Since I've worked hard to procure all these local ingredients (or, harder than I usually do in buying food), I am finding I appreciate and value each item more.Today I asked my boyfriend for advice on how to use my pound of local ground beef, and as we were discussing options, he said "don't waste good beef" on an untested recipe. The ground beef had become precious -- the opposite of a fungible commodity.
I feel like it's my duty to make the most of all my local ingredients, which is creating a lot of stress. I've been researching recipes that use only the local ingredients, and I have to be careful what I use when, since there are no more farmer's markets before the end of my diet-week. I can't just go to the grocery store and get more ingredients -- the grocery store hardly has anything that was locally grown. So unless I want to live on Bongard's cheese later this week, I need to ration my produce and use every item wisely.
The local foods are "special" -- not easily obtained, and often more expensive and harder to prepare than alternatives (consider canned pumpkin vs. a whole pumpkin purchased from a local pumpkin patch). Combined with the fact that I can't really cook, this is causing me a lot of stress about how to put it all together.
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