(To read the older posts in this blog, click here.)
On Day 2, breakfast was left-overs of cornbread and glasses of whole milk from High Lawn Farm – yes, some with a splash of espresso. Lunch for both myself and The Husband were leftovers of goulash and mashed potato. The Kid brought cornbread for snack to school, and opted for a school lunch.
School lunches are usually not local, and today was no exception. But in Wayland we are fortunate to have extensive, growing, or soon-to-come-on-line school gardens at every school. If your kid goes to school here, check out that garden and get involved! Come harvest time, teachers, volunteers and the cafeteria ladies make sure every kid gets at least a little taste of super-fresh hyperlocal food that some of them have planted and tended.
Dinner was meant to be chili but… it took much longer to cook than I had anticipated. So while that bubbled, we had an ultra-local tomato soup: a mix of tomatoes from Two Field Farm, Siena Farms CSA, and my own garden, onions from Two Field, some non-local salt, pepper and bay leaf. We decorated it with an embellishment of heavy cream from High Lawn Farm. Simple and wholesome.
I made a savory corn bread to go with it, following this recipe, with some changes – it has the advantage over yesterday’s cornbread because of the butter (instead of veg oil), which is High Lawn. I used a very “aged” piece of Cabot Catamount cheese that I had bought at Whole Foods “ages” ago. The Cabot Creamery is in Cabot, Vermont, of course (200 miles), and they get their milk from New York and New England – but it was a regional as I could find it.
- 1-1/2 cup bread flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal: Four Stars Farm
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1-1/4 teaspoons salt
- 2-1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme: own garden
- 1/2 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary: own garden
- 1 cup grated Catamount Cabot cheese: Cabot
- 1-1/4 cups milk: High Lawn
- 2 large eggs: local hen yard
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled: High Lawn Farm
The Kid, not enamored with tomato soup, also had a scrambled egg (local yard), and there was corn on the cob from Charlton Orchards Farm.
We’re missing snacks (all our non-local snacks are being held in the Red Box), so I made some local kale chips in the dehydrator (olive oil, pepper and salt not local). By the way, the dehydrator and the stove are powered by hyperlocal electricity, made right here on our roof!