You know you’re a “locavore” when…the local paper does an article about eating locally and you personally know everyone quoted in the article.

The San Diego Union Tribune’s food section this week was dedicated to the “County’s Bounty,” in the form of an article on eating locally by respected beer columnist (and reporter) Pete Rowe. Thanks Pete–I appreciate you and the paper highlighting the bounty that can be found within a short drive of our homes. I also appreciate being mentioned in the same paragraph as sex, power, and money–now if I could only finagle such proximity in my everyday life.

More seriously, I can’t emphasize enough what joy and pleasure seeking out–and subsequently enjoying–local foodstuffs have brought me. I realized this week (and an OLS post to follow will touch more on this) how much I–by default and without thinking–utilize local foods in my daily life. It’s routine to me now–after discovering the quality, coming to meet and know the growers, and respecting the process and effort involved in raising the food I eat, I subconsciously eat local produce, eggs, and what meat and seafood I can find every chance I get.  I encourage anyone out there who is considering trying out what San Diego County has to offer to start visiting a farmers’ market once a week–it’s amazing what a regular trip will do to transform your dinner plate.

That said, I’m also not afraid to enjoy game from halfway across the country, especially when I’m one degree of separation from the hunter. For, when it comes down to it, knowing (and trusting) the person who raised your food is what makes eating local special–I think this applies to some degree regardless of the location (especially if its a product not available within your local foodshed). I’m already looking forward to a most generous offer of a just-hunted wild turkey come November. (If only I realized this could have been an option in July).

The Meal:

Plank Grilled Wahoo and Swordfish with Apricot Sauce

Corn on the Cob and Foil-Roasted Squash Medley

Simple and classic–it doesn’t get more summery.

Week 4:

Week 4 found me with a dozen friends over for a backyard barbeque, and the pleasure of realizing I could feed them locally. The meal was nothing fancy–it was more practical than anything–but special in that I was actually able to feed that many people locally. The meal consisted of 5 pounds of Brandt Beef tri tip, two pans of roasted Peruvian blue potatoes, zucchini and baby onion skewers, and a grilled corn, onion, and tomato salad. (The only non-local addition was a can of black beans to the corn salad, because there was a vegan in the mix and I didn’t want her to go hungry).  Plenty of local beer was supplied–both from Ballast Point and from our own collection of homebrew. I dare say it was a hit (although I didn’t take the photos to prove it).

Week 5:

Week 5 brought a meal I’ve been meaning to make for some time: a fritatta. I love the simplicity of the one-dish meal, and with so many local vegetables at the markets these days, it’s always a pleasure to find a dish that can accommodate a wide variety in combination. Plus I love any dish I can make entirely using my trusty cast iron. I used Hillikers Ranch eggs, along with a combination of spinach, zucchini, shitake mushrooms, roma tomatoes and fingerling potatoes.  The entire meal took less than 30 minutes to prep and cook, and was deliciously flavorful.

Vegetable Fritatta

• 1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil
• 6 fingerling potatoes, sliced
• 1-2 baby onions, diced
• 1 clove garlic, diced
• 2 baby zucchini, sliced
• 1 cup shitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced
• 1 roma tomato, diced
• 2 cups spinach, diced
• 2-3 sprigs basil, sliced
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 5 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile toss potatoes with 1 tsp. olive oil, place in microwave safe bowl, cover with saran wrap, and microwave 4-6 minutes, until cooked. Set aside. Add oil to skillet and reduce to medium-low heat.  Add onions and saute for 1-2 minutes, until translucent. Add garlic, saute 30 seconds until fragrant. Add zucchini, and saute 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and tomatoes and saute 3 minutes, until mushrooms are cooked through. Add spinach and saute until wilted, 1-2 minutes. Add basil and butter and stir to coat bottom of pan. Add eggs and let sit 30 seconds undisturbed. Working slowly, push eggs around pan, tilting pan to let uncooked portions touch bottom. Push slowly for 2 minutes, until eggs begin to set. Transfer pan to oven and cook, 3-4 minutes, until top is slightly browned and eggs are cooked throughout. Slice and serve.

