Cook Local

J and I are spoiled. We've managed to create this wonderful and fulfilling relationship. We not only love each other, we like each other. We can see Puget Sound from our living room. We have both committed to living a greener lifestyle. We both enjoy cooking. We both enjoy food. And we live in an area with such amazing farmer's markets that we can support these habits.

We visit at least one farmer's market every week. Most weeks, we visit two: the University District Farmer's Market and the Ballard Farmer's Market. During the summer, we buy enough at the markets to need two large canvas bags every week.

One of our favorite market vendors is Skagit River Ranch. They sell organic grass-fed beef and pork, as well as pastured chicken and eggs. Eating locally (and organic) is more expensive than shopping at the mega-supermarkets, but we've decided it's definitely worth it.

I'm going to get onto a short soapbox here for just a bit and talk about a few differences between grass-fed beef and grain-fed beef. I've compiled this information from the book The Omnivore's Dilemma as well as my own research and information from Skagit's website.

Cows have evolved to eat grass. It's why they have those ruminating stomachs. Much of the beef sold today however, is grain-fed beef. Grain-fed cows grow faster. A grain-fed cow can reach a weight for slaughter in a year. Grass-fed beef often takes two years. So a farmer's return on investment is quicker for grain-fed beef. Unfortunately, feeding a cow grain - a food for which its body was not designed, presents a few problems. The cows often suffer from health problems, including bloat and infection. Grain increases the acidity of the cows' stomachs and digestive track which can foster the growth of E.coli. This requires the cows be dosed with antibiotics along with their food. I'll skip further gory details, but I encourage you to read The Omnivore's Dilemma. Just don't read the first few chapters right before dinner out at McDonald's.

Feeding a cow grass instead of grain, helps maintain the health of the cow. This should be pretty obvious. Cows evolved to eat grass. Cows eat grass. Cows are happy (at least, as happy as a cow can be). The amount of saturated fat in grass-fed beef can be as low as 10%. Grain-fed beef can contain up to 20% saturated fat! In addition, grass-fed beef contains almost 6 times more Omega-3 fatty acids than grain-fed or grain-finished beef. Omega-3 fatty acids are the same fatty acids found in salmon. Grass-fed beef also contains higher levels of beta-carotene and CLA (both anti-oxidants).

The end result of these differences is that grass-fed beef cooks and tastes differently. If you typically buy grain-fed beef, try a taste test for yourself. The grass-fed beef should taste cleaner, with less pasty mouth feel. That pasty feel is from the saturated fat in the grain-fed beef. Make a note of how the beef smells when you cook it. Even the smell should be cleaner and meatier.

Now, off the soapbox and back to Skagit River Ranch.

We've bought a wide variety of beef and pork from Skagit and one thing we've always noticed is that there's very little fat when the beef is cooked. If we're making a recipe that calls for us to "drain off any excess fat", there is usually no excess fat to drain. The beef also cooks faster. This can be a bit tricky as we've overcooked their beef more than once. Even overcooked, though, their beef is still tender and flavorful.

They sell more than beef and pork. They also sell whole chickens and eggs as well. If you want eggs during the summer, you'd better get to the farmer's market early (like possibly right when they open) as there's always a line for Skagit's eggs.

This year, we're planning on buying beef bones from them as well to make beef stock.

If you live in Seattle and have access to the University District Farmer's market, the Ballard Farmer's market, the West Seattle Farmer's market, or Madison Market, I highly recommend you pick up some of their beef, pork, chicken, or eggs.

If you live elsewhere, look for grass-fed beef in your area. It's well worth it.

One of the great things about Seattle is the sheer variety of food you can find at the farmer's markets. I'm doing some writing for Seattle Metroblogging and part of what I'm doing is a series called 'Meet Your Farmer's Market Vendors'. I pick a vendor every week (sometimes two) and ask them about their products.

The first vendor I interviewed was Sea Breeze Farms. Among other things, they sell eggs. Duck eggs.

It took me a few months, but I finally worked up enough courage to try a duck egg.

Yes, I know. It looks like an egg. I'm not really sure what I was expecting. But it's an egg. The texture was a little meatier than a chicken egg, but overall, it was just an egg.

I was reading blogs today, as I am wont to do, and I came across a post from one of my favorite food writers, Matthew, from Roots and Grubs. In his post, he talks about choosing eggs at the supermarket. He didn't see much difference in taste between the non-organic supermarket eggs and the fortified or organic eggs. Well, he is probably right about the taste, but there are other differences to consider.

