Calazones

5 hungry people (myself and my two roommates, and their respective boyfriends) and three kitties making calazones in my tiny kitchen amounts to people freaking out and stressing. So while mine is in the oven, I decided to take a little break from the chaos to check in with the blog.

For dinner last night I had left over sweet potato and black bean burrito.

Breakfast today- toast with jam and yogurt with honey

snack - carrots, apple

Lunch- potatoes with butter and cheese

snack - toast with jam, yogurt with honey, chocolate, cider

dinner - calzone with tomato, onion, garlic, and cheddar

I am in the process of making beef stew with veggies, but running in to the problem of not having enough flavor in the broth.

I also had my first panic of not having anything to bring for lunch. I was getting ready for school today and realized i didn't have anything to bring. and i was already hungry, and late. So i quickly boiled some potatoes and threw on some cheddar and butter. Unfortunately it didn't satisfy for very long and i was hungry by 2:30 with class for another two hours. So i sucked it up and bought some chocolate at the store :-)

I'm not sure if I've really talked about this much, but eating locally has been rigorous in terms of food preparation. I pretty much have to prepare and cook everything I eat, and cook ahead to have things to bring to school all week. I enjoy cooking and will be making a cookbook of images and recipies in alt pro as one of my pieces, but it all get rather exhausting. Especially when im trying to document and make photographs of it. Sometimes the documentation falls to the wayside as it adds much more time to an already lengthy process. I also think I really try to do a lot in one day. This project could be a full time job, all day everyday, and I feel I could do so much more if I could devote all of my time to this. In a perfect world ha!

Look forward to seeing some sweet maps and lightbulb terrariums, once I photograph them.

And the fire alarm is going off.....better go check on the mayhem.....

Butter

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

hurray for butter!

I also made refried beans last night. yum!

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

sprouts! from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

What I have been eating

Sunday -

Brunch: Eggs, Bacon, Toast with jam, homefries
Snack: Donut
Snack: Toast with Jam and a glass of milk
Dinner: Twice baked potato with butter and cheese
Snack: Popcorn

Monday-

Breakfast: Locally distributed Raisin bran with milk
Lunch: Salad with mixed greens, onion, tomato, carrots, tofu
Dinner: Burrito with home made tortillas, sweet potato, black beans and cheese

Tuesday-
Breakfast: Toast with Jam
Snack: Yogurt with honey
Snack: tortilla crackers (stale tortilla) and cheese
Late Lunch: Salad with mixed greens, carrots, onion, tomato

Northampton and updates!

Life has been busy! I need to get back on top of updating.

I went home with Prouty for the weekend to Northampton, which has been really great. I was able to buy a ton of food at their local farmers market, on saturday. She took me to a new burger place in town called LOCAL BURGER that serves three kinds of local burgers, local fries and shakes with local ice cream! It was SO EXCITING!!! Unfortunately they didn't have any local cheese or condiments or bread so I did end up eating a plain piece of meat on a plate haha but I was content as I sipped my uber tasty shake and my fries. I conceded some ketchup since i was eating a plain burger. I have discovered I can't live without ketchup, so i decided I will get some natural ketchup (without corn syrup which is in Hein's) to carry around with me. Ironically, about 20 minutes later my body was really not happy with me. Without going into details, somethings didn't agree. Its interesting how sensitive my body has gotten in three weeks.

Saturday night we went to rachel's cousin's for a big family gathering. It was great, everyone was drinking beer and eating pizza, watching the olympics and i was making myself a salad and baked potato.

This morning Rachel and her mom made brunch for everyone with all local stuff!! Eggs, bacon, home fries! I did have to pass on the bagels and orange juice, but I had my own toast and jam. Its interesting that local ingredients are much easier to come by here in northampton. They have a whole campaign of "Be a Local Hero! Buy Local!" So all the stores have local hero tags on their local food.

Speaking of, Check this link out!

http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/foodenv5.aspx

Its an interactive food atlas (zoomed into mass right now, but you can choose any state or the whole country) where you can see different stats about growing food and other health related stats. Very cool! I have been thinking about trying to figure out where the best and worst place to eat locally would be, and how my project would be different depending on where I was living. I hope to explore this as I trek to various places throughout the next 5 weeks. I will be going to nyc in a few weeks so that should be interesting!

