What does a dinner made entirely from locally grown food look like?

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When I received an e-mail invitation to attend a Saturday dinner, "Dine Out to Cool Down," featuring a 100 percent locally sourced meal, and a discussion to explore local solutions to global warming, I thought I'd give it a try.

The dinner was excellent. Everything was tasty and fresh. I even enjoyed the goat milk. The menu included:

Appetizers

Estrella Family Creamery Cheese Tray
Fresh Measure's Crusty Bread with Garlic Basil Dipping Sauce
Veggie Burrito Wrap Slices
Fresh Sorrell and Lambsquarter
Edible Flowers

Salad and Bread

Gourmet Salad Greens, Wild Edible Greens, Salad Burnett, French Sorrell
Garlic Basil Dressing
Edible Flowers
Fresh Measure's Seven-Grain Bread with Chive Butter

Main Course

Rosemary-Sage Roasted Chicken
Sweet and Sour Lentils
Baked Potato with Chive Butter
Braised Swiss Chard with Garlic and Apple Cider Vinegar

Dessert

Rhubarb-Saskatoon Berry-Raspberry Crisp

Beverages

Herbal Mint Teas
Certified Raw Goat Milk
Coffee

Jim Lopez, King County deputy chief of staff, spoke after the dinner on what King County is doing on climate change policies and its plans for future action. Lopez leads the King County Executive's Action Group on Climate Change.

The 2007 King County Climate Plan sets a process in motion to include climate change mitigation and adaptation as critical factors in the cost-benefit evaluations of all decisions made by King County.

It's a companion plan to the 2007 King County Energy Plan, a document detailing internal policies, programs, and investments in climate friendly, renewable energy that are critical to reducing operational greenhouse gas emissions and reducing dependence on foreign fossil fuels.
It builds on more than 15 years of efforts across King County departments to stop the causes of climate change and to prepare for regional climate change impacts.

"Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time," said Lopez. "It is something we must do together."

Olympia Climate Action, The Farm Bank Project, Futurewise, Climate Solutions, the League of Women Voters of Thurston County, and Livable Thurston sponsored the dinner in Olympia.

Stokesberry Farm, Estrella Family Creamery, and Olympia Coffee Roasting provided local food and refreshments. The South Puget Sound Community College Culinary Arts Program prepared the food.

Posted by at June 9, 2008 11:38 p.m.
Category: Environment

Comments

#137802

Posted by unregistered user at 6/11/08 6:45 a.m.

What an inspiration! Here in Lincoln County (central Oregon coast), we have a small group of individuals and business people who are attempting to forge community values regarding sustainability in all areas. The last meeting we had was attended by a dozen people. We had to lament the barriers we face here on the coast to developing any kind of locally-produced food: our climate (often soggy and cloudy) and the population which is mainly elderly with only a very small percentage of folks who have lived here more than a decade, and of course, the ubiquitous tourists who provide the siren song of easy revenue in trinkets. There was some discussion about the "demand" for organic food and how that demand led to an acceptance of ultra-high plate prices at restaurants which tout their organic fair. Too, we had to recognize other barriers to "growing local food": It's backbreaking work and few want to do it; the road infrastructure and related large farms in the Willamette valley fifty miles east of our communities present formidable challenges in the economics of growing locally: We get our food here on the coast from corporate sources and the large growers in valley who can offer quantities and lower prices.

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#138438

Posted by Rita R. Robison at 6/12/08 8:07 p.m.

I hope you/ll be able to develop some locally grown food. We've very fortunate in the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area to be able to have good supplies of organic food.

There's a firm that will deliver organic food to your door, in some areas. In Seattle and Olympia we we are lucky to have food co-ops that provide organic food, including fresh organic product year around.

We now have Community Supported Agriculture, where people can buy a "share" in a farm for the growing season. You get a big box of organic food, and flowers if you like them, at a pick up point weekly.

Maybe there is a college you can work with. The Evergreen State College in Olympia has an Organic Farm, and they may have a model that could help you get some organic efforts started.

Encouraging people to raise their own organic food is another approach. I hear it being mentioned more and more as gas and food prices go up. I'll be growing more vegetables myself this summer.

Rita

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