Friday, November 26, 2010

Thankful for Local!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today I'm thankful for so many things, my family's healthy, Music Man has a great new job opportunity, the fact that I have a job that allows me freedoms I might not have with a different job, a home where we are all happy and comfortable, new friendships made this year with people we have a lot in common with, old friendships that have been like rocks for me in this very challenging year...and the list goes on and on.

One of the other things that I'm also most thankful for is local food.  Once I took the plunge into local eating about 3 years ago, I've since researched sources for so much of what we need to eat locally.  It has been very heartening to me to find that there are still small farmers doing what they do to provide locally grown, more nutritious and in some cases organic food.  I find the quality of the food I get is so outstanding compared to what I was used to in the grocery stores.  No, I don't get one stop shopping, but what I do get is the relationship with the farmers, I can see the animals and how they live, I enjoy the benefits of organic in my own community and can swap recipes with these same farmers and other who purchase from them.  I also get the benefit of having the money I spend on the food stay within my own area. A win for everyone involved!

This year, I got our organic free range heritage breed turkey from a friend's farm a couple of miles from my home. I also served butternut squash with apples and maple syrup, all locally grown.  The organic blueberry pie above I made with blueberries that my family picked last year at Blueberry Bay, even the flour in the crust is from King Arthur, which is located less then 100 miles from my home.  The only things that weren't local in the meal were the lemon in the pie, the butter and the stuffing (which could have been local, if I had made it from scratch like I did last year!), though the sausage I mixed in was from the pig we bought from our friend's farm.  So yummy! 

The only thing we missed this year was the presense of any friends or family.  This is the first year in a long time that we've not shared the day with someone else.  It adds a wonderful factor to the day to share with others in the day of thanks.

Wishing you a local holiday for your family, ~Peacemom

2 comments:

small farm girl said...

I just love a local Thanksgiving dinner! That is my goal for next year. Everything from my own farm. We'll see. :) I'm glad you also had a good and peaceful Thanksgiving. Sometimes the non-eventful ones are the best. lol

Peacemom said...

Thank, SMG! That turkey was outstanding! I think I got a Bourbon Red if you're interested in that heritage breed, she had raised a couple different kinds. The meat was different then what you're used to with conventional birds, but AMAZINGLY good! Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!