The 100 mile diet… or our own variation : Part 3 – Continuing with our preparations

Good evening to everyone!

Thought I would stop by and give you all an update on our preparations for our challenge starting on July 1st.

Of our list of staples, it seemed to me that the hardest thing to find in my area would be grains. So I decided to contact local mills and find out if any of them milled purely local flours. Unfortunately, although they do take quite a bit from local sources, they also import grains from the Canadian prairies and from the Midwestern USA. *Sighs*

As I was widening my perimeter (never exceeding 167 kilometers – 100 miles – of course), I was lucky enough to find a mill right on the edge of our area (155 kilometers) that mills buckwheat that is all from local sources!

Le Moulin seigneurial de la Carrière prides itself in producing local grown and milled organic buckwheat flours that are not only produced in our challenge circle, but have even more local (downtown Quebec City) sell points. So we will not have to drive to get it! I am planning on doing research on recipes for buckwheat breads and muffins. This will be very exciting!

I’ve also found local growers of fall wheat (which could be great for the end of the challenge), spelt and rye. They are organic and within 30 minutes drive. They will de-shell the grains for us no problem, now to find the mills to make it into flour…

And we did!
Les Moissoneries du Pays is an organic flour and grain producer. Now, although many of their grains are local, they could not promise that all grains were. To supply the demands, they do also import grains from Ontario and the Prairies. But they did say that if we brought them organic grains, they could transform them for us. They also grow organic garlic flower and garlic that you can self pick starting in July. So we decided to make it an adventure at the beginning of the challenge : Get some grains, take a drive, and pick some garlic while they mill our flours! The ideas I’m getting for homemade breads, cereals, breakfasts bars… My head is spinning!

Last but not least : We are lucky enough to have within our 100 miles the only 100% Quebec grown and produced organic sunflower oil! La Ferme Champy is a unique Quebec enterprise that produces cold pressed, organic, non-transgenic, oil and they have a counter right here at the downtown farmer’s market. We will be checking them all out in the next few weeks.

So if I go down my list of staples so far this is what we have secured for ourselves :

• All the fresh local veggies and fruits we want
• Dairy (milk, butter and cheese)
• Local organic small farm raised meats (for my husband)
• Oil
• Flours
• Maple syrup
• Honey
• Vinegars
• Herbs
• Eggs
• Local wines and ciders (okay… not a staple, but still fun!)

I think we are doing pretty well! And with one month still to go, we will keep searching for those little treasures!

Hope you all have a great evening.

Please share with us your thoughts and suggestion to help us in our challenge!