Comments from readers

— Jean Pokorny said the mention of ground cherries in a recent column rekindled memories.

“I have been eating them for as long as I can remember (I am 68). My grandmother grew them and made jelly and also canned them. However, I love to just eat them out of the garden. Once you get them growing, the cherries reseed themselves and you get many plants the following year.”

“At the farmers market on Broadway this year I saw some at one of the booths. The young man selling them said they were from Seymour. He also said most people did not know what they were. Most of my friends are not familar with them either.”

— Jeff Brockhaus, who maintains a vegetable garden in suburban Cincinnati, said eating local is a nutritious and efficient social strategy.

“I've always felt the solution to many of our problems is local detail-oriented solutions, rather than a grand sweeping plan,” Brockhaus wrote. “As in life in general, producing something (whether it be piano playing, writing, or even carpet cleaning) probably has more to do with the tedious work of making it happen and less to do with the “vision,” i.e., the devil’s in the details.”

— Jim Tolbert of El Paso e-mailed me about a press release from Bon Appetit called “Comfort Food for the Economy.” A pioneer in sustainable food sourcing, Bon Appétit implemented a “Farm to Fork” program in 1999, requiring each of its cafés and restaurants to purchase extensively from local producers.

“One encouraging bit of news from the release is the potential that local restaurants have to support local farmers,” Tolbert wrote. The news release can be found at http://www.socialfunds.com/news/release.cgi/6471.html

Coffee and local eggs

After two cups of coffee this morning, the caffeine kicked in. I could tell because I was fighting the urge to climb on the roof and clean out the gutters. Returning to the laborer’s drug of choice was my first sign we were off the 100-mile diet.

But not entirely. Given the option of eating cereal today, our daughter Olivia asked for eggs over easy with hash browns: her favorite local breakfast.

Our eat-local challenge is ending, but maybe yours is starting. Every time you buy a local food product you create a positive ripple in the area economy. Today’s Press-Gazette story in Business offers tips on things you can do: Scour your supermarket for local products, join a farm coop, shop farmers markets, plant a garden, take field trips to local wineries.

Let me know what you think about eating local and I'll post it on this blog.