May 29, 2012
Second week of Melody’s vacation – I’ve taken it further
south than last week, and am in Folly Beach, SC, home of lazy days, tropical
storm fronts and all manner of good food.
Coming to Folly is a long-time habit for my beach buddies and I and we
have always factored a high priority on deliciousness into our daily plans.
Once again, was treated to some coffee made by a friend,
this time, my friend Lucy. This time,
it’s Starbucks Medium Breakfast Blend. I
called Starbucks since this is week two of me drinking their coffee, and
“highest-quality Arabica coffee in the world” doesn’t cut it a second time
around. Morgan, a customer service
representative, told me that “it’s a gathering of the finest Latin American
beans,” then went to look for further info.
He couldn’t find any, but did point out that if I had bought the Kona
coffee, he could have told me the specific four square mile area it was
from. Fail.
I fixed a yummy egg sandwich up for myself and my friend
Carmen for breakfast: bread (baked on site) & cheese (from Cedar Grove,
Wisconsin) from the Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market (trucked in by Lucy from
Decatur, GA), eggs from my friend Missy’s coop in Weaverville, NC (photo below),
arugula and basil from Victory Farms in Hanover, VA (trucked in by me) and mayo
from Kraft. (Sorry.) If I hadn’t been so hungry, I’d have taken a
photo of this amazingness and y’all would be jealous.
Snack: half of a doughnut, procured on Saturday at the
brand-new
Dixie Donuts,
down the street from my house, and driven to Folly Beach.
It had a rainbow on it.
Lunch: Pimiento cheese (see last week’s post), bread from
YDFM, cucumbers & tomatoes from unknown parts of the USA (thanks, Publix,
for not telling us) and pickles from
Charleston Pickle Company, whose
tag line is “local, natural pickles.”
I
think I’m in love.
Snacks: Mt. Olive pickles (see Jill’s post in re. that), and
Berger cookies, locally made in
Baltimore and brought to Folly by my friend and Baltimore resident,
Carmen.
Dinner brought us to Folly Beach landmark and a place we hit
at least twice each year,
Taco Boy.
We were smart enough to go during the week to
avoid an otherwise high fratty quotient, and it was delicious.
They focus on purveying what they can locally
and seasonally, make all of their ingredients in-house (and don’t even own a
freezer), and also support a really cool urban farming initiative for youth in
Charleston called the
Green Hearts Project.
They work with a produce distributor (Limehouse) who sources regionally, but when
I asked, Adam (Taco Boy himself?) was kind enough to call them and get a list
of farms for me.
Their corn and tortilla
chips are from Georgia, portabellas from Monterrey Farms in Tennessee, and
their tortillas are made in Johns Island, just up the road.
We had guacamole and chips, and I had a portabella
quesadilla: a healthy mix of local and non-local (= avocados) food for supper.
I wrapped up the evening with a glass of
Blue Diamond almond milk, which
claims to use non-GMO almonds from a growers’ cooperative in California.
This is my last food-tracking blog for the month, and I have
been floored by my ignorance, having begun the project with a fair amount of
hubris with what I thought was local-eating-cred. Since then, I’ve become even more attuned to what
I’m eating and where I’m getting it – and what companies seem to be
green-washing and which ones don’t even have sourcing on their radar as a priority. I’m ready to take some more action to push
the system toward greater sustainability and local-focus!
