yearofplenty

What About "Inland Northwest Local First"?

I am back from our family vacation in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. It was interesting to be cut loose from the womb of the Inland Northwest that has sustained us for the last six months. We took a mini vacation from our rules but enjoyed attending the local farmers' market, where they had southern specialties like okra. I was impressed at the level of awareness around local foods. I didn't expect that in South Carolina. One of the reasons for this may be organizations like Low Country Local First. Here is their mission statement:

Lowcountry Local First advocates the benefits of a local living economy by strengthening community support for independent locally owned businesses and farmers.

We are an alliance that educates the public on the importance of supporting the local economy, and encourages businesses and consumers to be environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. We are one of 52 chapters of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)

We envision a sustainable global economy as a network of Local Living Economies, building long-term economic empowerment and prosperity in communities through local business ownership, economic justice, cultural diversity and a healthy natural environment. Independent businesses create wealth by engaging local people in the production, marketing, and consumption of goods, they pay taxes, and reinvest in our communities.

We educate the public to:

• Reduce material and energy costs

• Recycle and reuse waste

• Buy and sell locally.

• Support local agriculture

One of the things that impresses me is that the organization is sponsored by grocery stores like Piggly Wiggly and other local businesses. I think too often the sustainability/locavore movement has rejected local businesses in favor of a more independent operation, free from the influence of large wholesalers. But let's face it. The only way to innovate substantial change in a community's consumption, that is more than a small niche economy in church parking lots, is to reform and enlist the current supply lines.

For example, I noticed that Yoke's just rolled out a large organic foods section at the Argonne location, and it's full of items from New Zealand and other far off places. What if they incorporated into that a local foods section?

I get excited about the prospect of an Inland Northwest Local First organization. Anyone interested? Yoke's, are you listening? How about The Inlander? Or Mountain Gear? Or the Rocket Bakery? Or URM? Or Avista? Or Waste Management? Holler if you hear me.

Soaps of the Inland Northwest

No, not soap operas of the Inland Northwest. The stuff that keeps you clean. Thankfully it's not all that hard to keep clean from locally produced soaps and cleansers. Here are some of the Spokane area products we've discovered.

Bar Soaps: Mountain Madness Soaps has some great bar soaps manufactured in Spokane Valley. Jennifer's soaps are available at the Hayden Saturday Farmers' Market and occasionally at the Millwood Farmers' Market.

Shampoo: We've been using a Lavender shampoo from Garden Gate Farm in Medical Lake. It's available at the Saturday Spokane Farmers' Market.

Hand Soap: We're using hand soap from Liesure Lavender Farm in Otis Orchards available at the Saturday Liberty Lake Farmers' Market.

Cleaning Solution: This has been harder to find but Nancy just found MaidNaturally products, made in Spokane and available at Yokes. She really likes the glass cleaner.

Stay tuned on this. We haven't run out of deodorant yet. I've been really nursing mine.

In other news I've used the same razor blade for six months. I've got one more in the cartridge so I figure I'm good to go on that. 

Home Improvement Challenges and Discoveries

One twist in our year of consumption has been our ongoing work to finish our basement. We've been about 75% done for three years and a recent influx of visitors has got us motivated to complete the bathroom, put in doors, and finish the molding. We've done our best to stick to our rules, but we've had to make some compromises.

We decided to use new pre-hung doors instead of used. If I were an experienced carpenter I may have given it a shot, but I'm not so I didn't. We also bought a new toilet at Home Depot. This was a double betrayal given our commitment to locally owned stores, but Ziggy's didn't have the compact elongated toilet we were looking for, the toilets at the Habitat Store were a little scary looking, and there is that whole urgency of time thing. It was a glorious relief to go into the wide aisles of Home Depot, find just the right toilet, and get out of there in 15 minutes. So we'll chalk that up as a momentary lapse of sanity in the midst of our crazy year.

In the midst of our compromises we did make some valuable discoveries. We found out that Columbia Paint is headquartered in Spokane and is available at Ziggy's, which is also local to the Inland Northwest. We learned that a local home improvement store like Ziggy's is more likely to get things like paint from local sources. It makes sense that their networks would be local whereas Home Depot type stores would have national and international networks. We were able to find a great vanity for the bathroom at the Millwood Presbyterian Rummage Sale. We also found two used building supply sources; Habitat for Humanity Building Supply and Brown Building Materials. Brown is like an amusement park for second hand building materials. Make sure you've got some time to wander when you go, because it's huge and engrossing, if you're into that sort of thing.

In the surprise grace moment of the week, Nancy found floor tile made in Thailand. She actually had resigned herself to compromising on the tile, picked out her favorite style at Home Depot, (yes we tried Ziggy's), and upon loading it in her cart, saw the words, "Made in Thailand."