This week I stopped by the World Famous Smoked Fish Co. booth at the North Park farmers’ market, and found locally-caught grouper. I’m always excited when I find a new foodstuff that is both new to me as a local eater and new to me as a home cook in general. And I’d never made grouper.

Grouper is a white fleshed, flaky fish–I mistook it for tilapia at first–and as soon as I saw it I knew it was just what I had been waiting for. It was time to finally use my time-tested fish en papillote recipe for a local meal.

Grouper with Green Olives, Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Basil and Garlic

Tangerine Juice Braised Green Beans

Roasted Chioggia Beets with Balsamic Drizzle

Grouper

• 2 grouper filets
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes (I used heirloom), quartered
• 1 cup green olives (I used California Mission), smashed and pitted
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1 small onion, sliced in rings
• 10 basil leaves, stems removed, sliced thin

Pat Grouper filets dry. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Take one sheet aluminum foil per fish, drizzle 1 tsp. olive oil and spread across foil. Place enough onion slices to cover foil where fish will sit. Place fish atop onions. Layer fish with garlic slivers, tomatoes, crushed olives, and basil. Drizzle with several drops of foil and seal packets. Place packets in 400 degree oven and roast for 20 minutes, opening packets slightly halfway through.

Roasted Chioggia Beets and Braised Green Beans

But this week, the time just seemed right, and out of the freezer and into a skillet they went. While they are from halfway across the country, somehow eating game hunted by a friend’s family seems just as much in the spirit of local as eating produce grown by a farmer you know. In fact, even though the meat was from hundreds of miles away, I still felt very close to my meal. I’m excited to have had the chance to cook them and proud to include them in this week’s “local” meal.

Here’s went into this week’s meal:

Pan-Seared Elk Ribeye Steaks

Braised Collard Greens

Saute of Carrots, Summer Squash and Sage

Smashed Peruvian Blue Potatoes

Santo Tomas Red Table Wine

The recipe for the steaks came from a recipe for beef ribeyes on Epicurious, which allowed me to use a bottle of red table wine from Santo Tomas winery that I picked up on a recent trip to La Bufadora, in Baja, Mexico. The recipe proved easily adaptable to Elk, although the thick steaks I had did require a bit longer searing time. The key to elk, apparently, is to cook it no more than medium rare (130 degrees), lest the meat become too tough–I did just that and the steaks came out perfectly tender. For the pan sauce, I simply omitted the non-local soy sauce and had a local sauce that was rich and luscious.

I’ve always thought of collard greens as something that required a long simmer with a ham hock, but I stumbled across a vegetarian version that adds flavor through an onion and spices. Coincidentally, it comes from a local vegetarian restaurant, the Che Cafe on the UCSD campus.

Inspired by the balsamic vinegar I picked up from Temecula Olive Oil Company, I whipped together a honey balsamic drizzle for the carrot and summer squash mixture. The honey I have, from Chrystal’s Pure Honey, is a sage blossom honey, so I couldn’t help but throw some fresh sage into the mix.

And then there’s my favorite new potato recipe, smashed potatoes. I simply roasted the whole potatoes for 40 minutes at 425, then smashed them with a mallet to break the skins before serving. They’re delicious drizzled with olive oil and garlic, or can even stand alone.

I also had fun this week pouring over the vivid and engaging Local Flavors, the new cookbook from Deborah Madison. I encourage anyone participating in OLS (or anyone just wanting to cook straight from the farmers’ market) to pick up a copy!

