, of course, the great state of Texas is not to be without this precious mineral. We have both rock and brine production of salt and even our very own salt war. Numerous companies in numerous counties produce salt but much like the meat and grain industries one can never be certain as to the location of origin when the product has been shipped to different processing plants, mixing mills, distribution warehouses and finally to the dinner table where it boldly sits as the finishing touch/ saving grace to every home cooked meal.

For now, we are going almost completely without salt. The exception being locally made cheese (and I venture to guess the local meat that Sam got was cured with salt). I could already tell this was effecting me on day 1 when I tore out of school to get to the store as soon as possible to buy Parmesan style cheese. I don't like Parmesan but my body was telling me to eat a pound of it.

Other fun facts found in Mark Kurlansky's book:

The original ketchup actually resembled something similar to soy sauce with a variety of added ingredients. It was tomato ketchup that really took off in the UK and US.

The origin of "When it rains, it pours" refers to Morton's ad campaign marketing their salt that doesn't clump up especially when its humid outside due to a change in the crystal structure.

Purgatory or Pasta!

Last night while a house full of friends watched the season premier of lost, Liz and I made sweat potato and portobello mushroom ravioli using H&J Ranch eggs and wheat from Richardson Farms. While we never did find out if the nuclear bomb exploded or if purgatory actually exists, it was quite the process turning these ingredients into edible pasta. Below is more of an ingredients list than an actual recipe because we kept kneading, adding water, and adding flour until the consistency felt right. The end result was just what we'd come to expect form homemade pasta, always worth the effort. Unfortunately, my pasta was serial crushed by some huge friggen water bottle sometime during the night, but as Bill Murray once said, “It just doesn’t matter.” In short, although it wouldn’t pass muster from a presentation standpoint, the flavor of smashed pasta is nearly indistinguishable from its fully sober brethren.

Sweat Potato and Portobello Mushroom Ravioli

Pasta
3 eggs (farm size, ~medium)
2 cups flour (with a bit extra during kneading)
olive oil (~tbl spoon)
water (~1/2 cup, but don’t add it all at once)

Ravioli Filling
Shredded sweet potato
sauteed chopped portobello and minced green onion
rosemary
one egg
sprinkle of flour
oil

At the shredded stage I have been using this mix for hash browns and lettuce wrap filler but another run through the food processor and it makes ideal ravioli filling.

There will likely be enough pasta leftover to make some additional noodles to either air dry and save for later or use to augment your meal. Up Next: Salt, Food Assurance, and home-made sourdough starter (something I consider to be one of the coolest things that actually works on this whole rock).

Dinner, In the European aka lazy style

Alright, well the first day is just about in the books and I've learned a lot.

1.) It has been a long time since I've not had 3 cups of coffee on a Monday.

2.) Don't tell Liz, but I'm 90% sure that White Mountain doesn't use local milk for their yogurt or local soy for their tofu. I'll know for sure once they return my fax.

3.) "Way Back When" dairy not only has local milk, but makes a truly stellar yogurt.

As for dinner, I waited till I was too hungry to cook before eating, as I'm regularly apt to do, so I had to suffice with cured sausage from Indian Hills Farm, cheddar cheese from Veldhuizen farm, pickles from hill country homestyle canning, and a glass of signature melange wine from llano winery.

For tomorrow, I mashed turnips with Way Back When yogurt, basil, sage, oregano, leeks, garlic, and olive oil*, which I will eat tomorrow with broccoli and oranges (although probably not together). As for breakfast, I'm debating between a cheddar cheese omelet and returning to experimental pancakes.

Alright, I'm off to watch our latest Parkour video (don't worry those involved, the actual video won't make the blog).

*There are a number of places in Texas that grow olives and produce really tasty oil. I bought some from these guys last Saturday: http://texasoliveranch.com/

Day 1

Lunch Time- Day 1

11am rolled around and I was starving! But soon realized I am usually starving by mid-morning and try to hold out until at least noon to grab a bite.
Breakfast consisted of an orange and experimental pancakes topped with Bulgarian yogurt from White Mountain Foods. I made the experimental pancakes last night with flour, honey, milk, yogurt, egg, olive oil and vanilla***.

Lunch consisted of white texas rice, floured and fried tofu*, homemade crackers and broccoli. I also brought a couple carrots and an orange for additional snacking…

Tonight I’m thinking about something to do with sweet potatoes and lettuce.

