Take the One Local Summer Challenge

The One Local Summer Challenge started with the intent to encourage buying fresh, local ingredients, and it turned into a healthy, fun experiment for hundreds of participants across the nation.

According to Nicole Wolverton, Farm to Philly founder and this year’s Challenge coordinator, there are currently about 75 people signed on for 2009, with one person joining in from the U.K.

“Last year there were about half a dozen people from outside the U.S.,” Wolverton says. “That included entries from Canada, England, France and Scotland.”

The event (June 1 through August 30, 2009) is open to anyone willing to take on eating local.

The rules are simple and stress-free, just like a lazy summer day. Which makes the challenge more of a play on being chef-creator for one meal, made with local ingredients only, just one day a week (not including spices and oil).

So, your fare can be easy or elaborate, depending on your mood and time constraints.

It can be your breakfast that you whip up with eggs purchased from a local farmer, a simple lunchtime salad topped with veggies from your garden, or a feast of grilled, grass-fed beef bought from a local producer.

The idea is to get all of us supporting our local growers and producers, eating healthier and taking the time to consider what we’re actually consuming. 

“I love it when people make their own cheese and there were many people last year who did – from paneer to mozzarella,” Wolverton says.  “And because it’s so hard to find locally sourced fish here, I get jealous of the New Englanders for their access to lobster and other seafood!”

In addition to staying motivated to eat local, imagine all the recipes you’ll reap from other locavores all over the world. 

All you have to do is commit to preparing one meal a week, jotting down the fixings, emailing the details to your regional coordinator, and you’re in.

We’re in.

Are you in?

Here are a couple entries from last year’s Challenge (random selections taken from the Farm to Philly site):

• “roasted heritage turkey, couscous with mini bulbing onions, basil, garlic and chevre, plus a salad of greens, carrots, onions and kohlrabi”;

• “this week we took advantage of our garden’s bounty, with new potatoes and green beans smothered in pesto…mixed cherry tomatoes… and made the garlic bread”;

• “we made ribs with peach bbq sauce”;

• “whipped up a sauté of garlic, sugar snap and snow peas, fennel and herbs from our CSA”;

• “scrambled egg with zucchini, parsley, onion, and garlic”; and

• “still overloaded with zucchini, repeated last week’s meal: zucchini Panini sandwiches, and added in sautéed garlic, mushrooms, and onions.”

For more details, or to signup for One Local Summer, click here: Farm to Philly.