Today is May 3, Day 3 of Eat Locally Month.

Here are some of the links I've been checking:
http://www.locavores.com
http://www.lifebeginsat30.com/jen/
http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/

So the latest update is that Rahul broke down last night (after two days) and decided he couldn't take this diet anymore, and that he would have to cheat a little every day. He went to Safeway and bought some whole wheat bread, grape jelly, and peanut butter. Last night he ate a dish of vanilla ice cream, and this morning he ate a toasted PBJ sandwich for breakfast. I was pretty mopey about this last night, but I'm trying to just ignore the temptation. As an antidote, tonight I'm going to try to make some local ice cream from scratch: Rock Island eggs and Clover milk, sweetened with honey and flavored with lavender from our yard (or maybe some lemon from the neighbors). The Donvier cylinder is in the freezer, waiting. The honey won't be local--we have a whole container to use up, and it's expensive stuff. I might add some vanilla extract. I think I'll have to relent in general on spices.

Rahul claims he'll get malnourished this month unless he eats bread. I'm not really sure if he meant he wouldn't get enough calories (like the rest of America, we could both stand to eat fewer calories!) or if he thought he wouldn't get enough vitamins from his vegetable-heavy diet (!) or what. I asked him, and he said, "Like for example, where is my protein coming from?" I said, "Do you think you're getting more protein from bread than from the almonds, eggs, and beans we've been eating?" And then we had to head to work. So I still don't know exactly what he was concerned about.

I think my diet over the past few days has been way healthier than what I would normally eat, although my digestive system has been complaining about the amount of fiber I've been eating--salads and beans. I keep ending up with a painful gas-stomachache. Apparently, though, the only way to really solve this is to keep eating what you're eating until your body gets used to it. Rahul has reported no problems, probably due to the fact that he used to take a whole container of raw broccoli with hummus to work and eat it for lunch, or daily salads.

So... without further ado, here are my latest meal reports:

Dinner, May 2: Rahul made most of the dinner, so I don't know what spices he used--I know for sure I saw him stir some Asian chili paste into the eggs before scrambling them, and I know for sure there was salt in everything.
Sweet potato "fries," skin on, roasted in the toaster oven in some olive oil. I ate these with a little bit of ketchup from Trader Joe's--all I can say is that at least it was organic.
Stir-fried pea sprouts with garlic (that's the last of them--yay!)
Scrambled eggs with onions and chili paste
Refried beans: I made this by dumping the last of my leftover beans into a cast-iron skillet with some water and mashing them up as they heated. At the end, I added some chopped cilantro from the garden and some minced red onion. They were not as flavorful as I would have liked--they would have been better with some cumin, I think, and maybe some oregano or lime juice.

Breakfast, May 3: I made a locally grown version of an old favorite dish of mine: toasted some almonds in the toaster oven while getting ready for work, then stirred them into a bowl of plain nonfat Straus Family Creamery yogurt along with a spoonful of honey. It's really delicious, and I recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it before.

Lunch, May 3: I had some leftover risotto that Rahul made a couple of days ago with Lundberg Farms rice, carrots, and olives (not sure what else was in there). Right now I'm eating the artichoke I prepared this morning: I steamed it by putting it in a covered glass dish with 2 Tbsp. of water and microwaving for 8 minutes. I made a yummy dipping sauce to replace the mustard-mayonnaise combo or lemon butter I usually eat with artichokes. Into a few Tbsp of plain nonfat yogurt, I stirred some chopped parsley, oregano, and sage from the garden, the juice of half a lemon from the neighbor's yard, chopped shallots, and some salt and pepper. I have an apple, a hard-boiled egg, and a little dish of nuts with me for snacks.