We are rich

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and we’re busy planning the menu. Of course, we’re taking the local food challenge, which isn’t too difficult for us in Maine. We can find all that we need, right here in Maine. We are so lucky and so rich!
Turkey - Mainely Poultry, Warren
Vegetables - our garden, or
Peacemeal Farm, Dixmont, or
Freedom Farm, Freedom
Fail Better Farm, Unity
Shrimp - locally caught in Penobscot Bay, gifted to us by a local fisherman
Butter - I’m making it from organic cream from White’s Orchard Dairy
Bread for stuffing -- Borealis Aroostook Wheat
Sausage for stuffing -- Cornerstone Farm, Palmyra
Mushrooms - Oyster Creek Mushroom Co, Damariscotta
Cranberries - wildgathered and bartered for
Cranberry chutney and cranberry butter -- Half Moon Farm, Montville
Herbs - our garden
Spices - gifted to my brother from a friend who got them in Spain, then sailed home
Coffee - gifted to us by Louella, and picked by her in Mexico last winter
Honey - Gardiner’s Honey, Swanville
Maple Syrup - either Brad’s or Freyenhagen Family Farm, Union
Eggs - ours
Cheese - ours
Milk - ours (but all milk available here is Maine grown and produced)
Salt - maine sea salt
cider - our apples, picked by Brad, pressed at Sewall’s Orchard
apples for the pie - ours
fruit wine - Winterport Winery, or Brad’s

The last and final nut to crack: nuts. We’re looking for Maine walnuts or hazelnuts. We know they’re out there!

Thoughts on being a lifelong Localvore

I have to admit that I am a little puzzled at the new excitement surrounding eating locally. This is what I have done all my adult life. This is my family legacy modelled to me by my grandmother, who raised a large family during the depression and wartime, and continued by my uncle on the farm in NH. I can’t remember the last Thanksgiving we ate a turkey purchased other than from the local turkey farm or grown on ours. One of my greatest pleasures in life is to sit down to a meal grown totally by us or by our friends and family. I got into a huge argument last summer with a man at farmers’ market who insisted that I must go to the grocery store for something, and all I could come up with was detergent, olive oil and salt. And even salt I could get locally.
Worried about food contamination? Eat local.
Worried about disruption to the food supply caused by weather extremes? Eat local.
Worried about real flavor in your food? Eat local.
Worried about your carbon footprint? Eat local.
Duh.