An Experimental August

Last autumn I read the book The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. Written by a couple living in an apartment in Vancouver (BC), it felt very relevant to me, a city-dwelling wannabe farmer with weird obsessions with the idea of amassing what I call “pioneer skills” and the pursuit of experiencing The Laaaand in as many ways as possible. They wrote a lot about the difficulty of finding specific ingredients and some emotional stuff, but the parts that were by far the most interesting to me were the stretches of natural history of the surrounding area. An area that is both close and similar to The Laaaaand and sea around Seattle.

“The Laaaaand,” by the way, must be said in a purposefully funny, exaggerated voice every time. How else to reference–mostly to myself–a whole philosophy that I hold with complete sincerity while also being aware that it’s pretty ridiculous, mostly unrelate-able, and ultimately pointless. I like the stories mountains tell, the history in soil, the amazing influence of small streams and rivers. Animal population ebb and flow and how humans effect all of that is all just amazing to me. I like smelling the different smells and eating anything I can right off of a bush or a tree, and tasting the difference between things grown in different climates. I like feeling a nice breeze while eye-ballin’ a big rock that’s been gradually carved away by just such breezes. You could put a hippie-dippy spin on it being about connecting to shit but that’s sadly not it at all. It’s just, you know, life. It’s not inherently a good thing, but it feels important to take pause all the same.

SO! The Laaaaand. That’s what it’s all about.

At any rate, I was pretty jazzed about the idea of trying a local diet. Not for a full year like they did, and most likely not restricted to 100 miles, but still, I was pretty confident that the Puget Sound would have even more plentiful food sources than they had up in the Salish Sea. However, since it was fall, I tabled the idea after warning Ian that I was likely to propose a-somethin’ something in the spring or summertime. And here we are!

This month we’re doing a 200 mile diet, with a few life-easing caveats.

1) Because Ian works a lot of unexpected overtime these days it’s OK for him to eat whatever his work feeds him when he stays late.
2) The idea of not eating avocados while local tomatoes are in season made me too sad, so I get to eat those from California.
3) The Pantry Rule lets us eat anything we already have in the kitchen so it doesn’t go to waste.
4) We can scrap the rules when we go over to friends’ and family’s places and get fed so we don’t have to ungracious.
5) And we don’t have to be entirely hermetic because we have a 1 restaurant green light for Local 360, which doesn’t fit our 200 mile radius but does source everything from the Pacific Northwest.

The main rule is we can’t buy any food that comes from outside a 200 mile radius.

I’m most excited to see what my home tastes like and experience the summer season in a new and complete way. EXTREME TERROIR! Hehe!

B.L.A.T. Salad

I’m pretty darn proud of this one! It satisfies all your food cravings save chocolate (after all, this is a salad I’m talking about). The key is delicious fresh produce and this wowzer of a dressing. BLAT!

Salad Ingredients
1 lb. of your favorite bacon, cooked and chopped
4 perfectly ripe avocados, chopped
4 juicy Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 head butter (Bibb) lettuce, torn into bite size pieces
1 head red leaf lettuce, also torn into bite size pieces
1 Romaine heart, chopped
4 slices of good sourdough bread, cut into 1/2″ or 3/4″ square pieces

Dressing Ingredients
1/4 cup Lemonnaisse (regular mayonnaise is OK)
1 large or 2 small lemons, juiced (+1 if using reg mayo)
1 tsp stone-ground mustard (+1 if using reg mayo)
1/4 cup EVOO
1 tsp bacon grease (!!!!)
Several grinds of black pepper
Pinch sea salt
Optional: a little lemon zest never hurt anybody 🙂

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Fill your kitchen sink with cold water and dump in all the lettuces. Let them hang out there for about 10 minutes while you attend to other stuff, then remove and give them a few whirls in a salad spinner. This was enough lettuce that I had to go in 3 batches but maybe your spinner is bigger. Once they’re as dry as they’re going to get transfer to a very large serving/salad bowl and set aside.

Cook the bacon however you prefer, drain on paper towels, and reserve a teaspoon of the drippings.

Get out a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Arrange bread evenly in one layer, drizzle with olive oil, and season with a little S&P. Pop into the oven and toast for 5-10 minutes. If the bread is fresh it will take more towards 10, if it’s dryer 5 will be fine, but also it depends on how crunchy you like your croutons so just keep an eye on them. Set aside to cool when they’re ready.

Onto the dressing! In a medium sized mixing bowl, plop the Lemonnaisse, stone-ground mustard, lemon juice, and bacon grease. Whisk together and season with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. While continuing to whisk, add the EVOO in a steady stream. If it looks a little thick add more EVOO, if you want it creamier add some more Lemonnaisse, if you really like pepper add some more of that, etc. Pour over the lettuce mixture in the very large salad bowl.

Reuse the post-dressing mixing bowl to combine the chopped tomatoes, avocadoes, and bacon. Squirt with some lemon juice so the avocadoes stay green. Add a serving spoon and to table this bowl goes.

Add the croutons to the big salad bowl and give it a good tossing to coat both lettuce and croutons. Add whatever salad-serving-utensils-you-use and this baby’s ready to join its buddy at table.

When serving, give yourself a nice bed of lettuce/croutons/dressing and then top that off with the avocado/tomato/bacon mixture. BAM!

This is better than any BLAT sandwich…although, to give credit where credit is due, this was totally inspired by my beloved Hi-Life’s heavenly lunch creation. The lemon aioli they use makes the sandwich POP! in your mouth, I only ever wish there was more lettuce/tomato/avocado because of my more veggies-to-meat ratio obsession.