Our 100-Mile Thanksgiving in Review
Our first 100-mile Thanksgiving was a delicious success full of surprises. And it was hard work – harder than we’d imagined when we devised our plan in October. We learned a lot about our local foods, and even more about our family and ourselves. The food – from our sweet potato soufflé to the Brussels sprouts - was better than ever. Was it the freshness of the local ingredients? Or the fact that the only processed ingredients used were butter, cheese, chocolate and flour? Or was it the simple satisfaction of pulling it off? I suspect it was all of the above complemented by the gracious way our guests embraced the concept.
When I wrote about our intentions to host our 100-mile Thanksgiving, one very important step of the planning process remained: getting our dinner guests – my husband Greg’s family – on board. I was worried, very worried. What’s on our plates and where it comes from is a conversation my husband and I often have with our friends, yet it’s a subject seldom broached with our families. We had adopted a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy when it came to family meals, all the while our ‘food print’ at home was rapidly shrinking. At times we felt like hypocrites, choosing silence and harmony over the possibility of offending the hands that had so lovingly fed us through the first decades of our lives with no visible after effects.
To our relief and surprise, they not only embraced our plan but were genuinely enthusiastic. My mother-in-law made her famous apple slices with apples she bought close to her home in Joliet. One sister-in-law brought beer from Mickey Finn’s Brewery in Libertyville. Another brought a wide selection of wines from Tabor Hill Winery in Buchanan, Michigan and Prairie State Winery in Genoa, Illinois. My sister-in-law Kristy even found a blue cheese produced by Saputo in Lincolnshire for her signature roasted winter squash with Gorgonzola cheese. One brother-in-law brought his soda machine and turned our tap water into blueberry soda with the Michigan blueberries we had in our freezer. And our friend Jean made a tasty cornbread with dried cranberries from South Haven, Michigan.
I’d like to say that we pulled it off with ease, but while it was perhaps our most scrumptious and satisfying Thanksgiving meal of all, it also required the most advance preparation. We made two trips to the Lincoln Quality Meat Market – one for chickens that were ultimately turned into stock, the second for our fresh, happy turkeys. We shopped the Chicago Green City Market on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and found everything that we needed, including black walnuts and apple cider. We were naively inconsistent about where we drew our ‘local’ line. I had declined the notion of buying local bread in favor of making my own with the fifty pounds of whole wheat flour I purchased from Ted’s Organic Grains in Kaneville, Illinois. On the other hand, the chocolate we used for my sister-in-law’s birthday cake was made by Blommer in Chicago, but of course the cacao beans weren’t local. Unfortunately, several ingredients lured us outside our 100-mile radius, among them staples like cranberries and our turkeys. Greg argued that South Haven, Michigan is technically in our 100-mile radius, “As the crow flies.” Careful to not wilt his spirit, I reminded him that crows weren’t delivering our ingredients and subsequently our food miles were only to be calculated by driving distances.
The biggest surprise of the meal was the cost. We spent the same as or less than we had in past years. Most of the vegetables that we purchased at the Green City Market were less expensive than their counterparts in the organic section of our grocery store. For instance, we paid a dollar per head for organic cauliflower, and the butternut squash was only $0.69 per pound. In both cases, they were less expensive than the organic and non-organic options at the fruit market in our neighborhood. We also saved money by making our own stock, bread, crackers, pie crusts and rolls.
We originally thought our 100-mile Thanksgiving would be a one-time experiment, but the encouragement and support from our guests suggested it was the start of a new tradition. “Next year we should all try to grow our Thanksgiving veggies in our gardens – even if it means we have to freeze them,” my sister-in-law Karole said as she passed the Brussels sprouts. I looked across our bountiful table at Greg and smiled. He was beaming with pride. And to think I had worried.
| Ingredient | Producer | Location | Food Miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| honey | Sweet Hive Chicago | Chicago, IL | 0 |
| mushrooms | River Valley Ranch | Burlington, WI | 71 |
| black walnuts | Oriana’s Oriental Orchard | Winslow, IL | 130 |
| cauliflower | Smits Farms | Chicago Heights, IL | 39 |
| whole wheat flour | Ted’s Organic Grains | Kaneville, IL | 53 |
| Colby cheese | Fair Oaks Farms | Fair Oaks, IN | 78 |
| blue cheese | Saputo | Lincolnshire, IL | 25 |
| pumpkin and sweet potatoes | Genesis Growers | St. Anne, IL | 80 |
| Brussels sprouts, broccoli, celery | Iron Creek Farm | LaPorte, IN | 77 |
| Yukon gold potatoes | Nichols Farms and Orchard | Marengo, IL | 57 |
| turkeys | Miller Amish Country Poultry | Orland, IN | 159 |
| cranberries | DeGrandchamp Farms | South Haven, MI | 129 |
| white wine | Tabor Hill Winery | Buchanan, MI | 98 |
| red wine | Prairie State Winery | Genoa, IL | 56 |
| beer | Mickey Finn’s Brewery | Libertyville, IL | 31 |
| apple cider | Seedling Orchard | South Haven, MI | 129 |
By: Bobbi Marstellar
Lifestyle, Local Food, Urban Agriculture
| 
100 mile diet, Green City Market, Lincoln Quality Meat Market, Mickey Finn's Brewery, Prairie State Winery, Tabor Hill Winery, Ted's Organic Grains, Thanksgiving
Themocracy
This is marvelously well-written and full of awesome resources. Brilliant! Thank you Bobbi! ;-*
Thanks for sharing your story Bob! It’s great to read —The biggest surprise of the meal was the cost. We spent the same as or less than we had in past years. — I’m in an interactive documentary site at Columbia College that has focused the semester on Chi’s local food movement; your article offers wonderful cost & distance testimonials!
Feel free to connect via twitter @rethinkingfood
this is awesome Bobbi. Well done. Thanks.
Job well done Bobbi – the meal and the story! Although we were not present for the actual meal, the after-dinner nibbling and the subsequent leftovers were great.
What a great idea. Very cool that you were able to get your in laws on board. Hopefully others will learn the power of shopping local from your post.
So excited for you and Greg! It sounds like everything was a well worth your efforts. I can’t wait to hear if/how this alters your 2011 garden scape.
Bobbi – as always you were the hostess with the mostess! Edward and I enjoyed everything and were so glad we were able to make a last minute contribution! Mark us down for drinks next year and let us know what we should can/freeze from the garden.