We buy all of our eggs from the farmers market. Specifically, we try to get eggs from Skagit River Ranch. We're not always successful because Skagit's eggs are very popular and if you don't get to the market early, you won't be able to get their eggs.

Skagit had their eggs tested recently (well, 2007) and the results might surprise you. I encourage you to read the entire study, here, but to summarize, here is how Skagit's eggs compared to your average supermarket egg.

• 4 times the amount of Vitamin E
• Double the Vitamin A
• 10 times the amount of Beta Carotene
• 3 times the amount of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
• 100 mg less Cholesterol
• 1/2 gram less Saturated Fat

Pastured eggs really are better for you. We eat a lot of eggs, using them for our breakfast frittatas every week. So the composition of our eggs is very important to us. We'll continue to use pastured eggs as much as we can (which is to say exclusively, unless something very important prevents us from attending a farmers market).

Unfortunately, it isn't enough to look for "free range" eggs in your local supermarket. The USDA's definition of "free range" states that the chickens must have access to the outdoors. This can be as little as a door in their chicken coop that allows them to leave. Most chickens in commercial egg facilities are not acclimated to the outside and don't even realize they can go outside. Not to mention the fact that they are fed only commercial grain. A true pastured chicken needs to forage for food in order to produce eggs with the above benefits.

For information on where to find pastured eggs in your vicinity, check out www.eatwild.com.

I will talk to just about anyone about the benefits of cooking and eating local. However, there are a handful of non-local ingredients in my kitchen and there probably will be for quite some time. So what foods or ingredients are important enough for me to go far and wide for them? Well, it wouldn't be a blog if I didn't tell you, now would it?

So here are my primary non-local ingredients in no particular order.

1. Sugar: If you bake at all (outside of breads), sugar is nearly an essential ingredient. Our climate in the Pacific Northwest just won't support sugar cane. I'm not sure where the nearest sugar is, but it certainly isn't in this state. Check back for more information on where the closest sugar really is. I buy organic sugar from Costco as it's about 1/3 of the price of the organic sugar you find in the average supermarket.
2. White Flour: We use Emmer flour for the vast majority of our flour needs. However, the Emmer flour does have a very different consistency and taste. It works in some things, but doesn't work in others. We don't use it for biscotti, for example, because we make the biscotti to help raise John's blood sugar after a workout. Using a high protein flour wouldn't help that very much. So we still buy white flour on a regular basis.
3. Soy Milk: I have a very minor dairy allergy and so we use soy milk in our coffee.
4. Cornmeal: Our favorite biscotti recipe uses cornmeal. Even though there are a lot of local farmers who grow corn, we haven't found any that produce cornmeal. tonight we experimented with using cracked Emmer in place of some of the cornmeal in the biscotti recipe, and we'll report on that in the next few days.
5. Lemons and Oranges: Citrus does not grow here, though logically, I'm not sure why. After all, my dad grows fantastic lemons in California and our winters are only slightly colder than where he lives. We use lemons and oranges for recipes that call for zest, as well as some of our marinades and salad dressings.
6. Olive Oil: There is a fantastic vendor at our local markets that sells Hazelnut oil. While this works for a number of recipes, it has a very distinctive flavor and is quite expensive. I'll use it in small quantities (like for our Garlicky Kale recipe), but for salad dressings and marinades that require a significant amount of oil, we still use olive oil. Our olive oil comes from California.
7. Balsamic Vinegar: We can find some local vinegars in the Pacific Northwest, but they are mostly cider vinegars. If we want balsamic, we have to go as far as California or even Italy. I have yet to find something to replace balsamic vinegar, so for now, we'll buy it when we need it.
8. Ginger: Ginger is another one of those items that really should be able to be grown in eastern Washington. But until I find a farm that has it, we'll buy it for marinades, desserts, and the occasional main dish.
9. Coffee: Non-negotiable. Enough said.

Those are the primary ingredients we buy from far and wide. There are others, of course. I'll buy a mango once or twice a year, either to eat raw or to cook with. Occasionally I'll have a real hankering for carrots out of season and I'll give up and buy them even though they are from California or even Mexico. I'll also buy wine from a variety of locations, even though I do tend to prefer Washington wines these days.

So if you've been thinking of cooking local, but it feels overwhelming, just realize that you don't have to go 100% local to make a positive impact.