Up next on the plate: Salt
Stay tuned for texas salt flats, wars and industry oh my.


*Tofu. White Mountain Foods is a local company here in Austin. They are most known for their Bulgarian yogurt, which is made using milk from Texas cows. The tofu however, is questionable. I read a while ago that they use local ingredients and I know soybeans can grow in this region. However I am unsure if they source all their beans locally or if some are supplemented from out of state farms. I have emailed them and hope to hear back soon. As for the tofu I have, I will finish the block and not buy any more until I am sure it’s a go.

***Vanilla?? Hold the phone- vanilla doesn’t grow here! True. However there are a few items that have been acquired from their local origins and brought back by a traveling person. We are not trying to create loopholes to gain access to a wider variety of products but do believe that it makes sense if a person has traveled to a far away location (in this case for academic research) and they bring back something without extra shipping or energy expenditure then it should be allowed. In this case Sam went to Veracruz, Mexico a few weeks ago to collect fish fin clips (ask him about this project, he is super excited about it…). This region is known for its vanilla production and bringing home a small bottle of extract was not a difficult task. He did not however stock up on coffee so as to plan ahead for an entire month without caffeine. That would have been pushing the line a bit. Other items that fall into this category for us are Dulce de Leche from Buenos Aries, Argentina given to me by Dave after his Patagonian adventure (before any of this local business was ever seriously talked about) and a jar of peaches preserved two years ago from trees on the UC Davis campus when I lived there. It’s a mystery if these peaches are still good but I have been carrying the jar around with me long enough that I think its time to crack it open.
Again, we are not trying to use this as a loophole by any means (ie. I am not writing home to California and asking my parents to send me a box full of avocados) but if we have items in the pantry that have been acquired locally then they are fair game.

---UPDATE---
I checked the ingredients on the Dulce de leche and there is some other stuff in it of questionable origin so that's off the list.
However, something to add is a small jar of Verbesina alternifolia honey Sam received from his friend's bees in Kentucky

Dear Internet

...wait is this thing on? It is? Okay here goes.

Dear Internet,

This is Liz and Sam, we are Team Zombie Makeout, and this is to be our first foray into the world of blogging. To be clear, this endeavor is not motivated by the need to make resolutions for the new year and it is merely an unfortunate coincidence of timing that all of this is starting now. That being said, our motivation for this project will not be the subject of this report but perhaps will be explained later.

We are, that is to say at least one of us, retired ruggers, experimental geographers, gentleman naturalists, roller derby enthusiasts, backpackers, travelers, and drunken scholars but the bills get paid by moonlighting as graduate students in evolutionary biology at the University of Texas at Austin. I know graduate students are the worst. Neither one of us is an Austin native, Liz is from California and as Emily is oft to say, "I don't look nearly as Midwestern as I appear in my older pictures."

So brass tax time. The plan is for Liz and I to spend the next month subsiding solely on food and drink that is grown within 200 miles of Austin. We say 200 miles mainly to incorporate citrus and rice, with the vast majority of our food coming from our county and those directly surrounding. You might say we are crazy for trying this in February, and many already have, but there's beauty in this madness. This time of year in central Texas you can get a veritable smorgasbord of fall and winter vegetables, eggs, dairy, meat, citrus, flour and so much more. And if we learned anything from Super Size Me and the Atkins diet it's nearly impossible to cause lasting harm to yourself in one month. We are going chronicle our journey in words and pictures and are excited to learn about what others have tried, hear suggestions, and hopefully convince you that living more sustainably can greatly enhance your quality of life.

To begin with, we will post some questions we've been debating over the past month, things central to our existence such as booze, coffee, salt, and sprouts. Spoiler alert, we're likely not to have any of these. Actually, I'm just kidding there's no way we could undertake this without wine from the Hill Country. If you have opinions, as I'm sure your do, we'll be excited to hear them and levy our own in return. We will regularly post what we're eating, the recipes we use, and the farms growing and raising the food. Liz and I are both really excited for this all to kick off tomorrow and are frantically cooking crackers, rice, vegetables and experimental pankcakes so we won't starve before our CSA basket arrives Wednesday. Last but not least, here's to savoring our final beer for the next 28 days.

As I think they say in swahilli, Karibu tule!

-Team Zombie Makeout