Calamari

[lsboogy]

Local fish monger is sending over some fresh baby squid and octopus (yes, we can get fresh stuff here in the tundra, but it's not as easy as most places) pulled some garlic and will have us a great dinner - little lemon and some nice angle hair pasta. Paired with a nice Entre deux mers and we should be quite good. Driver is pulling up now (he's 5 minutes away) - time to celebrate - we only get the fresh stuff a few times a year

[salemj]

I love this. Whenever I watch cooking shows, a small part of me gets a little more upset. So many shows are constantly stressing ingredient choices and behaviours that are so contradictory: buy local...but look what your "local" grocery probably carries now: fresh everything all the time! I admire when people still try to cook [mostly] seasonally based on what is actually available from their region, AND when people celebrate and respect basic joys like you describe above. NO, I don't think we all need to only buy what is grown down the street...but I do think there is a big difference between buying something from one's region and buying it from another hemisphere for daily rituals.

One thing I love about the PNW is that people out here still celebrate the daylights out of certain seasonal salmon, berries, peaches, and the like, even though the region is a major international provider for these ingredients elsewhere over much longer "seasons." I know it is like that many other places (in CT, we always got excited by the apples at minimum). So much cuisine is based on preservation methods all around the world. Yes, we still have these and openly celebrate them, but sometimes I think we forget what they actually represented in the past...at least a little bit. . Now I got to find me some cheese for my fermentation happy hour...

[jbart65]

I cook a lot of stuff grown locally, including in my own garden, but I relish having the whole world at my disposal. I don't think these shows have changed that, Joe. If anything, they've encouraged people to grow stuff from other parts of the world.

I grow Thai basil and lemongrass, for example, and various kinds of Asian eggplant that often are not available locally. I've grown tomatoes from Russia and Japan, beans native to Italy and finger potatoes that until 10 years ago could not be found in stores. This year I am growing Shishito peppers for the very first time.

It always cuts both ways. Looking outward and leading to changes inward.

As for squid and calamari, count me in! I've made it a number of ways.

[LostHighway]

I admire when people still try to cook [mostly] seasonally based on what is actually available from their region, AND when people celebrate and respect basic joys like you describe above. NO, I don't think we all need to only buy what is grown down the street...but I do think there is a big difference between buying something from one's region and buying it from another hemisphere for daily rituals.

This is essentially where I'm at. Living in Northern New England and the Upper Midwest eating only local would be tedious, at best, especially for someone who is primarily a vegetarian. I gladly support local but it has to be both local and good, buying local in support of second or third rate products when there are better choices at or near the same price makes little sense to me.
Obviously, seafood is great in Maine (although there are more issues with depleted stocks than in the Pacific), the local, low bush, blueberry season is an event as are fiddleheads, ramps, apples and local asparagus. Leafy greens, brassicas and alliums like Maine weather and soils and have relatively extended seasons of good quality produce. Some of the local producers are trying to get better quality local pork going, giving them more room to run and forage, and letting them feast on acorns and apples in the fall.
Back in Minnesota I look forward to Walleye (Sander vitreus),our great freshwater fish, traditionally hand harvested "real" wild rice, sweet corn, and to local apples 'Honeycrisp' and the under appreciated 'Frostbite' are both U of MN introductions and, to my taste, have better flavor grown here than in New England or the PNW). I understand that top quality local grass-fed beef, pork products and lamb are all readily available but those are beasts I personally do not eat. Wild Pheasant from the Upper Midwest is excellent but getting harder to come by as modern farming practices are leaving them less and less habitat. More summer heat, and perhaps richer soils, leads to better tomatoes, herbs and peppers here than are generally available in New England although I suspect people from still warmer climates might have a valid case that theirs are better yet.
Citrus obviously means non local for a Northerner but I do tend to eat much more of it in the December through March peak season. Coffee, tea, and chocolate, all of vital concern to me, aren't going to be local. For wine and cheese I tend to gravitate to Old World producers although some of the domestic, small producer, cheeses are starting to rival Europe's. Oregon is producing some very nice but not inexpensive Pinot Noirs.

[salemj]

I admire when people still try to cook [mostly] seasonally based on what is actually available from their region, AND when people celebrate and respect basic joys like you describe above. NO, I don't think we all need to only buy what is grown down the street...but I do think there is a big difference between buying something from one's region and buying it from another hemisphere for daily rituals.

