I caught Just Food Co-op’s Marketing and Member Services Manager Joey Robison in a rhapsodic moment earlier this week while she was talking to a group about Just Food’s Winter Eat Local Challenge. It starts next week. “Eat 50 % of your food from the five state area for seven days, from March 7 through March 13 2009.”
Joey launched an Eat Local challenge blog a month ago that’s authored by her and five other community members: Angel Dobrow (Center for Sustainable Living board member), Mary Bell (The Dry Store), Patrick Ganey (Duck Fat and Politics blogger), Penny Hillemann (Penelopedia blogger), and Rae Rusnak (L&R Poultry & Produce).
And let’s all follow Joey’s Twitterstream as she gives us updates. (See my most recent post for more on the hows and whys of Twitter for Northfield.)
I’m interested to hear if any Locally Grown readers are taking the Winter Eat Local Challenge. And for those who aren’t, what are the roadblocks for you?
This Friday we’re hosting a local farmer panel discussion from 6:30-8:30 p.m., with some of the state’s larger local producers. We’ll have lots of time for questions from the audience, but we encourage you to sign up in the store soon (or call & we can do that for you) so that we can make sure you’ve got a seat! The event is free, and we’ll even have some local cheese to munch on.
Joey- Karen and I have talked about this a little. Don’t know if we can actually accomplish it, but it is worth a shot. Our daughter and son-in-law who live with us (he’s Costa Rican) fix a lot of the Costa Rican dishes, and, unfortunately, many of those foods aren’t grown locally. We are seriously considering buying into the local farm option with our other daughter and son-in-law. There is actually so much produce from a membership in this that we could not use it all.
Great to hear you’re considering the Challenge, John!
John’s talking about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms. With these farms, you are invited to purchase a share of the harvest by investing a specific dollar amount in early spring, and then receiving your share of the farm’s harvest throughout the growing season. This is usually a basket of food a week, but varies with the weather and the farm.
I’m a proud member of Open Hands Farm CSA, and I know what you mean! You get so much produce. I’m in a two person household, and we get a whole share, and try to save as much as we can (through freezing or cold storage) for the late fall/early winter. But sharing your “share” with another family is a great idea.
There’s a CSA Day on Saturday, March 14 from 11-2 at Just Food where eaters can meet a wide variety of CSA farmers and purchase a share if they so choose. All of the farmers do things a little differently- some have a u-pick component, some include dairy or meat, etc- so you can find the farm that fits your needs.
Joey- I think Karen and Kates are planning on coming to that CSA day. I have to work, unfortunately.
Thanks for the Twitter plug Tracy! Our twitter is JustFoodCoop (if you only look for “justfood” you’ll get a non-profit in New York).
Whoops, my bad -- thanks, Joey, I’ll change it above too.
[...] week I blogged about Just Food Co-op’s Winter Eat Local Challenge (“Eat 50 % of your food from the five state area for seven days”) and yesterday I signed the [...]