Mother's Day on "The Program"

Despite a lack of recent posts, the project does continue and slowly becomes part of the daily routine. Lunches from Body & Soul, shopping at the Coop and the Farmers Markets, and lots of Brooklyn Lager and Makers Mark, of course.

My parents were in town for a Mother's Day visit and I did my best to keep them in line with the project guidelines (or "the program" as my mother adorably calls it -- does she think I'm twelve-stepping? I guess there are similarities....). Apparently Lucali, the local pizza phenomenon that I started to get to know, has had insane press recently so when we went at 8:30 on Friday night in the pouring rain there was a three hour wait. For the sake of my "no starving, no alienation" provisos, I accepted a "gift" from my parents and went to a restaurant, Crave, across the street. Aside from that blip however, I got them to make breakfast at home, took them on a whirlwind Saturday afternoon excursion to the Park Slope Food Coop to shop for dinner and made a huge stir-fry and salad, and then got my friends together to take mom to Counter for Mother's Day brunch this morning, which everyone loved. With some careful planning, and patience, my mission to know where all my purchases come from is proving possible.

We also checked out BklynDesigns on Saturday morning, an annual furniture and craft fair showcasing local designers. I took some serious notes should I decide I need to upgrade anything this year as there was some beautiful work made right here in my borough.

Coming up this week: I'm meeting with Allen Zimmerman, Produce Buyer for the Park Slope Food Coop, and Harold Butler, founder of Brownstone Beans. Plans for a June roadtrip to Tom's of Maine's factory and Seventh Generation's headquarters in Vermont are also in the works as well.

Daily Decisions

I've been asked how much this project is affecting my every day life. Are there things I used to buy that now I don't? Is this easy or hard? Have I cheated yet?

The honest answer is that I'm finding it affects everything. Generally, I haven't sacrificed anything major (a cup of coffee while out and about, using hair product since I've run out) but it has changed how I buy things, and I've definitely started making substitutions. I make coffee at home everyday, with coffee from the Co-op. I buy lunch for the week from Scott at the Body & Soul booth at the farmer's market and keep it in the refrigerator at work. Last weekend I had friends over to my apartment for both brunch and a pot-luck dinner to avoid carelessly eating out while still maintaining a social life. I drink only beer from Brooklyn Brewery. It is constantly on my mind; add in dozens of emails and phone calls to make arrangements to visit manufacturing plants and local entrepreneurs, and it's almost a full time effort.

I've made an exception once: our friends in a band (shout out to Kind Monitor) threw a birthday party for my boyfriend at MonkeyTown in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I had no opportunity to eat before I arrived and knew we'd be out drinking afterwards, and it was 9pm on a Friday night–not a time to try to get in to meet the chef at a busy venue. So I allowed an exception (rather than trying to rationalize) and enjoyed the burger. With a Brooklyn Lager.

Local Flavor | Paying attention to sources

Buying from Greenmarkets is so much more fun than I expected. From greens and vegetables, to fruit spreads and bread, I'm amazed at how much is produced locally. A quick round up of the places my food came from this week:

Phillips Farm, Millford, NY

Oak Grove Plantation, Pittstown, NJ

Bread Alone, Hudson River Valley, NY

Wheelhouse Pickles, Brooklyn, NY

Brownstone Beans, Fort Greene, NY

All close enough for me to stop in and visit soon. I've got a few leads on those last two in particular (pickling okra and brewing Nicaraguan beans in Brooklyn apartments? these guys have got to be crazy, and awesome.)

The Issue With Food | Overcoming a complicated relationship with eating

This was never supposed to be about food. Or so I thought. It never occurred to me that 90% of what I purchase is food. Morning coffee, lunches, afternoon snacks, happy-hours, dinners out, groceries, weekend breakfasts, all of it comes from somewhere and I had no concept of how many times a week I opened my wallet to exchange cash for sustenance.

There's a complicated element to the issues raised by food in regards to this "new religion" I've been accused of having, in that there's a question as to what constitutes "production", and what constitutes a "commercial item". If I have to visit the farm where every item on my plate comes from, I will go hungry and malnourished very quickly: something I promised myself I wouldn't let happen. That doesn't mean I'm off the hook completely though, and can go willy-nilly through Wendy's and Key Foods (a comparatively sub par grocery chain here in NY). My new philosophy on food and how it fits into the experiment is this: all groceries are to come from the Park Slope Food Coop, where I am and know others who are part of the chain of bringing the goods to market, and I have the opportunity to discover where everything hails from and visit as many (over time) as I can -- or a Greenmarket environment where I'm purchasing directly from the farms. Dining out is a bit more sketchy as it's pretty clearly a purchase of manufactured goods and I have limited access to every kitchen in NYC. I can, however, investigate which chefs procure raw goods direct from local farmers and Greenmarkets. I can learn more about local independent restaurateurs, become a regular and get to know them, meeting with them and learning about their businesses and seeing where the food is prepared.

I came to this realization last night when the possibilities for dinner where to either make my boyfriend buy a box of pasta and cook it for me (he can't afford to buy me "gifts" for dinner whenever it gets sticky, and God only knows where that boxed pasta came from anyway) or to eat at a local restaurant. We opted for Bonita, a Mexican spot in Fort Green, where we learned that they buy all of their meat and produce from New York State farms, and seasonally offer specials such as King Fish, which is a local game fish. Bonita is one of three owned and operated together, and they routinely will "purchase a cow" at a regional farm together and split it amongst the restaurants, ensuring meat is fresh and as un-processed as possible. I'm sure there will be more discussions as to how food fits in to the project, but for the moment, this seems sustainable.

Habitual Spending

I've never really been a big shopper, and over the past few years I've become more and more conscious of what I buy and where I buy it from. However, walking through the city the past couple days I've been acutely aware of my urges to buy something! I've been bringing lunch in to work, and coffee some mornings (all left over from before the start of the project or from the Union Sq Greenmarket and Park Slope Coop) but when I go out of the office to take a break or walk home after work, I am magnetically drawn into the shops and coffee houses I used to frequent. I almost feel guilty for not patronizing them. It's really been quite an awakening to my old habits.

Baby Steps | The learning curve

The project is off to a shaky, but definitive, start. Allowing for a sharp learning curve, and the complete overhaul of my interactions with the world in many ways, is going to take some patience. And nerve.

I've yet to clarify to myself strict guidelines when it comes to food consumption, and it's going to continue to be a process. Friends took me to dinner last night (a cap to a birthday weekend) and it felt like I was cheating right off the bat. Dinners out are going to have to be rare and special.

I regained some confidence in the challenge's feasibility at noon today when I finally introduced myself to Scott, who works the Body & Soul booth at the Union Square Greenmarket. Scott is there Mondays and Fridays and I've been buying vegetable turnovers and wraps from him for months. Turns out Body & Soul is related to the restaurant Counter, founded by local and organic chef Deborah Gavito at 105 First Ave, NY. I stocked up for the week, and look forward to going down to meet Deborah and check out the kitchen soon.