September 20
Today, prior to my eating local challenge, I brought fresh bread home for a family party, and it filled the car with that, well, yeasty bread smell, almost but not quite like I had just baked it myself. I actually sat in the warm car a minute and sniffed before taking it into the house. We haven’t even started the eating local challenge and already I am mourning the possibility of being without bread for two weeks! It is the one food, just under coffee that I can’t live without. I have memories of my grandmother’s kitchen, when my head barely reached over the counter, watching her oatmeal rolls, sitting on the counter, plump and soft and slick with margarine (called oleo back then) and filling the kitchen with the wonderful smell of warm yeast.
September 21
Ok. I did find a bottle of red wine at the Cedar Creek Winery in Cedarburg. The wine is actually grown and produced in Prairie Du Sac, a little outside the “zone,” but one has to have some wine to alleviate the coming suffering. We had gone to the Cedarburg Harvestfest expecting more harvest but what we found was a lot of fest instead, all sorts of folks crowding rows of crafts and eating hot dogs, and, of course, drinking beer. Festive but not exactly our mood. I feel more like a food detective, sniffing here and there, looking for some hidden and perhaps, undiscovered gem or leafy vegetable. We found one little stall of organic, locally grown vegetables. We bought some extra arugula and squash and a tiny bag of pea shoots, and a few grotesquely beautiful gourds.
September 22
Today, foraging pre-challenge in a locally owned grocery store, I had one of those conversations that became common:
Me: Does this butter come from local cows?
Young grocery clerk: (pointing to the label as if I can’t read) Yeah, it says Wisconsin.
Me: I know what it says. But that may be only a distribution place. I’m trying to find out if the cows are actually from Wisconsin.
Now, he looks right at me and says in a long suffering voice: Butter comes from milk, so yeah, there must be some cows…somewhere.
Me: Can I speak with the manager please?
