Going Local Week

 Celebrate Indiana's GOING LOCAL WEEK 2009 by eating one Indiana local food at each meal. By consciously choosing locally grown and produced foods you'll enjoy fresher and more varieties of food, get in touch with the seasonality of the Indiana food shed, protect the environment, and help support the local Indiana economy.

There's no one central event for GOING LOCAL WEEK 2009. The event supporters are asking participants to celebrate the event on a local and personal level. Here are some ideas for activities during that week:

Visit a farm, farm market, or farmers' market in your area.

When dining out, choose restaurants who support our local producers by offering local food items on their menus or in their dishes.

Host a local foods pitch-in and ask everyone to bring a dish made primarily with local foods.

Bring in fresh Indiana melons for the staff instead of doughnuts during the week.

 

Have an in-office potluck lunch where everyone brings in something they’ve made with a local ingredient.

 

Go out to an after-work “happy hour” at a local winery if there is one close by.

Get together with your friends at work and take turns that week bringing a local food dish to share at lunch.

Choose to switch one of your pantry or refrigerator staples such as dairy products or eggs to one from a local producer.

Go to a U-pick.

Preserve some fruits or vegetables for winter use.

Invite some friends over for a local food cooking activity--make a pie with apples you picked from a local orchard, make bread or muffins with Indiana flour or cornmeal, or make tomato sauce with the last of the season Indiana tomatoes.

We hope you'll take the time to tell us what you're doing and how you're planning to "discover, celebrate, and savor the abundance of Indiana's fresh, in-season, and local foods."