• Closing Time
• The Heart of Saturday Night
• Nighthawks at the Diner
• Small Change
• Foreign Affairs

Now if only my ears would stop ringing from what proved to be a very solid 1-2-3 punch of MGMT/the Muslims/the Hold Steady…

Ok, it was a little more involved than just steak and potatoes. Here were the dishes:

Cherry & Vanilla Porter Marinated Tri-Tip with Porter-Glazed Shitake Mushrooms

Grilled Artichokes with Sauteed Grape Tomatoes and Dill

Tri-Color Medley of Roasted Potatoes

This meal was the meal I wished I could make last summer, a meal that was comforting and satisfying, yet simple enough to entertain a crowd. Ok, it was also a meal inspired by our latest batch of homebrew: a vanilla porter. Last year, my first One Local Summer was an ambitious undertaking, a meal that involved a great deal of creativity and care but that, despite all efforts in the kitchen, was not one I’d feed to a crowd. I was even apprehensive of feeding it to one other person, because when it came down to it, it was a meal of little more than vegetables. (What I knew was local at the beginning of the summer).

This year, I was surprised at how little effort went into the planning of the meal. I simply went to my weekly market, picked up some potatoes, some vegetables, and steak, and knew I could invite a few others to share. The steak here (which I never explored during last year’s OLS) is from Brandt Beef, based in Brawley, CA. The potatoes and the produce were picked up from the Horton Square and North Park farmers’ markets and are from Carlsbad (artichokes, cherry tomatoes) and Escondido (potatoes, mushrooms).

The Recipes:

Cherry Vanilla Porter Marinade

(adapted from Sam Calgione’s “Ultimate Steak Ale Marinade,” in Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home.)

• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1/4 tsp. rosemary, diced
• 10 cherries, crushed with juices, pits removed
• 12 oz. vanilla porter (room temperature)
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. crushed pepper

Heat oil over medium low heat in skillet. Add garlic, shallots, and rosemary and simmer until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add cherries and their juice and stir to combine. Add porter and stir frequently to avoid spill-over. Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add vinegar and pepper and cook for 2 minutes more. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Pour over steak and let marinade at least 3 hours.

Broiled Tri-Tip

• 1 2-pound tri-tip, marinated as above
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat broiler. Remove steak from marinade and reserve marinade for steak sauce, if desired (see below). pat steak dry and season with salt and pepper. Broil 4-5 minutes on each side, flipping once, until steak is browned on both sides and measures 130 degrees in center. Remove from broiler and tent with foil for 5 minutes. Carve into 1/2 inch slices. Top with porter-glazed mushrooms and pass with cherry porter reduction, if desired.

Cherry Porter Reduction

• 3 cups steak marinade (see above)

Pour marinade into saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook over high heat 15-20 minutes, until liquid becomes thick and has reduced by 3/4. Pour into gravy boat for passing.

Porter Glazed Shitake Mushrooms

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 cups shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 5 sage leaves, diced
• 1/4 cup porter or other dark ale
• 1 Tbsp. butter

Heat oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add mushrooms and saute for 1-2 minutes, until slightly wilted. Add sage and beer and simmer until liquid is reduced by 1/2. Stir in butter until melted. Spoon atop steak before serving.

Grilled Artichokes with Tomato and Dill medley

(artichoke part inspired by Giada De Laurentiis’s method.)

• 3 artichokes
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lemon, quartered (for juicing)
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp. fresh dill

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cut all but 1″ off stems, and cut 1″ off top of each artichoke. Peel off outer leaves and snip top 1/4″ of remaining leaves. Cut each artichoke in half, and then each half into thirds, so you have 18 triangular wedges. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut out the hairy part of each wedge (the choke) and discard. Working in batches if needed, blanch artichoke wedges in boiling water for 5-7 minutes. Remove from water and drain. Toss with 2 tbsp. olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Set aside. (Can be done ahead). Preheat grill. Brush grill with oil and grill pre-blanched artichoke wedges for 2-4 minutes per side. Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 tbsp. oil over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic and sautee 1 minute, until fragrant. Add tomoatoes and saute 2-3 minutes, until tomatoes begin to wilt. Add dill, salt, and pepper, and sautee for 1 minute more. Set aside. To serve, plate artichoke wedges and spoon cherry mixture over top.