In other news, we have learned through extensive, hands-on research, that children's shoes are made in China (75%), Vietnam (15%), and Indonesia (15%). We actually went to Nordstrom's and asked if they had shoes made in Thailand, and the clerk to my surprise, joined us in the hunt, scanning the labels of all the shoes. They get an "A" for effort. In other other news, Value Village shoes are not satisfying the emerging fashion sense of our 8 year old.   

Field Trip Report - Thomas Hammer Coffee

I made a field trip yesterday to Thomas Hammer Coffee Roasters in downtown Spokane. Dave Rier is the roastmaster and was kind enough to invite me out for a tour. Dave and I connected around the idea of selling their jute coffee bags at the farmers' market to raise money for Coffee Kids charity to help families of coffee growers. We'll be selling them at the Millwood Farmers' Market starting this Wednesday for $2. Many of them are real works of art so I'm excited to see what creative uses people find for them.

First of all, let me say that they have one of the coolest office spaces I've ever seen. Their roasting equipment and office space are sort of mixed together in an open warehouse with a funky and stylish urban vibe. I highly recommend stopping by.

Our initial goal for the year was to drink coffee beans grown in Thailand, but Dave, who knows the coffee biz, explained that Thailand only produces about 1% of the world's supply of Arabica coffee beans. They produce alot of Robusta beans, which are more prolific producers than Arabica, but are generally lower in quality. Think Folgers. We found a supply of Thai beans from the hill tribes near Chiang Mai, but we've yet to figure out a way to import them without paying more for the money transfer and shipping than the cost of the coffee itself. The samples Dave gave us are from Doi Chaang coffee. We brewed it this morning and it's great.

With the complications around the supply of Thai Coffee, we've resorted to buying beans from local roasters which include Thomas Hammer, Craven's, Doma, H&H, & Anvil. Thomas Hammer beans are my favorite so far of the local roasts. Thanks Dave, for roasting some good coffee, and showing me around the place.

Are there any other notable local roasters? 

Spokane Area Jams and Jellies

I did a little field trip to Hidden Acres Farm in Greenbluff. They are one of two sources for local jam that we've identified, available at Roseauers. I spoke with Nick, the third generation of farmers in the family. I inquired about them selling at the Millwood Farmers' Market, but he explained that they can't keep up with current demand, even with three people working full time. Apparently they sell a lot of huckleberry products to Japan. Go figure. He did say that other than the huckleberries, they make the jams from the fruit they grow on their 67 acres. Walter's also makes jams available at Yoke's.

I was impressed that Hidden Acres only sells fruit from their farming operations because I've seen the big trucks from Yakima heading up the hill to Greenbluff to supply the tourtist season up there. Yakima fruit is great, but if you're going to go to Greenbluff, it makes sense to me to get fruit actually grown in Greenbluff. Hidden Acres is a good spot for doing that.

Spokane Seed and Other Inland Northwest Specialties

Some people have asked if our region is a good one for eating locally. My response is to say, it depends on what you like to eat. But in general, the Inland Northwest is a place of food abundance. Eastern Washington produces the following percentages of our country's food items according to the 2007 USDA report; 77% of hops, 74% of spearmint oil, 42% of lentils, 22% of potatoes, 8% of wheat & barley, 60% of apples, 47% of concord grapes and 40% of niagara, 60% of sweet cherries, 43% of pears, 28% of prunes and plums, over 20% of our countries carrots, sweet corn, asparagus, green peas, onions.

When we eat a can of Campbel's split pea or lentil soup, the peas and lentils are likely from Spokane Seed in the Valley. When we down a can of Budweiser, we're likely partaking in Yakama hops. When we eat a granola bar with dried cherries, we're likely biting into a little bit of sunshine from the Wenatchee area. When we chew on Doubleday spearmint gum, we're likely freshening our breath via the fruitful soil of the Wapato area. When we make pancakes from a box of Krusteaz Pancake Mix, we're likely consuming wheat from our state's vast dry field farming resource.

The Inland Northwest is a place of plenty.

If you want to skip the can of Campbel's soup, you can go straight to the offices of Spokane Seed in the Valley and get some manageable and inexpensive bags of peas and lentils (pictured above). They have four or five varieties of lentils.   

Round and Round With a 40 Pound Block of Cheese

While at WSU's relatively small cheese making operation, the manager told us about the large Darigold cheesemaking operation in Sunnyside, WA. According to the president of Darigold it is "one of the largest and most efficient state-of-the-art cheese plants in the world..." The tour is supposed to be great.

