Eat Local Challenge

Don't let the 25 Green Days of Christmas be misleading - this is still a careening blog about eating local foods as a way to reduce my carbon bite.

My initial picture of eating local was somehow being able to stomach gruel and mushy potatoes that grew wild Einstein like eyebrows that would have to be composted before cooking. It was a scary prospect that I tentatively entered.

Pollan showed me the door, Kingsolver opened it and the Eat Local Challenge blog was there when I stepped in. Nearly every day for those first weeks I would visit the ELC website and take heart that I wasn't crazy and people weren't starving or ugly because they had chosen to eat foods grown where they lived. The people on the website seemed to not only lead regular and varied lives but they were eating really good food. And they could cook. There was no gruel. They cared about the environment and how their food was grown and labeled. And that gave me hope and still does.

So it's no surprise that the Eat Local Challenge blog has been nominated as the 2007 Food Blog of the Year. WooooWhooooo! I want them to win.

They're doing great work and they include everyone. If you have ever compared a piece of fruit from say, another country, to the same fruit grown closer to your home and put the fruit grown nearby in your mouth, you have met the challenge. It's not always easy but it does generally taste better.

If you want to join the fan club and maybe get this work more press you can vote here. It only takes a second.

I also have to mention the Food on the Food blog, which was nominated for Best Food Blog of the Year for Humor. Sometimes I spit the way the laughter rises up so fast reading it. It's embarrassing. The author, Tammy, makes eating local food worthy of stand up comedy. But even better. And she can cook - with kids. The cute guy has a crush on her.

The humor category ballot is here. The blog is Food on the Food.