LocavOregon

It’s November and pretty much every farmers market is now closed until late spring. These are the challenging months for locavores. I signed up for the late season subscription to my CSA and so I’m still getting lettuce, greens, squash, and some root vegetables. But I am wondering what I will do until May. I froze a lot of roasted tomatoes, but other than tomatoes I had no surplus to put away. I really regret that my CSA didn’t seem to produce carrots or potatoes in any quantity. I still look at those as great winter staples.

Since May, I have changed my cooking and shopping habits tremendously. We have eaten out only rarely for dinner. I felt the pressure to use those vegetables I got from the CSA, which drove me to cook different dishes. I supplemented them with more produce from the farmers markets. In the end, I only stopped at the grocery store or Costco for meat, bread and milk products.

My aim was always to explore being more of a locavore, rather than a strict locavore, and in that these past six months have been extremely successful. But there were many other virtues:

• Saved money on impulse buys at grocery stores
• Saved money on eating out.
• Saved space in the trash can as there were very few take-out containers.
• Ate a far wider variety of vegetables
• Found sources for grass-fed beef
• Learned or created many new recipes.

With the recession, by spending a big chunk of money for a CSA subscription, I probably saved 5 to 10 times that amount in reduced expenses for eating out and buying prepared foods in the grocery store. While it can be more expensive to buy local products, it promotes a lifestyle that saves big bucks over a typical American “I’ll pick something up on the way home” lifestyle.

I have already signed up for the 2009 CSA subscription.

Rutabagas and turnips are more vegetables that mom never grew in the garden or put on our table. But my husband’s mother liked to cook both turnips and potatoes and chunk them up together. Looking into turnips online, this seems to be a common presentation. But my husband simply hated that.

So, what to do with the bundle of rutabagas from my CSA this week? I decided to put them into beef stew, both the roots and the greens, along with some broccoli raab, carrots, and potatoes. I kept the rutabagas in a distinctive shape so I could be sure I would eat them rather than springing them on my husband. The resulting stew was delicious as usual. Because I use a base of red wine, the rutabagas really tasted about the same as the potatoes. The greens added nutrition but no off-flavors. I used grass-fed beef from La Cense.

I decided it was time to get the cat her own kitty perch rather than have her continue to hog the desk chairs. But I was reluctant to shell out good money for something the cat would reject. My friends all recommended Kitty Hooch, a local company that makes cat climbers, cat pagodas, and cat toys. Their secret is their primo grade of catnip. All of the cat furniture has a secret catnip compartment, so the cat is guaranteed to be attracted to its new hooch. Kitty Hooch had a store at the Jantzen Beach mall, but the just closed it. Instead, they now sell live at Portland Saturday Market and at craft fairs, plus on the internet. Kitty Hooch web site.

Their catnip is organically grown locally. It is far more potent than the usual catnip found in pet stores because it is fresh and local. They sell loose catnip as well as premium catnip toys, catnip beds and furniture. I inspected the basic Kitty Hooch Mini Hammock at the Portland Saturday Market. The carpeting was very soft, but the construction seemed solid. At 19 inches high, it looked about the right height as a desk chair, so my aging cat wouldn’t have trouble getting to the top. The proprietress loaded it up with catnip and I carried it back to my car. All of their furniture is modular and can easily come apart to replace sections or for moving.

Now for the real test – would the cat like it? Our cat enjoys catnip, so I suspected she wouldn’t ignore the new Mini-Hammock. Sure enough, I put it next to me desk and within seconds she was loving up to it, rolling around the base and getting high. When she had settled into a torpor, I picked her up and put her in the top hammock. She settled in contentedly. The shape is perfect for snuggling the cats. Cats like to feel semi-enclosed. Success so far!