Thursday: Finally local, if not all organic

When pressed, my grandfather would tell us kids how his family lived, making their own sausages and tapping their own maple sugar. I loved hearing those stories, at least if they weren’t too gory, and the notion of self-reliance stayed with me. That’s translated into my own vegetable garden and even this attempt to eat local.

Breakfast: more Nutty Rice, California walnuts and raisins (and fair-trade, organic coffee with half-and-half). I had to take the dog to the vet, or a more interesting menu might have been possible. I worked for a few hours at the Master Gardener gardens at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center. Hot work, the remedy for which was a stop at White’s Market, where I picked up a melon, blueberries, peaches (from their backyard) and prune plums. I couldn’t keep myself from eating a peach and dipping into the pint of blueberries, so dessert came before lunch, which was a roll-up with more Bickert Family Farm bacon, cheese and tomato. Every bit of it was local.

Then came more work in my garden, with some assistance from my friend Mark. Later, we shared a Mendocino Zinfandel, Full Circle buffalo burgers and local, sweet, yellow corn, along with the last of Linda’s tomato. The corn was gorgeous, the rows so uniform it was photogenic. The buffalo was amazingly good, and much finger-licking was heard at the table.

In an ear of corn, every single kernel must be fertilized for it to develop. Each of the corn silks, those brown strings at the top of an ear, leads to a separate kernel inside the developing ear. The tassels at the top of the corn stalk hold the pollen, which the wind blows to the ready silk, usually on another stalk, which fertilizes that kernel, allowing it to develop. The even development on my ear of corn spoke of good conditions, as did the worms, which are the downside of organic corn. Hey, they are easily knocked off.

I’ve noticed that sometimes to get local, I can’t buy organic. That’s been my first choice for years, so it’s hard to make the switch. The peaches, blueberries and melon were not labeled organic. I admit it’s good for me to test the difference. I know it’s really hard to grow soft-skinned fruits here, with peach curl only one of the issues growers face. I don’t know the whole story, but it makes me curious about how it might be done local and organic, and how much I might have to pay then. As it was, I was happy with the prices at White’s, which were at or below supermarket prices.