Tortillas and Cider, Delivered to Our Doorstep
By Shira | Dec 5, 08 12:43 PM
A lot of people have been talking about eating local, and the arguments are pretty straight-forward: when you eat local you save energy/fuel, build community, and develop your local economy. Not to mention, your food is a lot less likely to be processed with preservatives and other nastiness.
Eating local in Ithaca is pretty easy and it seems to be getting easier every day. The Ithaca Farmer's Market is open April through December and has amazing produce - plus local crafts, live music and hot food. A lot of the stands are organic and there's even one place where everything is veganically grown - Unexpected Farm from Watkins Glen.
We've been getting most of our produce from the Farmers Market since we moved here three months ago, and supplementing from Greenstar Cooperative Market - where we're members. Greenstar is definitely not 100% local, but they have really great signage, which makes it so much easier to know the distance food has traveled. But as winter sets in, the Farmer's Market closes up shop and buying local produce at the coop gets too expensive, so we decided to join a winter CSA. We just picked up our first share last week and it was an amazing bounty - carrots, potatoes, leeks, cabbage, turnips, garlic, kale, squash, radichio, bok choi, and salad greens.
The cool thing about the CSA model, is that it enables the farmer to get paid up front so that they have the money when they need it most for buying supplies, paying laborers, repairs, etc. And usually, by paying a fixed price at the beginning, the individual CSA member gets a really good deal on a lot of fresh, local food. It is probably the best way to eat seasonally, if you're not growing your own food.
What's really exciting right now is that all these small grassroots distributors are popping up to fill holes in the local market. A couple of months ago, it wasn't uncommon for us to go for a walk and pass by an unsupervised produce stand in front of a house on a quiet residential street.
Recently, our friend Emily was thinking about how there are no local tortilla makers, so she started making vegan, organic, wheat tortillas and delivering them to people on her bike. And then Travis and Ellen announced on the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute's email list that they had pressed a huge amount of cider and could deliver a half gallon or gallon to any one who wanted some.
And these projects are inspiring new ones. A couple of guys who got Emily's tortillas one week, made some hummus to put on them, and it was such a tasty combination that now they're planning on making and delivering hummus. I sampled some of their recipe at the hat band party and it was amazing. I can't wait for them to start distributing!
All this activity has gotten us brainstorming like crazy, especially whenever we meet up with our new friend Joe. He's a true renaissance man - a guy who knows how to build his own house, convert engines to run on vegetable oil, code websites and play death metal. We've been talking about collaborating on a vegan baked goods enterprise in the future.
But with all these microbusinesses launching, it seems like we could take this whole thing a step further. What if once a week, we all met up in one centralized location (maybe a rotating potluck at different people's houses) and we just swap stuff - no money involved. So Emily could bring her tortillas, and Travis brings his cider, and Ellen brings tea, and Dusqkee brings hummus, and Ari brings vegan cookies, and Joe brings vegan muffins, and Danila brings garlic, and Mer and Uriel offer massages, and Rachel teaches yoga, and I bring knitted hats and cozies etc. etc. And instead of paying each other, we would just swap in a mutual aid, take as you need kind of way. And maybe it's one big coop and we all put in cash when we can and take it out when we need it. And there's a local community center with an industrial kitchen and craft studios and workshops. And before you know it, we're a totally self-sustaining community.
This is where we are heading!
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Comments
Greetings,
AWESOME SITE.. Look forward to having more time to check it out!!
Namaste' Mark
Posted by: Mark Peterson-Estrada | December 19, 2008 12:15 AM