Eat Local When You Eat Out
local food, restaurant, eating out
local meal at restaurant
When you decide to splurge on a nice meal out, pick a restaurant known for sourcing its meals locally. Ask your server where the ingredients came from and how they were prepared.
To help identify which restaurants use local ingredients, read up on your local eateries, look for books on the subject, like Clean Plates NYC, or look to Websites that help, like Greenopia and Yelp.
Enjoy Good Food Books
books, local food
stack of books
Source some food for thought. Popular books like
The Omnivore’s Dilemma,
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and
The 100-Mile Diet are not only informative, but entertaining and will help get you thinking about new ways of developing a closer, more satisfying relationship with your food.
Join a CSA
csa, community supported agriculture, local food, farm
box of csa vegetables on the doorstep
Think inside the box about seasonal produce, the CSA box that is. CSA is short for "community supported agriculture." CSA farms offer subscriptions whereby members receive a box full of fresh seasonal fruits and veggies each week.
You can find a local CSA farms by using the Get Local Info tool on The Daily Green's homepage.
Join a Community Garden
garden, community garden, local food
blonde girls gardening
Find and join a community garden in your area.
As the American Community Gardening Association puts it, community gardening "improves people’s quality of life by providing a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulating social interaction, encouraging self-reliance, beautifying neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, reducing family food budgets, conserving resources and creating opportunities for recreation, exercise, therapy and education." Don't you want to be a part of that?
Grow Your Own
garden, local food, herb garden, container garden
potted herb garden
Commit to growing at least one ingredient for yourself or your family this year, whether it's herbs in a window box, tomatoes on a balcony or a raised bed container garden full of salad greens.
Need help getting started? See The Daily Green's How to Plant an Organic Garden for help.
Double Your Recipes
local food, food storage, double recipes
food storage containers in a refrigerator
Even the most passionate of home cooks don’t always find the time to cook delicious, nutritious foods from scratch every day. What you don’t finish today, you can enjoy tomorrow or freeze.
Have Others Cook for You
potluck, local food
potluck dinner
Host a local foods potluck dinner. One of the best ways to learn what foods are in season and how to prepare them is to invite others to teach you. Ask your guests to bring extra copies of their recipes.
Pick Your Own
pick your own, local food, farms
pick your own sign
Reap where you didn’t sow this season by visiting a pick-your-own berry farm or orchard. Pay attention to how things are grown and see what fruit crops might work in your own yard.
Regional tourism agencies often have information about local pick-your-own farms. You can also find local farms using the Get Local Info tool on The Daily Green's homepage.
Freeze More Food
frozen berries, local food
frozen berries
Invest in a chest freezer. Freezing is one of the easiest ways to preserve seasonal ingredients like berries and green beans in large quantities.
Compost
compost, local food
compost bin
If you’re already growing some of your own food plants, take the next green step by starting a compost pile. Composting recycles food wastes into plant nutrients. Even city dwellers can compost their vegetable wastes by keeping a worm bin in a closet or under a sink.
Donate Food
donate, local food, garden
woman carrying vegetables to donate
Help others to enjoy the local foods harvest by donating some locally grown foods to a food pantry, planting an extra row of vegetables for the hungry or helping a neighbor or a local school to plant a new kitchen garden.
Celebrate Kitchen Garden Day
kitchen garden day, local food
woman offering up her ripe tomatoes
If you're already a kitchen gardener, invite a few people into your garden on Kitchen Garden Day Aug. 23 to show them what local foods look like when growing and what they taste like when they've just been picked warm and ripe from the vine.
If you're lacking inspiration, here's a surefire recipe for success:
Ingredients:
- friends, family and neighbors (young, not-so-young, green thumbs, greenhorns, etc)
- delicious local and home-grown foods
- laughter
- learning
- music
Procedure:
Combine all ingredients in a garden or on a local farm and allow them to mix, mingle and steep. Serve with joy and gratitude.
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