This is essentially where I'm at. Living in Northern New England and the Upper Midwest eating only local would be tedious, at best, especially for someone who is primarily a vegetarian. I gladly support local but it has to be both local and good, buying local in support of second or third rate products when there are better choices at or near the same price makes little sense to me.
Obviously, seafood is great in Maine (although there are more issues with depleted stocks than in the Pacific), the local, low bush, blueberry season is an event as are fiddleheads, ramps, apples and local asparagus. Leafy greens, brassicas and alliums like Maine weather and soils and have relatively extended seasons of good quality produce. Some of the local producers are trying to get better quality local pork going, giving them more room to run and forage, and letting them feast on acorns and apples in the fall.
Back in Minnesota I look forward to Walleye (Sander vitreus),our great freshwater fish, traditionally hand harvested "real" wild rice, sweet corn, and to local apples 'Honeycrisp' and the under appreciated 'Frostbite' are both U of MN introductions and, to my taste, have better flavor grown here than in New England or the PNW). I understand that top quality local grass-fed beef, pork products and lamb are all readily available but those are beasts I personally do not eat. Wild Pheasant from the Upper Midwest is excellent but getting harder to come by as modern farming practices are leaving them less and less habitat. More summer heat, and perhaps richer soils, leads to better tomatoes, herbs and peppers here than are generally available in New England although I suspect people from still warmer climates might have a valid case that theirs are better yet.
Citrus obviously means non local for a Northerner but I do tend to eat much more of it in the December through March peak season. Coffee, tea, and chocolate, all of vital concern to me, aren't going to be local. For wine and cheese I tend to gravitate to Old World producers although some of the domestic, small producer, cheeses are starting to rival Europe's. Oregon is producing some very nice but not inexpensive Pinot Noirs.

I'm right there with you. As my previous post tried to make clear, its a mixed blessing, and for me personally, the object is to try to celebrate the good and avoid too much of the bad as part of a daily ritual, although I still have work to do on that front. In particular, my coffee is roasted in BC, but it is certainly not grown here! And I also have a preference for cheeses that are regionally defined (although my love for cheese is based on flavour, and not on label or location...I just happen to like certain types of cheeses that are still primarily related to certain regions), and I still love citrus twice a year, which means at least one of those times, it is coming from another hemisphere—the list goes on and on. I'm certainly not "holier than thou."

The sad part is that - unlike many on this forum - I don't have the ability to grow a garden of my own, nor did a single person I knew who lived in NYC when I was there, even those New Yorkers continually loved to talk about and obsess over the availability of a huge diversity of food year-round both in grocery stores and in restaurants, as well as what the most recent recipes and new/magic ingredients were to test in a recipe they read or heard in the media that week. Living on a more disconnected island now, I prefer the more "realist" perspective in which prices at the grocery are a bit more honest about how hard it is to get things from across the world here without spoiling, and I also like the fact that - while we are a major source for excellent fish and dairy - the prices here are often higher than other places due to a respect for good fishing practices and a sustainable ecosystem...as well as an insistence on selling regional fare even though cheaper products could be brought in from elsewhere. Personal preferences, I know, but it is still nice to encounter a thread that was started out of the sheer excitement of a delivery that could be routine elsewhere, but was a somewhat non-routine event in that particular local.

[LostHighway]

In particular, my coffee is roasted in BC, but it is certainly not grown here! And I also have a preference for cheeses that are regionally defined (although my love for cheese is based on flavour, and not on label or location...I just happen to like certain types of cheeses that are still primarily related to certain regions)

I've roasted my own coffee for the past twelve years or so although right now my roaster is out of commission awaiting parts. We'll have to have a cheese conversation at some point. I tend to go for big flavors which often means washed rinds both of the soft, stinky, varieties and the hard, pressed and aged, Alpines like Appenzellar or Hoch Ybrig. The bloomy rind cheeses that to my nose and palate are more about texture than flavor don't do much for me. I also like the really big blues, e.g. Cabrales or Valdeon, especially when paired with a nice tart Asturain or Basque cidre A pox on the meddling hands of the FDA bureaucrats who are making access to good cheese increasingly problematic. I understand that EU bureaucrats are also causing similar, if less absurd, problems in Europe.