Dinner, Monday, May 22
Quorn, sourdough stuffing (fried carrot, celery, and onion, cubed dense sourdough moistened with vegetable broth and an egg, seasoned with rosemary, sage, and parsley, and baked until crusty), mashed red potatoes with chives, and some kind of weird gravy from a packet

Breakfast, Tuesday, May 23
A fried egg and whole-wheat sourdough bread

Lunch, Tuesday, May 23
Black beans, sourdough stuffing, steamed broccoli, and an orange

Dinner, Tuesday, May 23
There was a power outage throughout the East Bay, so we had to go to a nearby Indian restaurant, where we sat at chairs outside in the twilight and ate lukewarm potato patty wrap sandwiches, while candles and oil lamps flickered inside the dark restaurant, looking, Rahul said, just like stores in India in the evenings.

Breakfast, Wednesday, May 24
Yogurt with honey and almonds

Lunch, Wednesday, May 24
Black beans, sourdough stuffing, and steamed broccoli

Dinner, Wednesday, May 24
My mom took me out to Bendean and I had bread and butter, a roasted beet, grapefruit, and arugula salad, and a bowl of tomato-dill soup with croutons. Given the nature of the restaurant, there's actually a good chance that many of the ingredients were local, but I don't know for sure.

Breakfast, Thursday, May 25
Yogurt with honey and almonds

Lunch, Thursday, May 25
I didn't plan very well, so:
A slice of home-baked sourdough whole-wheat bread, with native sourdough yeasts but non-local flour.
Tomato basil soup
A salad of romaine lettuce with croutons, sesame dressing, and a hard-boiled egg
A gingersnap

Lunch, Monday, May 22
Steamed artichoke with garlic butter
Black beans with orange juice
Sourdough crepe

Dinner, Friday, May 19
Vegetable chow mein, vegetarian spring rolls, and raw broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, melon, and pineapple from the buffet at the Tonga Room, where we had happy hour cocktails with my coworkers.

Brunch, Saturday, May 20
I made sourdough crepes: starter mixed with flour and enough water to make a runny batter, fried paper-thin on a hot cast-iron griddle.
Rahul made some oven-fried potatoes with rosemary from the garden.
I spent an hour kneading dough--the gluten just wouldn't develop!--and then Rahul remembered that the farmer's market salesperson had said that this flour was not suitable for making bread, which made me feel better about my bricky sourdough failure from last week.

Dinner, Saturday, May 20
We had a student-nostalgic, decidedly non-local dinner up near campus:
Vegetarian pad thai from Thai Basil (in the Durant food court)
Vanilla and cheesecake frozen yogurt from Yogurt Park

Breakfast, Sunday, May 21
Leftover sourdough crepes spread with Smart Balance margarine.

Lunch, Sunday, May 21
Caesar salad and an artichoke heart and olive pizza from Pizza Orgasmica.

Dinner, Sunday, May 21
After Bay to Breakers, I collapsed in bed and slept for about six hours, skipping dinner. Got up around 10 PM and went back to sleep around midnight, for a total night's sleep of about 14 hrs.

Breakfast, Monday, May 22
Yogurt with honey and almonds

Lunch, May 16; Dinner, May 16
Maui onion potato chips and a pear and camembert sandwich on walnut bread from Bay Bread. Leftover tomato sauce spaghetti. Black beans.

I started making a loaf of whole-wheat sourdough bread with my Full Belly Farms whole-wheat flour and the sourdough starter I've been cultivating on top of the oven. I dissolved 3/4 cup of starter in 1 1/4 cups warm water with 1 Tbsp honey and 1 Tbsp olive oil, then poured it into a well of 2 cups flour and slowly added about a cup more flour as I stirred the dough together.

The results so far seem rather lacking. I think the dough was too wet, and the starter is not strong enough yet--the dough, while fairly smooth once I had kneaded it for about 800 strokes, was still a sort of soft saggy mass rather than a smooth, firm ball. I left it in the slightly warm oven (the beans had been baking in the other half of the oven, so some of the heat came through the oven wall) to rise. After two hours, it looked pretty much the same. The next morning, it was slightly bigger, but passed the poke test specified in Laurel's Whole Wheat Bread Book: moisten your finger with water, poke it into the dough 1/2 an inch, and see if the dough springs back or sags inwards. Since it did neither, I decided the bread was ready to be deflated. I pressed it down gently and put it back into the slightly warm oven to rise all day. Hopefully, when I get home today, it 1) will have risen nicely, and 2) will not have overflowed all over the oven floor.