Nancy went to work on Monday morning, trying to figure out how we can get our hands on some of this "local" cheese. The folks in Sunnyside were very helpful, but in what is becoming a recurring experience, we found that a food system built around maximizing efficiency and profit, does not lend itself to identifying where the food originates. It turns out that Sunnyside churns out over 400,000 lbs of cheese every day, but most of it, at least right now, is shipped to far off places like Wisconsin. So if you want local Pacific Northwest cheese, you might need to do one of those cheese tours of Wisconsin. Another option they told us is to find a restaurant that buys their 40lb blocks from Food Services of America, and have them cut us off a chunk. Or we could find some friends who want to go in on buying a 40lb block and share it. Or maybe I can take that $600 tax stimulus, buy 7 blocks of cheese, and become the local cheesemonger. I sort of just wanted an excuse to write cheesemonger. Cheesemonger. Cheesemonger. Cheesemonger. It's a fun word, you have to admit.

If you're wondering about why we would ship Pacific Northwest cheese to Wisconsin, a quick look at wholesale prices tells the tale. In the western market for 40 lb blocks 'o cheese, the price is currently $2.16/lb, whereas the Wisconsin market price is $2.41/lb. I'm no expert on transportation costs but I guess in the end, the math works. With all the news about increasing food prices you may be interested to know that two years ago the cost was $1.45/lb in the western market. Consider that your commodities market minute.

In other random cheese news, Tillamook ships their cheese to Oakland to be shredded, and then has it shipped back north to be distributed.

   

Potlatch Toilet Paper Saves Us From the Dreaded Corn Cob

I have a weakness for bathroom humor so forgive me for two posts in one week on toilet paper. We did a little research and rumor has it that bathroom practices in America, before the innovation of toilet paper, included Sears catalogs, book pages, straw, hay, newsprint, and yes, corncobs. The folks at Potlatch Paper in Lewiston, Idaho have saved us from all that.

It turns out that in Spokane, Albertson's brand bath tissue, facial tissue, paper towels and napkins are from the Lewiston plant, as are the Safeway brand products. Roseauers will also carry Potlatch tissue products under the Western Family label starting July 1, 2008.

I'm learning that discoveries about locally produced commodities are not quite as fun as some of the others. It's hard to get excited about supporting a wholly owned subsidiary of a Real Estate Investment Trust like Potlatch Corp. But it is great, knowing that we're supporting residents of Lewiston by buying their paper and that it only had to be shipped 100 miles to get to us.

I wonder where the other stores get their tissue products? I wonder if they would also carry paper from Potlatch if Spokane residents let them know it's important to us?

Update: We got an email from the folks at Potlatch. They told us Fred Meyer and URM generic brands of bath tissue are also from Potlatch.

Inland Northwest Cooking Oil - Apres Vin Grape Seed Oil

We finally found some cooking oil from Eastern Washington. Apres Vin (french for "after the wine"), is a brand new business venture out of Prosser, Washington, taking the waste product from Washington wine making and producing varietal grape seed oils and flours.

Eric Leber and Lori Ramonas, co-founders and both with PH.D.s in chemistry, were in Spokane this week and I had a chance to connect with them. They described the amazing growth in the Washington wine grape industry and the subsequent growth in the waste product from the processing of those grapes. In the past, the wineries often had to pay to have it taken away. They take this and separate out the seeds, dry them, and press them to get a versatile oil with a 485 degree smoke point. But they aren't done with it yet. They then take the press cake and mill it to create nutrient rich and flavorful grape seed flour. Add a tablespoon or two per cup of dry ingredients when making bread and your loaf gets a 3,000 to 5,000 fold boost in anti-oxidants and some interesting flavors and colors.

One of the interesting things about Apres Vin, is that they are one of the only grape seed oil and flour producers in the world to produce oils and flours that are specific to the variety of grape seed. They explained that the white wine grape seeds, Chardonnay and Riesling, produce a more subtle and light oil, whereas the reds, like Cabernet and Merlot, have a richer more wine like flavor. Same goes for the flours. I get the feeling it's such a new concept that some local chefs need to do some experimenting to make the most of it.

As of right now you can get it at Lone Canary Winery and Cassano's. I hope other stores start to carry it soon. We've got our bottle of Roasted Garlic Chardonnay oil, which we are really going to enjoy, especially when our lettuce matures.

UPDATE: Here's the fact sheet on the oil. Download fact_sheet229.pdf

Buck Knife Birthday

The story these days is usually about manufacturing operations moving overseas. Buck Knives is one of the exceptions to that rule. They recently resettled their factory from San Diego to Post Falls Idaho. I remember the current CEO telling our Rotary group about their decision. He said ultimately it didn't feel right for such an iconic Amercian product to become a marketing company that outsources manufacturing. That's a bonus for us, because it gives us a great local product for gifts. I hope our parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends have always wanted a Buck Knife because they are probably going to get one this year.