All Over Albany

Eat Local Giveaway

Buddhapesto is pretty high on our list of favorites.

Update: Congrats to winners Melissa and Paul!
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So we've been celebrating local food this week with posts about some easy, affordable ways to work local foods into your everyday life.

Today it's your turn.

What's your favorite local food? Cider donuts from Lakeside? Buddhapesto? Dream Puff Marshmallows from the Troy Farmers Market? We could go on and on but, you know, it's your turn.

Be as specific as you can -- we want to know what's so good about it and where we can get it.

We'll draw two comments at random and get them their favorite foods ($25 limit).

Very, very important: One entry per person. You must answer the question to be eligible. You must post your comment by 8 pm on Today, September 17th, 2010. You must include a working email address (that you check regularly) with your comment. The winners will be notified by email by noon on Sunday-- and must respond by 5PM Tuesday, September 21st.

Also: We'll do our best to get the winners their favorite foods, but if it's not something we can't get our hands on easily, we'll send you the cash and let you do the shopping.

Eat Local Challenge: Daniel B. and the ham sandwich

A local ham and cheese that's delicious -- but not too fussy.

The Honest Weight Food Co-op's LocalHarvest Festival is this Sunday in Albany's Washington Park. AOA is a media sponsor of the event, so we thought it would be fun to ask a few local food bloggers to come up with some easy meals made with local ingredients.

Today, Fussy Liittle Blog's Daniel B. hams it up.

Some people might say that local food isn't for them. After all, there are plenty of adults who have no interest in eating their vegetables. But local food doesn't have to come from a health food store or a farmers market. It doesn't have to be super expensive either. Local food can just be food.

Take, for example, the ubiquitous ham and cheese sandwich. Millions of Americans eat one for lunch every day. So I wondered if I could put together a reasonably priced version with local ingredients that would fit in just as well at a construction site as it would at the local harvest festival.

For the sake of full disclosure, and to help me along with this, I used the more flexible notion of "local" that is approved by locavores who enjoy things like coffee: Products that are produced within a day's drive, even if some of their raw materials come from elsewhere.

Now let's break it down.

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Eat Local Challenge: Kabobs à la Celinabean

Local, easy, kid friendly and grillicious.

The Honest Weight Food Co-op's LocalHarvest Festival is this Sunday in Albany's Washington Park. AOA is a media sponsor of the event, so we thought it would be fun to ask a few local food bloggers to come up with some easy meals made with local ingredients.

For today's challenge, Celinabean's Celina Ottaway brings on the beef.

In an ideal world -- the one in which I run half marathons before breakfast, save the lives of a dozen children before lunch, and then whip up a beautiful all organic, all local dinner for friends and family before falling gracefully on to my pillow and dreaming sweet dreams of, I don't know, the perfect Greenmarket heirloom tomato or some such -- well, in that ideal world, I would have both happy carrots and happy cows. All my vegetables would be from local farms -- chemical free, etc... and all my meat would be raised near by with plenty of fresh upstate air and grass and freedom. Every bite would be delicious in a fresh, alive, flavors dancing way and it would never involve Campbell's or, God forbid, store brand frozen pizza.

This is my ideal world, but it is not the one in which I feed my three children - day in and day out, when I am frazzled, when I'm up all night worrying about our family budget, and when I am slogging it through 5Ks that leave me proud but unable to lift up my head afterward much less shop or cook dinner.

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Eat Local Challenge: Leah's local high holiday meal

Leah's local high holiday meal.

The Honest Weight Food Co-op's LocalHarvest Festival is this Sunday in Albany's Washington Park. AOA is a media sponsor of the event, so we thought it would be fun to ask a few local food bloggers to come up with some easy meals made with local ingredients.

For today's challenge, Noshing Confessions Leah puts together a local meal for the Jewish high holidays.

Children are running underfoot. They've been soaked by the water table outside, and now are coated in mud, demanding apples from the table. Adults are calling from room to room, laughing and talking politics, as the dressing is tossed through the greens, the wine opened and poured. Our final arrival comes bearing two half gallons of Stewart's Vanilla Ice Cream.

The Eat Local High Holy Day Meal of 5771 was about to commence.

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Eat Local Challenge: Healthy Delicious Lauren's breakfast for dinner

Beautiful.

The Honest Weight Food Co-op's LocalHarvest Festival is this Sunday in Albany's Washington Park. AOA is a media sponsor of the event, so we thought it would be fun to ask a few local food bloggers to come up with some easy meals made with local ingredients.

We start with Healthy Delicious Lauren's seasonal twist on breakfast for dinner.

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