Breakfast, May 17
Yogurt with honey and almonds.

Lunch, May 17
Roasted sweet potato (roasted in the toaster oven) with black beans and yogurt.

Dinner, Friday, May 12
Leftover vegetable soup with beans and corn
Corn on the cob
Broccolini with soy sauce, sesame oil, and red chili flakes
Oven-fried potatoes with Cajun fish fry coating

May 13 and 14: I spent most of the weekend with my sister and my parents for Mother's Day and Serena's dance performance, so aside from my usual breakfast, none of my weekend meals were local. They were good, though, including an eggplant tart, croissants, goat cheese and tomato sandwich from Bay Bread for a Mother's Day picnic in Golden Gate Park; mixed vegetable spaghetti with the Proustian ketchup-like orange tomato paste sauce common to all Hong Kong-style spaghetti dishes; and my mother's apple custard pie.

Breakfast, May 15: Yogurt with almonds and honey

Lunch, May 15: Salad with lemon juice and olive oil dressing, hard-boiled egg, and apple; carrot cake.

Dinner, May 15: Rice noodles with soy sauce, green beans, onions, and red and orange bell peppers. I made a pot of black beans with garlic, salt, and vegetable broth, but I haven't tried them yet.

Breakfast, May 16: Yogurt with almonds and honey; coffee with soymilk

Dinner, May 11
Rahul and I went to the Ferry Building after work, where I bought some incredibly expensive ($5/lb) heirloom black beans. We caught the ferry to Jack London Square and watched the sun hang low and bright over and through the skyscrapers and the great iron span of the Bay Bridge towering over us. The ferries are so cool--I can't believe I had never taken one up to this point. There's a full bar on the first level; the first two levels have these big wraparound windows and long, curving banks of vinyl-seated booths and chairs, so they have a kind of 60's spy/lounge vibe. The top level is out in the open, with wooden seats, and dark smoke streaming past you from the smokestacks on either side of the boat. We stayed on the top deck, in the wind, and watched the view the whole time, wishing it took longer than 20 minutes to get across the Bay.

Rahul was meeting his aunt and uncle for dinner, so I walked to the 12th Street BART station and went home, where I simmered the last of the leftover beans and the kernels from one ear of white corn in a pot of vegetable broth. I fried some leftover textured soy protein (Nutrela) with eggs to accompany my soup. (Rahul made an entire box! of Nutrela recently and the huge tupperware is still in the fridge.)

Breakfast, May 12
Yogurt with almonds, raisins, and honey.

Lunch and Snacks, May 12
I roasted a potato in the toaster oven (350 degrees for about 2-3 hours) and ate it with salt, pepper, and yogurt. I also took a trip out to Japantown at lunchtime with Martin, Caitlin, and Andrew, where I bought a pint of soy milk which I assume is not local--it's made by the Sacramento Tofu Company, but I doubt the soybeans and honey are from around here. Caitlin bought a little tray of soy sauce-glazed rice balls on skewers and I ate one--it was nice and chewy, though sticky. I have avoided the Pocky on the table.

Dinner, May 10: We had drinks with my coworkers last night and majorly fell off the wagon, diet-wise--I had mango mojitos, tempura-fried zucchini and mushrooms with soy dipping sauce, the celery from the buffalo wings, and deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks with marinara sauce. I came home and stirred my sourdough starter and felt a little better. Soon I can enjoy some nourishing whole-wheat locally-grown sourdough bread with yeast from the most famous sourdough country in the world. Also, on the bright side, when I weighed myself this morning, I found that I had lost almost 5 pounds in the last two weeks without particularly depriving myself.

Breakfast, May 11: Yogurt with honey and toasted almonds.

For dinner, depending on how ambitious I feel, I may make some potato gnocchi with a romesco-style sauce using a leftover red pepper Rahul has in the fridge. Or maybe I'll boil my artichokes, or roast the last sweet potato and make some caramelized green tomato relish to go with it. Of course, if I have leftover rice, I'll probably just end up just eating rice and beans again.

