Happiness in eating local

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thyme || cityhippyfarmgirl

When meals are made up of bits and pieces like chocolate, pickles, thyme, plums and wine, you know life is treating you ok.

Last year I challenged myself to an Eat Local challenge throughout the year. While this year, I won’t be continuing with the same challenge, I will still be eating as much locally produced food as I can possibly get my hands on.

Summer holiday time is a great time for local and seasonal goodies. Wonderful things given as gifts, deliciousness made available because of the season, and sometimes just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

elysium || cityhippyfarmgirl

These are a few of the things that have been gracing our bench tops lately.

Gifted Spencer Cocoa, (cocoa beans grown in Vanuatu and made in Mudgee, NSW)

Pickles bought at Moruya Markets, with cucumbers grown a couple of hundred metres down the road.

Thyme from my window sill.

Plums from an organic laden orchard I was lucky enough to visit.

A wonderful bottle of Elysium wine. Bought direct from the makers, this company uses Australian natives for their wine making.

pickles || cityhippyfarmgirl

Spencer Cocoa || cityhippyfarmgirl

So good, all of them.

I didn’t enter a super market for any of those goodies, and damn, that felt good. It makes me so incredibly happy to be eating a fair chunk of our food like this.

Have a look around you, see what locally produced food you can find, let me know and let’s spread the word even further. I’m always on the look out for more small and local producers, and they in turn are always on the look out for more consumer support for their products.

Happiness really just might be, in supporting and eating local.

plums || cityhippyfarmgirl

 

 

23 thoughts on “Happiness in eating local”

  1. I still get a kick out of eating locally. A friend dropped a huge box of vegies at our place yesterday – freshly dug potatoes, newly shucked corn, tomatoes and cucumbers. Guess what we ate for dinner 🙂

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  5. We just created 2 more large veggie garden beds to double our growing space on Serendipity farm (inside Sanctuary). LOTS of things growing like crazy including new baby seeds that will populate the outside of Sanctuary as food bearing trees. Macadamias, hazelnuts, walnuts, chestnuts (all grown from seed) and now Moringa (drumstick tree) for all of it’s awesome uses (food through to medicine) and indigo for dying…plants give us so very much and when you simply can’t get something locally, sometimes you can get some seeds and can grow it yourself. LOVE that wine! OH that looks magnificent! I can see you floating away with the siren song from that scrumptious looking bottle of promise ;). I am just about to embark on a ginger beer making episode…it might be an “incident” yet ;). Buying from producers, direct from the farm gate (I got 8 kilos of “jam” cherries recently from over the river for $16 and 5kg of them were perfectly awesome and the rest got chopped and frozen for later use), trading neighbours and friends and sharing the local love is the secret to amazing community, a robust economy and real grassroots happiness 🙂

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  6. The wine and chocolate looks to die for. My bulk health food store is a great place to get local produce. Also a monthly market where we buy our relishes; sometimes we eat a whole jar in a day! I’m really in to foraging since we moved off the mountain. I’ve discovered a lot of wild fruit trees in our little town.

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    • That’s exciting Zena! I was hoping we would get back to your corner of the world again this year, but not sure it’s going to happen at this stage…maybe the next though. I love it down there too much not to.
      As for relishes, and a whole jar in a day?…I understand.

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  7. We have a local Amish store that makes their own bread, pimento cheese and chicken salad. They have a lot of cheeses and we like to shop there. This past year we ate from our garden or from the freezer and it felt great. So far this year, I haven’t cooked a great deal due to RA pain but it’s nice to know where the food I am fixing comes from and exactly what has gone into growing it.

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  9. I couldn’t agree more Brydie! Making a commitment to choosing local foods connects us to not only the sources of our food in an environmental sense, but to the people who grow it. There is so much happiness to be gained from food that not only tastes great, but has been grown with love and care by someone in your community.

    I love the sharing that happens in my own little food world – at the moment I am up to my ears in stone fruit, some gifted, some harvested from our garden, and am busy sharing the love back again with tarts and crostatas, smoothies and ice-cream. You can’t buy that kind of happiness in Coles 🙂

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    • You so can’t. I love that line… “you can’t buy that kind of happiness in Coles”. Oh my golly gosh you can’t! You really can’t, not even a tiny bit.
      Enjoy all of your local goodies, as I’m sure all your lucky recipients are enjoying your baking.
      And yay for summer stone fruits 🙂

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  10. I’m in Vanuatu at the moment and I have seen cocoa beans growing and they’ve all been organic. Your image of the thyme is gorgeous, Brydie and yes, when we have access to great produce that we can lay on our tables, we truly are blessed xx

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  11. One of my new year intentions includes eating locally produced stuff. First day back in the Berra, to the farmers markets I went, there really is something very satisfying knowing you are supporting your community. 🙂 Love the look of the pickles, I have a crazy love affair with cucumber pickles. Delicious midnight snack food. LOL!

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