Post Wedding Reflections (taste of the forbidden fruit)

So we have returned from south of the border after a marvelous time at Dave's sister Allie's wedding, an a marvelous food experience. We first would like to pay tribute to a fantastic chef, a very close family friend and an all-around great guy, Lennon Lewandowski who catered the event. He is the heart and soul of the kitchen at Oliver's restaurant in Buffalo, NY and has a great commitment to developing the local food movement in B-lo. Check him out at oliverscuisine.com where you can watch videos of him preparing some of the dishes they had on their winter menu. Thanks for the spectacular strawberry shortcake! (made w/ fresh picked strawberries from their CSA)

Our trip was a time of learning as well as a time of reflection as to why we are doing this diet (or as the groom renamed it "our alternative food lifestyle experiment") an how it makes us feel on all levels. Firstly, as you can imagine, we spent most of our weekend explaining to people what this crazy experiment we are doing is, and why in the world we would possibly take it on. Our comments fell to mixed reviews. Some people thought it was progressive, allowing us to connect with where we live and have a greater independence from the global food market. Others though we were down right nuts! Why live without convenience food when you don't have to? Some of this is likely largely due to the relative infancy of the Buffalo locavore movement itself. While we only had a limited time to explore the local food scene, it seemed that finding meats and produce was fairly easy, but the less obvious and more challenging ingredients were a bit lacking. No local oils, flours, grains, vinegar, and a surprising paucity of niagara wine (in restaurants especially). Now granted, we are coming from Toronto and the vastly different size, economy, and active food culture between the two are really not comparable, but we do think there is one specific difference separating the two: in Buffalo it seemed that the restaurants using local ingredients source specific items that easily fit into their style of cuisine. For example, using a local pork chop and local tomatoes to enhance a classic Italian style pork chop. The 'localness' of the ingredients is certainly highlighted, but it is not integral to the composition of the dish. In Toronto, however, the local ingredients drive the development of the menu. If local pork isn't around, you'll be having local chicken as the special. There is a greater emphasis on eating seasonally and allowing the creative development to come from what's available, rather than having the idea and finding a few local ingredients that fit in. That is the true meaning of local eating, something we are discovering very quickly.

We did have an interesting encounter with some delicious grapefruit. As part of the CSA Dave's Dad and stepmom Sandy receive a bi-weekly box of grapefruit, oranges, and tangerines. The neat part is that CSA owns a sister farm in Florida where all of the citrus is grown in the same organic way down south. Then twice a month, the fresh produce is trucked up to NY and CSA members get a box load of great citrus. They had one last grapefruit, and while, yes Florida is well outside of our local radius, we feel this is really the intent behind local eating anyway, and man it was good. This kind of co-operative farming reminds us a bit of Chocosol, a group of local Toronto chocolatiers. Stating that if possible, they would canoe the cacoa beans from Latin America to Toronto, the company is dedicated to developing sustainable and local driven farming practices. Working closely with local communities, they have been learning the traditional methods for growing cacoa and making all kinds of delicious chocolates from these ancient techniques. Pretty damn cool! While we won't be indulging in any more citrus, or chocolate from that matter, when we start eating it again, this is definitely the way to go. So props to Thorps (the local CSA) and all the other people, restaurants, and companies in Buffalo, Toronto, and everywhere else striving to bring into focus the connection between food, life, and culture.

Stay tuned for some postings of our recent local dinner recipes we'd love to share, especially our reconciliation with red fife wheat, which evidently makes wicked good pasta!