From Ground to Grindz — Day 6: The Final Countdown

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Use It Or Lose It

Posted Friday Oct. 1, 9 a.m.

Today is Day 6 of the Eat Local challenge, which means that there were just six meals left between me and freedom when I woke up Friday morning.

As Korina and I have gotten closer to the finish line, a common topic of conversation is what our first meal will be on Sunday, once the challenge is behind us. At first I said Dim Sum, but yesterday my answer was a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, which is strange as I’ve only had fast food twice since I moved to Oahu. Korina’s answer at the moment seems to be Korean food.

But as much as I am looking forward to chowing down on some imported grindz, I hate the idea that we might waste some of the local produce that island farmers toiled over and that we paid a hefty price for. So we need to cram as much of it into the last couple of days as possible.

For breakfast, aka Meal No. 16, Korina scrambled some local eggs with local scallions before she headed to work. I sliced up a starfruit that had mostly turned from green to yellow.

Then I peeled eleven apple bananas before they had a chance to rot and put the fruit in a Ziploc bag in the freezer for future smoothies. We’d purchased some and received some from the generous Randy Ching, but decided we’ve eaten too many already.

Eleven apple bananas that we won’t be eating this week are going into the freezer before they spoil.

There are other local items that we won’t finish this week, but those are either nonperishable — sugar, coffee, honey and tea — or easily useable next week — butter, eggs, onions and scallions.

We’re planning to reprise our trip to Kapiolani Community College’s farmers market on Saturday, but only to supplement our non-local diet, not replace it.

4 Meals Left And Counting

Posted Friday Oct. 1, 1:30 p.m.

With Friday’s lunch behind me — leftover ground beef chili from last night — there are only four meals left in the Eat Local challenge, and I’m starting to get nostalgic.

What have I learned? Have I — and all of you out there who have taken up the challenge this week — made any positive impact on our food system? What, if anything, will I carry with me into the future?

These are questions I’m pondering as I sit at my desk, as I read others’ accounts of their attempts to Eat Local, and as I start work on stories covering grocery stores, school lunches and the struggle of farmers. I hope others out there are thinking about the same things.

You’ll be seeing more of that here at Civil Beat next week, but for now, I’ll report that I’m still pretty hungry, and I think there’s half a papaya and some strawberries with my name on it that I’ll be digging into before this work week is through.

Can You Taste The Difference?

Posted Friday Oct. 1, 9 p.m.

For the second time in two nights, Korina cooked a dish that we’d enjoyed earlier in the week. Why go away from something that obviously works?

Truthfully, it’s been hard to think of something new when you have limited ingredients and hard to be creative when you’re starving.

Tonight we reprised the opah sauteed in butter, garlic and chives that we enjoyed Tuesday night. But while we paid $15 for one pound of opah at Whole Foods earlier in the week, this time we made our purchase at the Foodland in the Market City shopping center. We spent less than $15 for nearly two pounds of the same fish as well as more than a pound of baby bok choy.

Did the fish taste any different considering it cost less than half the price per pound ($6.99 vs. $14.99)? There were parts of Friday’s meal that were a little dry, but that might be because we ran out of butter and because Korina couldn’t give the fish her full attention.

Opah, bok choy, and some salad with papaya. The dark liquid is sweet tea with Maui turbinado.

I don’t know much about how fish is cut up at the auction or the market, but to my untrained palate, it tasted just as good as the Whole Foods fish. And because we were able to buy nearly twice as much, we have enough leftovers to give us a hearty lunch.

Just one day left.

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