How To Make Watermelon Wine

A month of all-local foods changes writer's diet - and perspective

When I heard about the "Eat Local Challenge, " in which participants pledged to only eat food that's grown, raised or harvested within 200 miles of New Orleans for the month of June, something resonated. Could I move beyond being a farmers market dilettante? Could I go native with my food the way I had with music and WWOZ? If the tomatoes and strawberries were so good, what else had I been missing?

On May 31, the last day to sign up, I went to the Tuesday Crescent City Farmers Market and bought fresh eggs, milk, goat yogurt, goat cheese, fish, a whole chicken and a host of vegetables, then cruised to the supermarket for pecan oil and Steen's cane vinegar. I was in.

Lead organizer Lee Stafford has ambitious reasons for creating the event. He and other members of a "locavore" meet-up group seek nothing less than to tackle global warming by reducing the distance that our food is transported, improve the nutritional profile of our community and build markets for culinary entrepreneurs.

Participation has been solid. About 300 people signed up, 50 of them at the ultra-strict level, which permits no coffee, beer or dried spices, while the rest joined at levels that allow for a few concessions.

Richard McCarthy, executive director of www.MarketUmbrella.org , which runs the Crescent City Farmers Market, said traffic seemed to be up in June. "There are new crowds discovering the possibilities as well as the challenges to relocating our economies and our food systems, " McCarthy said.

A locavore's new foods list

Rebecca Mowbray kept a list of the new foods she tried during the 2011 Locavore Challenge.

Fresh chicken from the farmers market Goat meat Cornish hens from the farmers market. Local trout Smith Creamery milk Smith Creamery butter Smith Creamery creole cream cheese Ryal's Goat yogurt Ryal's asiago cheese Ryal's goat cheese Ryal's feta cheese John Folse dairy blue cheese John Folse dairy cow cheese Try Me Coffee Patty pan squash and other funky shaped squashes Local heirloom tomatoes Funky long skinny peppers in red and purple 'Chocolate' green peppers Purple and yellow jalapenos White shallots Yellow watermelon Purple okra Local sunflower sprouts Louisiana figs (I've always bought them from California at Whole Foods)

Swearing off all non-local products is different from simply eating lots of local fruits and vegetables. As the Eat Local Challenge name suggests, it is a challenge. There's no quick bowl of cereal on a busy morning, no portable turkey sandwich for a day at work. There's no easy pasta dinner on a work night, or hummus and pita snacking. Participating in the event takes planning, hard work and time.