Wednesday:

breakfast-toast with butter

Lunch - Sandwich with chicken, formage blanc cheese, tomato, spinach, home made bread

Dinner - Left over ravioli with sweet potato and formage blanc cheese

drinks (sharing tastes of ipswitch oatmeal stout - 37.8 mils , smuttynose brown ale - 60.5 miles, rapscillion honey (can't remember where this is from but its local and delicious - check back) , Narragansett - 50 miles

Thursday:

Breakfast - toast with butter, eggs, home fries

lunch- Sandwich with chicken, formage blanc cheese, tomato, spinach, home made bread

snack - popcorn

dinner - chicken soup

snacks - popcorn, ice cream

friday:

breakfast - toast with butter, eggs, home fries, cider

lunch - Sandwich with chicken, formage blanc cheese, tomato, spinach, home made bread

snack - toast with jam, glass of milk

dinner - burger (from Easthampton, MA - 8.5 miles from northampton, 94 miles from boston) fries (from Hadley MA - 6.3 miles from northampton, 101 miles from boston), milkshake (Ice cream made y Bart's Ice Cream in Amherst, MA - 10.7 miles from northampton, 90.3 miles from boston) ALL LOCAL!!!

saturday:

breakfast - toast with jam

lunch- grilled cheese with tomato

-cheese - Smith's Farmstead in Winchendon, MA - 63 miles from northampton, 65.8 miles from boston)

-Tomatoes from American Hydroponics in Hopkington, MA - 27.9 miles

-bread made at home [yogurt from Sidehill Farm Ashfield, MA -16.5 miles from northampton, 115 miles from boston, Flour from King Arthur Flour in Norwich, VT - 139 miles, honey from Shelburne, MA - 26.3 miles from northampton, 101 mils from boston]

-left over fries from dinner

snack - cider donuts (Elm Farm Bakery in South Deerfield, MA - 13.1 miles from northampton, 110 miles from boston)

dinner - salad

- mixed greens (Atlas Farm in South Deerfield, MA - 12.8 miles from northampton, 109 miles from boston)

-carrots (Winter Moon Farm in Hadley, MA - 6.3 miles from northampton and 101 miles from boston)

-onions (Atlas Farm in South Deerfield, MA - 12.8 miles from northampton, 109 miles from boston)

-tomato (Hydroponic Tomatoes from American Hydroponics in Hopkington, MA - 27.9 miles)

-oil and lime (i forgot my dressing and was forced to improvise)

-baked sweet potato fries (Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA - 80.9 miles)

dreams?

Is it sad that i just woke up from dreaming about finding local food? I was really pumped cause i found a 1 pound bag of oats for $.99 and was going to have oatmeal for breakfast but then i remembered that it didn't happen in real life and then got disappointed haha. cool..

plants update from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jena Duncan on Vimeo.

Ketchup (can i make my own?)

So I'm a bit behind on updating. The weekend had some great moments and some epic fails on my part. Videos to come soon, I've been filming with real cameras instead of photobooth ha. So once they are edited and lovely I will post them.

So part of what I think could be the more interesting side of the project is the failings (not a reason to say slipping up is okay) but I feel if I'm not honest about things, this will all kind of unravel.

So saturday night at Hannah's she ordered chinese food late night. I couldn't resist, she got sesame chicken, beef teriyaki, crab rangoons and shrimp fried rice. So indulged and it was delicious. I have no excuse, but I feel rather guilty. To make matters worse, in the morning my stomach hurt so bad I felt like I was hungover, even though I hadn't drank.

Sunday Hannah came with me to Methuen to drop my kitties off to get neutered (happy valentines day to my fav. boys) and we went to her house nearby where her parents took us out to breakfast. This was became complicated as I didn't feel like I could not eat despite the restaurant not having local food. But at the same time I was starving and 45 minutes from my house. So I had eggs benedict with chocolate milk, as not to be offensive to her parents. But then I started thinking, what IF? What if I defied social norms to make a statement and people got uncomfortable? I think this could be something really interesting to explore. So while I was again guilty for eating non local food (Other localvores have made the rule that if someone invites you, its okay), I also became excited for the possibilities of pushing people out of their comfort zone, maybe i get a lipstick camera or something?! (this would mean i would have to wear lipstick so i dunno about that one....)

Anyway, later that same night I had valentines day cookies that hannah made and fundip. I was willing to let the cookies slide because she made them and it was valentines day but the fundip was bad. really bad. like maybe the worst. but i guess not as bad as the chinese food. Anyway I spent the rest of the night feeling terribly for doing it.

On the subject of guilt I've come to the conclusion that its shitty that I slipped up but its also part of the project to see the human failings of someone trying to resist the consumerism of food. That said, I will try really hard to not let it happen again.

BUT I didn't make my own ravioli on sunday with the fabulous help of sarah joy! it took about three hours but we ended up with tasty whole wheat sweet potato and formage blanc cheese ravioli with a home made tomato sauce and salad.

I also made popcorn. yuuuummmmmmy

Monday -

Breakfast- left over popcorn

lunch- roasted chicken with left over salad

snack - carrots. also sourdough bread!!! that I baked myself from my sourdough starter! Really tasty real legit looking bread!

dinner - left over ravioli in a sweet potato sauce.

dessert- apple muffins! The sourdough starter is great for baking almost anything!!

Today

Breakfast - toast with butter and homemade apple muffin

snacks - muffins

lunch- salad with tomato, onion, and chicken

dinner- home made chicken soup with onions and potatoes

dessert- muffins.

I don't know if you can tell, but im really into the muffins. Its sort of an issue, I have no self control over tasty baked goods these days (or ever really)

Best