About once a week, maybe a little less, I go with co-workers to a Mexican restaurant not far from our office.

And roughly 90% of the time, I order the same thing: a steak fajita quesadilla, with a side of guacamole and sour cream.

When I go with the guys who work in software security, we usually also split a queso dip. Not so much when I go with the other women in my department.

Every single time I’ve gone in the last month, within a minute of my finishing the actual quesadilla part of my lunch, someone has appeared while I had a chip and guac in my mouth and grabbed my still-full-of-guac-and-sour-cream plate. It’s already become a joke with my friends.

Today it happened so fast that I almost couldn’t get the plate back! Which also almost led to both of us spewing half-chewed food on the table, because we were laughing so hard.

But seriously! How do I get them to leave my food until I’m done?

I don’t know what I’m doing that signals the waitstaff to take away the plate. Should I leave 1 bite of quesadilla? They get all mushy if you don’t eat them while they’re hot. Should I try to train myself to sit at the table with my left arm protectively around the plate?

Well, midway through the month, I can see very clearly that me taking this on was insanely unrealistic.

I know that it can be done to a significant extent, but it takes a lot more planning and shopping flexibility than I really have right now.

Some parts are pretty easy, and I’ll probably keep them up, at least mostly:

• Bread
• Milk
• Some chicken
• Some fruit & veg (but not very much)

Instead of giving up completely, I’m going to modify the challenge to try to do one completely local dinner every other week. Plus the items noted above.

What I can say out of this is that it’s been a huge consciousness raising experience. First, I never really gave that much thought to where my food came from, geographically speaking, before now. Except of course to be a snob about Wisconsin beer and cheese.

Also, I never thought about the environmental impact of eating foods shipped thousands of miles from farm or factory to me. But once you start thinking about it, it’s ridiculously obvious. It is bizarre to think that it makes sense for my cereal to be imported from Canada, nearly all of my fruit and vegetables from California, Chile, or New Zealand. BIZARRE.

I do still think I’m going to try making my own yogurt, but I don’t know when and I’m not committed to it regularly.

Thanks, Shelli, for pointing out this awesome Silly Internet Quiz. I know the results are a shock.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Also? This local food thing? Practically impossible.

I’m still reading everything and trying, but so far I’ve only succeeded in buying in-state or within ~125 miles for milk, chicken, bread, and muscadine grapes. Plus on our way home from the retreat, we bought peaches at a farm produce stand. I would have bought more, but that’s all they had. And the chicken was more than twice as expensive as the unattributed “greenwise” store brand!

I’m going to continue trying — I have some cautious optimism for the kosher grocery store in a not-too-distant neighborhood. But this may wind up as more of a consciousness raising experience than actually eating locally. For this to work in my house, I think we’re going to have to join a CSA.

I’m still kind of wiped out from the retreat, or more specifically, from Noah’s bad sleeping on the retreat. He was up at 3:30 or 4 on the first night, and rather than let him wake up the whole lodge, I brought him in to sleep on the twin bed with me. The second night he woke up completely and inconsolably and hungry at 2:30 am, and was up for at least an hour.

So:

• I think it might be time to get Noah out of the crib and into a big boy bed. He’s so heavy that he wakes up when I put him down, and then we have some back and forth with the screaming before he settles down.
• The atmosphere at work is less funereal this week than it was last week, although it seems like a lot of people are “mailing it in.” When I arrived at 9 this morning, I got a parking space that a month ago I would have needed to be there by 7:45 or 8 to get. But if I knew I only had 10 more days of work, I’d probably be doing the same thing.
• Hormone levels etc are looking like a go for TTC this month, although probably a few days later than I thought. The 200mg of Clomid produced an E2 level of  210 today, and there were 4 follicles: 17mm, 15mm, and two 13mm. Today is CD12; the doc & nurse today thought I’ll surge over the weekend and that it’s even possible I won’t surge until Monday. My gut feeling is that I’ll surge on Friday.
• I did a test recipe yesterday that turned out amazing. We’ll be taking a batch of these (among other things) to the new gay dads of twins at our church.

Awesome Parmesan Breadsticks, modified from Cooking Light:

• 1/3 cup regular flour
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning (either fresh black pepper, rosemary, herbs de provence, or something else you think sounds good)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 5 tablespoons water

Mix dry ingredients, add wet ingredients, stir until dough forms.

Place dough on floured surface and knead 4 or 5 times. Divide dough into 18 parts (roughly 1 inch balls).

Roll/stretch each ball into ~8 inch worms.

Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, or until bottoms are browned.

Total time: Less than half an hour.

Last night, I rushed to the grocery store right after dinner, for breakfasts, drinks, and snacks for our weekend retreat. I made two stops, the warehouse-grocery-meets-farmers-market, which I think I’ll be shorthanding to Produce Warehouse during this experiment, and a regular mainstream grocery store, the cheaper of my neighborhood chains.

Produce Warehouse:

• Bananas, organic, from Mexico. Imported directly, which I guess means something to some shoppers, but I’m not sure what. There were big signs with a map and everything. Along with 50,000 30,000 pounds of bananas*.
• Apples, gala, conventional, from Washington State
• Musileli type cereal, organic, from Canada!
• Purple Muscadine grapes, bought since they were the only fruit from Georgia that I could find. I hope Noah likes them.
• Multigrain bread, organic, baked on-site. Yummy, and I have no idea where the ingredients came from. Jeez this could get hardcore very quickly!

