Checking in on the 100 Mile Dinner

Spring in Quebec by George Campbell Tinning

I am sitting in my dinning room, listening to the 10th anniversary DVD of Les Miserables as performed at Wembley stadium. While drinking a beer. A little incongruous, perhaps, but I never promised anyone that I would be consistent. To be honest, my entire day has been somewhat all over the place. I think I got about 5 hours of sleep last night; three hours between 12 and 3 and then another two between 8 and 10 this morning. Eugh. Needless to say, I rose, but I sure didn't shine.

While ticking things off my to-do list, I was able to get more done than I would have thought by actually confining my errands to a smaller geographical area. It is truly amazing how efficient lazy people can be! I was able to order a special cut of meat from my local butcher for this weekend; looking up addresses on Google maps allowed me to find the closest cafe that sells a particular brand of treats that I have been looking for; and then once I actually made it to the market, I found not one but two home grown companies offering some pretty cool *and very tasty* products (stay tuned!)! I think that, with the advent of the internet and globaliztion, sometimes we atually make things a little more complicated for ourselves by going far afield.

Don't get me wrong, here. Most of the flours that I rely on, as well as more than half of the food stuffs I buy that accomodate my dietary requirements, are anything but local! Could I give them up? Sure, I could, but I have actively chosen not to because I believe in quality of life. Do I try to offset that by making the most responsible choices I can? Yes, but even there sometimes I have to choose for the lesser 'evil'. Am I going to feel guilty about it? Nope, not really, because I do the best I can. I think that is why the 100 Mile Dinner appeals to me so much.

Over the last couple of months, I have been absolutely amazed at the variety of local and provincal fare that we have available to us here! We have food stuffs, both farmed and wildcrafted, restaurants based on local foods, bakeries, alcohols (some of them world class) and our very own food celebrities, be they authors, chefs or TV personalities. Not bad for a place where, in 1996, 47% of the population of the Province lived in the greater Montreal region.

I will admit that the part I am having the hardest time with in regards to our locavore dinners is the seasonality of it all. I am having to not only relearn which foods are only supposed to be just showing up now but also what is seasonal for Quebec. I grumble every time my friends in Victoria post photos of themselves hanging out down at the harbour or picnicking as we have only just gotten rid of the snow (but don't look at the forecast for tomorrow as we're supposed to get more of the white stuff). Conversely, my brother who is in Saskatchewan is still up to his hips in winter, and he's 6'2". It's an interesting line to walk between local and seasonal; my husband and I have had more than one conversation about local seasonal versus local hothouse. We've decided to flat out table the discussion about local versus indigenous until later on this summer!

I think I know what I want to prepare for our next 100 Mile Dinner, and I'm steering clear of any hard and fast rules about seasonality. Yet. We'll just have to wait and see what we can find, but I'm looking forward to it, whatever it turns out to be.