Roasted Potatoes

(adapted from the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook- new potatoes take much less time to take than average red potatoes)

• 2 lbs. mixed new potatoes (I used peruvian blues, red bliss, and german butterball)
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Quarter potatoes and toss with all but 1 tsp. of olive oil, salt and pepper. Rub remaining olive oil on two 9×12″ baking pans or one large baking sheet (I’ve found the potatoes become crispest when using an enameled cast-iron baking pan such as a Le Creuset). Spread potatoes out on baking pans, placing one cut side down and leaving as much space as possible between pieces (two pans works better than one). Cover with foil and place in oven for 10 minutes. Remove foil and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove pans from oven and working carefully so as to not break the potatoes, flip pieces so that the second cut side touches pan. Return to oven and cook an additional 7-10 minutes, until potatoes are crisp on both sides. (note: cooking time will need to increase for older potatoes. I used potatoes that were dug from the ground two days before they were cooked).

After realizing what time of year it was, I of course quickly scrambled around the internets and found there was still time to sign up for this year’s OLS. So I did–and I’m already looking forward to another delicious summer, brainstorming meal ideas, and trying to expand my knowledge of what’s available locally.

But there’s a difference between this year and last. This year, I already know I can eat one meal a week locally. In fact, I often do, sometimes without even realizing it. There are so many local foodstuffs I discovered last summer that I fell in love with, that I’ve been buying primarily local produce ever since. And there are several other local products that I’ve only recently discovered–meat, breads, nuts, and of course more beers–that I never even mentioned last OLS. Plus, it’s that time of year when all the goodies emerge at the markets, making me entirely giddy about the possibilities for the evening’s meals. All of this makes me think eating locally this summer will be that much more pleasurable.

Since I know it’s possible, I hope to strive not just for completion of one meal a week, but for as many opportunities as I can find. I’d like to try out new cookbooks, experiment with new dishes, and seek out even more products that I haven’t yet tried. I’d like to eat locally in restaurants–and I know that there are at least three in my neighborhood that could accommodate an all-local meal. I’d like to find out what the limits are, and why there aren’t certain products available locally (I already know the answers about a few). And I’d like to take my local-procurement mindset with me wherever I go. I already picked up a few bottles of local wine during a recent trip to Baja, and am planning on checking out a Phoenix farmer’s market when I’m there in two weeks. I’d also like to find steady, reliable supplies of local products that aren’t offered at the farmers’ markets. I just found a neighborhood market that stocks local milk and yogurt (Hollandia Dairy), and another that carries local eggs (Hilliker Ranch, read about them here). I’ve got the backyard garden going again, and this year, I’m excited to have homebrewed beer to incorporate into my meals.

Needless to say, I’m excited. But I touched on this last summer, and I’ll touch on it again now: for me, eating locally, and participating in OLS, is not a challenge. I don’t lose if I fail to eat locally one week, or crave non-local foodstuffs the next. Eating locally is a pleasure, an experience that brings great satisfaction and a venture that brings many opportunities to try new flavors and to share thoughtful meals with friends. I enjoy my time in the kitchen just as much as I enjoy my time at the table, and I am grateful for any opportunity that gives me an excuse to do both. But I don’t want to view it as an all-or-nothing thing. More importantly, I want to include my friends and acquaintances in the pleasure–especially if they aren’t accustomed to eating locally and don’t know what this foodshed has to offer. And I’d rather introduce them to eating locally through pleasure, than to suggest that to eat this way is something that is difficult to do.

But the sun is setting, the light is getting dim on my front porch, and there’s a fridge full of farmers’ market bounty awating me inside. So without further ado, I believe it’s time to commence this deliciously local summer.