Cheap Grocery:

• Tropicana Fruit Squeeze water-juice bottles. These are my newest addiction. They’re fruit juice sweetened, low-calorie, and delicious. Lakeland Florida, which can’t really be justified as local, but at least is a state boardering mine.
• Pretzels - I went with the brand from Pennsylvania instead of Texas. Not local, probably a wash as far as distance goes.
• Yo Baby Yogurt - Organic. From New Hampshire. A staple of Noah’s diet. I’m thinking about the suggestion that I make yogurt myself, but I’m not committed to it yet.
• Pepperidge Farm cookies - Fairfield, CT. Not local. I should have bought cookies at Produce Warehouse, but I forgot.
• 4 Pack of Starbux Frappucinos - The label says “North America.” I’m going to guess non-local. I’m a coffee junkie and we have no idea what the 5:30 am coffee options are going to look like at the retreat locale.

* A random bonus prize will be awarded to the first person correctly identifying that reference in the comments below. No googling!

I’ve decided to join the group of people taking the September Eat Local Challenge.

The idea is that the environmental impact of eating food that has been driven (or flown, or boated, or railed, or multimodally transported) hundreds or thousands of miles from where it originated to my plate is huge. And while it isn’t something most of us can control completely, it is something that we can do that makes a difference.

How it works is this: During the month of September, I’m committing to buying as much of my food as possible from local sources. They recommend defining local as within a 100 mile radius of where you live. I’m going to be flexible on that rule as I think the main source of regional dairy is about 25 miles further out than that.

One group, the Locavores, has this pledge:

If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.

It’s going to be a big change for us. That dairy doesn’t produce yogurt, and we’ve been eating a whole lotta fruit from far away places. I haven’t even tried to figure out meat yet.

But, I’m considering a half-share in a CSA, and in exploring the smaller farmers markets in my area. Our big farmers market may be a good place for bread, but a huge number of their products are from outside of the US, to say nothing of outside of northern Georgia.

Also, I’m declaring that food we already have doesn’t count. So the variously sourced frozen and packaged goods we have are still available for September consumption.

I’ll be blogging regular updates about this over the month, and I would love to hear what other people think or have tried along these lines.

Warning: Spoiler ahead!

We are so happy that Top Chef is back on TV, and this week, the episode was one of our favorite challenges: update and healthify a classic comfort food.

I love comfort food. Well, duh, right? Why else would they call it comfort food if average Americans didn’t love it?

Unfortunately for South African (apparently partially raised in exile in Connecticut) contestant Micah, whom we liked but expected to be eliminated soon, she got to update meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Personally, I thought that would be an EASY assignment, not the one that would get the contestant sent home. In fact, I had an updated and healthier meatloaf baking in the oven while we watched the show. AND since my meatloaf turned out Elks Lodge delicious, plus was full of ingredients that Tom and Padma would have approved, I’m going to share the recipe with you.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have never made the same meatloaf twice. Meatloaf was one of the first dishes I learned to cook, and I’m all about the “Hmm, that might be good in it” style of cooking. So don’t fuss about the exact ingredients if you try this at home.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground turkey (ideally the 7% fat kind; if they don’t label it in your area, then the regular kind. NOT the ground turkey breast/ 1-3% fat kind)
• 1/2 lb chicken sausage, loose (not link)
• 1 cup leftover whole grain pilaf (details below)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup “quick” oats
• 1 tsp seasoned salt
• 1.5 tsp “herbs de provence” (or other seasonings you like)
• handful of breadcrumbs if needed

Pilaf Digression

Last week, I made a vat (well, cooked, not quite 3 cups) of mixed whole grain pilaf, which didn’t work quite as well as I’d hoped as a pilaf, but was PERFECT as the filler for the meatloaf.

Pilaf ingredients

All of these could safely be halved.

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/4 cup amaranth
• 1/4 cup barley
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1 large vidalia onion
• 1 cup mushrooms
• 2.5 cups chicken broth

Saute the chopped onion and sliced mushrooms until the onion is translucent.

Dump all the dry grains in a pot, stir them up a little, add the onions and mushrooms, then the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn the heat to low for 45 minutes.

Of course you could cook it in mushroom broth or water and make it vegetarian, but since we’re adding it to the meatloaf, what’s the point?

WHEN I DO THIS AGAIN, I’ll probably skip the amaranth. I think that’s what gave this too cereally a texture for pilaf. But it was perfect for meatloaf.

Meatloaf Cooking

Dump everything together in a large bowl and mix it thoroughly with your hands. Yes, it feels gross, but the results are worth it. You may want to start with just 1 egg and see if you actually need the second one for texture.

If you are one of those people who likes your meatloaf ketchup infused (that’s not the way I roll), add as much as you want, and definitely start with just the one egg. You may need to increase the amount of oats and/or breadcrumbs.

The trick to meatloaf is getting the texture right. If it’s too runny/sticky/gloppy in the bowl, you’re going to get more of a giant meat patty than a loaf. Too dry and it’s going to get you sent home, just like Micah.

Incidentally, that’s why I recommend the “regular fat” turkey and the whole egg, not just the white. Meatloaf needs some fat to cook properly.

What you want is something that holds its shape, but is kinda sticky/gloppy when you’re done mixing. The easiest way to correct too wet is by adding breadcrumbs. I needed 1 generous handful.

You know what would probably also be good in this recipe? Parmesean cheese! My next meatloaf I’ll try adding 1/4 or 1/3 cup of grated parmesean. Or you try it and tell me if it tastes as good as it sounds. (Yes, that’s cheese, that’s fat, whatever. This is healthier meatloaf; I am about balance, not strict food rules.)

Anyway, once you have a meatloaf that is sticky but holds its shape, put it in the middle of a roasting pan and bake it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes.

For reheating, I like to slice and heat in a dry pan, like hamburgers, more than in the microwave, but that’s just me.