Second northern Nevada local-food year - what we've learned

It's March and local food is scarcer, but some is still available. We ate our one remaining chicken last week with friends and are down to about seven packages of beef. The freezer still holds frozen veggies, nuts, and a turkey so we have plenty to eat through April, and fresh local food starts coming in this Sunday; old friends and new acquaintances will be at our house for the annual grass-finished beef “party”.

All the local food in the house is what’s left of the 2007 CSA and farmers markets fruits, vegetables and nuts we froze or canned last year. Our CSA basket delivery will start in May so I’m starting to think about what I might do differently next year. 2007 was the second local-food year and the first year we ate primarily local throughout the entire year so I really had no experience preparing for off-season. Here’s what we've learned.


Jam – I made way too much and discovered too late that traditional recipes use more sugar than I like. I’m on the hunt for a lower sugar recipe for 2008. The best jam I made? Hands down is strawberry sun-dried jam.

Frozen vegetables –I froze everything we didn’t eat, except the greens, which went into our backyard composter. I was worried we’d gone overboard but now that it’s March I’m really happy we did it. Ziplock bags worked okay but often emerged from the freezer with holes in them. Food-Saver bags worked much better because they’re sturdier.

Canned tomatoes –A friend and I canned about 60 pounds and it still wasn’t enough…. ran out in December. Our home canned tomatoes were delicious and since January I’ve missed what could have been. This year we’ll probably double that. “Yikes, 120 pounds!”, you say. Yes, that’s a lot of tomatoes and canning but not nearly as daunting as you might think. My husband, a friend and I spent about 4 hours canning tomatoes last year, our first year out. Grab a friend, put on some music, and make it an opportunity to spend some time together. We had a great time….really!

Storage - We need a much better cold storage system than a giant plastic bucket in the garage. Our apples were mush by December, though the squash was good until the end of February. My grandma used to have this really cool outbuilding where she kept the all things fruit and veggie, and where grandpa hung the venison. As kids we only appreciated it for its capacity as a haunted house, but now I can appreciate its other qualities; consistently cool temperatures, rack space, and darkness. Storage is one of those food subjects I knew absolutely nothing about before last year, but I found a great book at the library, Root cellaring: the simple no-processing way to store fruits and vegetables, by Nancy Bubel. Many of the storage methods can be adapted to the urban dweller and gardener. I hope to have better storage results in 2008.

Garlic – we’re down to the last of our second braid and it’s starting to sprout. If you didn’t know garlic is still really tasty even if it has sprouted. The only effect is that the shoot is milder than the rest of the garlic. We learned that from Jacques Pepin. If we run out before garlic is available at the Carroll’s farmers market stall we’ll pick some up at the coop.

Herbs – we made some into herb-ice cubes and dried some. The frozen herbs are best for soups and stews. Dried for everything else.

Our family’s local range is defined as 150-200 miles from Sparks in any direction and this changed our off-season shopping habits a bit. We try to make our first stop the Great Basin Coop but could wish for earlier hours as my husband does the shopping and gets out early to beat the rush. Yes, throughout the year we still shop at Trader Joe’s and Raleys for food that isn’t produced locally and we wouldn’t choose to live without, like all things dairy, cured meats, and winter fruit. Even then, we purchased only what was produced in California, Washington, and Oregon. Kats Coffee and Wood Fire Roasted coffee for the tea, coffee, and social fix. We still frequent our favorite locally owned restaurants and coffee houses, and we happily eat whatever our gracious host makes for dinner, no matter where it comes from.

What do I miss? Tropical fruit, but there other options so I don’t miss them as much as I’d feared, and it tastes that much sweeter when we eat it while on vacation. And, on the rare occasion when we crave nachos we eat nachos, even though not a single ingredient is local. Life without nachos and beer? Never!