Remember the food you ate in High School? Okay, I’ll admit that the taste wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t the  giant vat of beans, meat and mystery ingredient often depicted in movies. It was edible. However, I do remember how my choices were limited to being overly processed and quite unhealthy.

One thing I specifically remember is “Chicken Ring Things”. It’s a chicken nugget that is flatted with a hole punched through the middle. I often thought of how perfectly the name captured its essence. I guess some of it was chicken, it was definitely a ring, but it also had the taste of a “thing”. Although the concept of the Chicken Ring Thing was a bit funny, the lack of fresh food in our cafeteria was not funny. I remember asking why, and the response I was given was that “it needs to be processed that way so it can be shipped from all over the country.”

I think many public schools, such as my old high school, should look into sourcing food locally. Although some local food is processed in the same way, high schools don’t need to rely as heavily on goods that are processed to travel across the country.  There are a lot of fresh, local alternatives that are both healthy for students and support local economies. For instance, consider buying from a local apple producer, like Aslum Produce, Inc. for Madison, instead of buying from a producer across the country.

Can you imagine how healthy and delicious high school lunch would be if stocked with fresh, local produce? If fresh apples replaced fries and unprocessed chicken replaced chicken ring things, I think we would be heading in the right direction.

In the two months I have worked here I have been exposed to more locally grown, unique foods than I had been in my previous 22 years. Just last week I ordered some elk from Hawk’s Elk Ranch in Monticello, WI. Seriously, who would have thought that I would have ever had elk? I didn’t even know elk was edible. So I tried it last night, and it was actually pretty good. Had a great cheese elk burger that I read is significantly healthier than a burger made with beef. I was happy with myself.  I had supported the local economy and had a healthy meal all the same time, what more can you ask for?

Being a college kid here at UW-Madison it’s difficult to find foods that are local and healthy. Most of us don’t have cars to take us to the places that sell these goods so really our only chance to buy them is to walk to the Dance County Farmers Market on either Wednesday or Saturday. There are numerous farmers market in the area, but these are the only two within a reasonable walking distance of the campus.  And since most of us have class or work on Wednesdays, we are forced to wake up early on our day off and walk through the maze of people and the hundreds of vendors to find local products. I don’t know about you, but that is a little overwhelming for me at times.

The experience I have had with Local Dirt so far has made my life infinitely simpler. Now it may look like I’m plugging the site, but seriously, it works great for me. When its Saturday all I want to do is sleep in and relax. Before I knew about the site I would rush to the farmers market as soon as I woke up, nervously wondering if the market would be so jammed that I wouldn’t even bother grabbing anything. Lately I’ve been spending 10 minutes on Thursday’s ordering my produce for the week and simply walking up vendors like Hummel’s Farm, telling them my name and walking away happy. If I’m in the mood for a treat I’ll order some cheesecake from Grace Cheesecakes LLC.  Mixing some local, fresh food into my weekly groceries used to be a chore, but Local Dirt has turned it into a nearly effortless treat.

What is a cheese curd?

I’m from WI. And if there is one thing we do in WI, we eat. It’s not just food in general I’m talking about, I’m talking about cheese. More specifically cheese curds. For the love, cheese curds are one of the main reasons I live in WI.

Maybe you have heard this before, maybe you haven’t?

Maybe you’ve tried just one, or maybe you’ve had one so fresh it goes squeak, squeak in your mouth?

Either way, do you even know what the heck a cheese curd is? What makes it a curd? Why are they orange or yellow? How come they taste the same no matter what color they are?

And lastly, and probably the most important question, is there anything in this world, I mean the whole entire world, better than a deep fried cheese curd?

First of all, that last question, anything better in this world? The answer to that is no. Just no, nothing better. To quote my one year old, “No, no, no, no, nooooo mommy.”

Here’s a picture of a cheese curd. A deep fried one too.

Good

Better

So they don’t look like much, but believe me, amazing.

I grew up in Mosinee, WI, and one of my friend’s family owned Mullin’s Cheese. I used to take our boat, park on the public dock and run up to the Mullin’s Cheese store and dig into a fresh cheese curd. That was how the addiction started for me.

It didn’t really sink in until I moved to New York for a year or so and every time I was missing home; I declared, “I wanted a cheese curd!” The problem that came to be for me, every time I mentioned cheese curd, people looked at me like I was completely nuts. I realized that most people had no clue what a cheese curd is.

When I moved back to WI and sent my friends in New York a goodie package (I had to overnight it so that they would still squeak for them). They too now consider themselves awakened.

Ok, what this cheese curd actually is, is fresh, young cheddar cheese in the natural, random shape and form before being processed into blocks then aged. The color depends on the American Cheddar they are using.

The reason they squeak, well that is slightly more complex. Stay with me now, when you bite into a curd, your teeth squeak against their porous bodies which have air trapped inside them. Not that any of that matters, just know when you bite into a fresh one, it’ll sound like a baby mouse is running around in your mouth.

So, that’s it. I got nothing else for you, other than, get in your car, jump on a train, board a flight and get yourself close enough to Midwest as you can and get a cheese curd. Try searching on www.LocalDirt.com and find some. There is no reason you should miss out on this. Totally worth it.

Enchiladas with Wisconsin raspberry/grape wine.

Hi All!  Well last night I thought I would try something different with dinner.  We love enchiladas and I decided I wanted to try to make it healthier by changing up some of the ingredients.  I thawed out some of our grass-fed ground beef and seasoned it with taco seasoning.  After it was nicely browned, I added some canned, diced green chilies and stewed tomatoes.  I then added a bit of shredded mozzeralla to the pan. 

Here’s where I really went wrong though.  Normally, I make enchiladas using flour or corn tortillas.  This time, I thought I would try a different brand that was super high in fiber and lightly flavored with basil.  After I loaded the tortillas with the meat sauce, rolled up and placed in the lightly greased pan, I covered it with a “hot” enchilada sauce and more shredded mozzeralla cheese.  This was then placed in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees. 

When I pulled it out, it looked great!  The cheese was nicely browned on the edges and everything smelled wonderful.  We had also decided to try a raspberry/grape Wisconsin wine.  I didn’t realize that it was slightly carbonated but thought it still might taste good.  Then I read the label closely and realized that I had bought a dessert wine!  It is meant to be drunk while enjoying some sort dark chocolate creation.  Unfortunately, I had not planned dessert, let alone a dark chocolate one.  Our friend, Bob, had brought fresh black berries from his garden to be served with our white chocolate/vanilla ice cream.  Ugh!

Needless to say, it was not one of my best meals.  It wasn’t horrible but the flavors just didn’t play across the palate like I would have liked and the texture of the high fiber, flavored tortillas just didn’t work for me.  My husband and Bob did have seconds but I could barely finish my first serving.  While I didn’t like the wine with the meal, I would be willing to try it again with a dark chocolate dessert.

Live and learn.  Cooking is not something that comes easily to me but I will continue to try new recipes with locally produced food at least once a week and if it fails, I just need to remember that is part of the learning process.

Have you ever had a meal that, while totally edible, just didn’t taste the way you wanted?  Or choose a wine that really didn’t go with the meal?  Tell me your failed attempts and what you learned from it.  Know your farm, trust your food and bring fun back to the table!  Check out www.localdirt.com for local food near you.