C25K Update and a Party!

First of all: last weekend's 5k. The course was advertised as easy, but it turned out to be up the side of a mountain! (I'm not joking--my running shoes were sliding on the steep inclines.) I made it halfway before I--while very upset--gave up. But my mother, husband, and hard-core-runner sister-in-law all told me that running half of that course was an awesome accomplishment. Still, I'm ready to finish a 5k now. That will be this coming week!

I have a-whole-nother post to write about my life and stress and food and exercise lately. But before that . . .

Last night, my husband and I hosted a “Summer Harvest” party. Each guest was asked to bring a dish or drink that featured locally produced foods. I had asked Dan to take photos, but he was too busy helping me host. We all had a great time, though, eating dinner–slowly working our way through appetizers, then soup, then drinks, then the main course, then dessert–and playing a couple of rounds of Apples to Apples, a very fun party game when people get into it.

Here were our locally inspired items:

Sweetwater Road Trip (Atlanta microbrewery beer)

Mojitos with AL cane syrup (in lieu of simple syrup) and local organic mint leaves

Bruschetta with local organic tomatoes and herbs from our kitchen (windowsill) garden with French bread and Bulger Creek chevre

Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill cheese with my mother’s triple-berry jam and whole-wheat crackers

Koinonia (South GA) cinnamon/sugar pecans

Yellow pepper soup (a pureed soup with yellow peppers, potatoes, and other ingredients I can’t remember–delicious!)–I forgot to ask my friend Becky which of her ingredients were local

Tofu quiche with local organic broccoli, tomatoes, and herbs and crust made from local buckwheat flour

Tomato/cucumber salad with local organic tomatoes and cucumbers (from the Saturday farmers' market in the town where I grew up!)

A zucchini/squash/garlic medley from my friend Melissa’s garden

Cheesecake with a raspberry sauce

And peach cobbler made with Georgia peaches and a local flour mix crust

We certainly did not feel deprived by eating locally derived foods!

Did you know that food in the US, on average, has traveled over 1500 miles to reach us? That means that the foods we buy in the grocery store have used a lot of gas, created a lot of pollution, and often have required a lot of long-term refrigeration to reach us. Locally produced vegetables and fruits are often higher in vitamin content when they reach us, their short trip times are far less polluting, and their freshness makes them taste a lot better!

If you are interested in finding local food sources near you and you are in the US, I encourage you to visit Local Harvest to check out CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and farmers’ markets in your area.

Then you can host the next harvest party. . . .