Saturday, November 14, 2009

October Poll Results; November Poll Gives Food for Thought

So much for being timely with the polls! Nevertheless, our October poll asked about interest in connecting with like-minded folks from around town to get your green on. The majority of you (78%) said yes with the rest voting in with a maybe. So now what?

I have a couple ideas and wondering what you're thoughts might be. We could:
  • Create a new online community using a tool like Google Groups or Yahoo! Groups. Folks could create new discussion threads on topics that interest them (home-scale renewable energy projects, gardening, local food, kids & the environment, homesteading skills, etc.); maintain a new community calendar of events; etc
    .
  • Meet face-to-face on a regular basis in a relaxed, loosely organized way. Maybe it's a green film series with discussions, or maybe even more of a meet and network approach a la the Green Drinks model (Providence, Newport).

  • Any other idea you might want to throw out there. I welcome your feedback!
Now, onto November's poll:

Coming off of our Local Food Weekend (see previous post), I'm really interested in how feasible eating a totally locally grown/produced diet could be here in Sakonnet. Have you thought about it? Tempted to start out with just a totally-local meal (Thanksgiving is coming up!)? Or maybe try it for a week? Or a month? Granted, fall/winter might not be the most appealing time of year, but as the Wintertime Farmers' Market shows, there is still plenty of fresh, local, seasonal food out there.

To help with this idea of fostering a more widespread approach to eating local and in season, I'm starting work on something that I hope you might find of interest -- a comprehensive list/guide of as much locally grown and produce items as I can find. Basically, what's out there and where you can get it. Tapping into resources such as Farm Fresh RI, Edible Rhody, local grocery stores and the like should make for a good guide.

Knowing my schedule, it's going to take some time to pull together, but I'm hopeful it will be worth it. If you have a favorite local food product, feel free to comment on this post or drop me a line. Thanks!

3 comments:

Tillerman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tillerman said...

I think it's a great idea to develop a list of local food sources.

This is probably heresy, but I would particularly appreciate seeing information on the best places to buy locally raised meat. Vegetables and fruit are easy to find at the local farmers' markets. Fish is also easy in RI. I know where to find local wines and cheeses too. But it's harder to know where to go to find great locally grown beef and lamb and pork.

BILL GERLACH said...

tillerman,

There are a few local sources for grass fed/free range beef, poultry, etc. (and are at the Wintertime Farmers' Market in Pawtucket):

Aquidneck Farms, Portsmouth
(http://www.aquidneckfarms.com/index.htm; includes a "Where to Buy" link)

Simmons Farm, Middletown
(http://www.farmfresh.org/food/farm.php?farm=54; we participated in their winter CSA a few years back and got a fair amount of chicken and beef)

To see a more comprehensive list of farms producing local beef, chicken, pork, goat, etc., visit http://www.farmfresh.org/food/farmersmarkets_details.php?market=29 and scroll down to the Meat listing.

Happy eating!