As the official start of my pledge to an autumn of local organic foods approaches, I have been busily preparing a variety of foods to store throughout the next few months. I have been visiting a variety of farms, markets, and whole foods stores to stock up on some of my favorites. I’ve been lucky enough to get some delicious summer crops for free – cantaloupe from my pap’s garden, tomatoes from my professor – and have also joined in a half-share CSA with the Fresh from the Vines Farm, which I pay for by volunteering in the fields. My preparation has not been cheap, however, and I've spent a little over 200$ so far on food and supplies.
Tonight I froze a ton of blackberries and blueberries, though I’m trying to double my current stock, since they’re some of my absolute favorites. I also spent a lot of time cutting up cantaloupes and watermelon, some to freeze and some to continue eating fresh. I tried some new things tonight as well, like blanching and freezing a variety of beans, and canning 10 pints worth of peaches. This was a challenge for me since I’ve never done it without help, and luckily Rebecca Vines was kind enough to let me borrow some of her equipment, as well as the coolest book ever on food preservation, which I will be putting to good use in the next few weeks. My peaches are beautiful in their jars, except that in order to keep their lovely color, they needed a strong acid (like lemon juice) which comes from well over 100 miles from Meadville, so mine are a little brown, but full of love.
My goals for the next few days include the following: (1) calling Frankfert Farms to place an order on some of their flour, after determining what they grow and mill themselves (2) visiting the buffalo farm in Edinboro (3) visiting Restoration Herbs in Franklin next Tuesday (4) canning tomatoes (5) making trips to the Market House and the Erie Whole Foods Co-op.