Dinner, May 9:
Vegetable soup

Breakfast, May 10:
Scrambled egg
Yogurt with almonds and honey
Coffee with soymilk

Lunch and afternoon snacks, May 10:
Lemon rice
Beans
Hard-boiled egg
Carrot cake with honey-mascarpone frosting


I started a jar of sourdough starter last night--I used regular Midwestern flour to make the starter, because I've never done it before, but I'll use the locally grown Full Belly Farms flour ($2 for 1.5 lbs) for the actual loaf of bread in a week or so. In preparation, I found this recipe for 100% whole-wheat sourdough bread:
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/100percentwholewheat.html
and ordered some food books from Amazon.

May 9 snacks and lunch:
Croissant
Coffee with soy milk
Carrot sticks
Lemon rice
Beans
Apple

Dinner, May 8.
Salad (from the young salad greens with edible flowers) with blood orange olive oil and white balsamic Stonehouse vinegar dressing, salt, pepper, and croutons.

Vegetable soup: I sauteed diced carrots, yellow onion, celery, garlic, and chopped sage and rosemary in olive oil. I then poured in a few cups of broth and simmered peeled, diced potatoes and cooked beans in the broth until tender. When the soup was almost done, I dumped in sliced button mushrooms and chopped spinach, and seasoned with some sea salt.

Rahul had bought some soft tofu from Ranch 99, and he fried it into a scramble with some eggs, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar. I had some of this as well.

A couple of glasses of Sauvignon Blanc from Napa (I forget which winery--at $4 a bottle, does it matter?)

Breakfast, May 9.
Straus Family Creamery whole-milk yogurt with honey and almonds.

I found this interesting link to a Mother Jones story on http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com. According to this story, California imports and exports almost identical amounts of cherries, lettuce, and almonds to and from other countries during the height of growing season. The article lists other illogical import/export products as well--crops we import from other countries while exporting our locally produced versions.

My changing footprint

I thought it would be interesting to chart my ecological footprint over the last few years, picking a few typical cases from my life. I'll mark 25 hours of air miles for each of these years, since I've gone to Asia or Europe on vacation almost every year.

2001, my senior year of college. Eating meat. Living with two people in a small apartment. Driving very little, usually with someone else--in general, walking almost everywhere. Generating plenty of trash and using lots of electricity. Not paying much attention to where my food came from.
Results:

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 5.4 MOBILITY 1.7 SHELTER 2.5 GOODS/SERVICES 3.7 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 13
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3 PLANETS.

2002, working in Redwood Shores. Still eating meat and processed foods, generating lots of trash and using lots of electricity, living with one person in a small apartment. Driving approximately 370-400 miles a week (it's roughly a 37-mile commute from Berkeley to Redwood City, according to Google Maps) but carpooling every day.
Results:

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 5.4 MOBILITY 4 SHELTER 3.2 GOODS/SERVICES 6.4 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 19
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 4.3 PLANETS.

2003, working in Marin. Now living in a medium-sized house with two other people. Commuting by myself, by car, about 15 miles a day/150 miles a week. Making a conscious effort to reduce energy and trash consumption, but still eating meat.
Results:

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 4.7 MOBILITY 3.7 SHELTER 4.9 GOODS/SERVICES 5.9 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 19
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 4.3 PLANETS.

2003, same circumstances, but vegetarian, with a larger percentage of unprocessed foods.
Results:

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 3 MOBILITY 3.7 SHELTER 4.9 GOODS/SERVICES 5.9 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 18
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.9 PLANETS.

2005, working in San Francisco. Taking public transit about 200 miles a week (it's about 20 miles from Albany to Pacific Heights, and I commute both ways every day.) I walk and bike almost everywhere, but do drive some of the time to run errands on the weekends, visit my parents, and so on; however, I drive with someone else almost all the time.

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 3 MOBILITY 2.5 SHELTER 4.9 GOODS/SERVICES 4.9 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 15
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.4 PLANETS.

2006, working in San Francisco, circumstances much the same as in my last snapshot, but living with just one person and now making an effort to eat locally grown, unprocessed foods.

	CATEGORY ACRES FOOD 2.2 MOBILITY 2.5 SHELTER 4.9 GOODS/SERVICES 4.9 TOTAL FOOTPRINT 15
	IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 ACRES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE ACRES PER PERSON.
	IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.3 PLANETS.