Okay, I'm back!

A week sojourn to Indiana for some business and play time on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (beautiful!) and I have little to report in terms of local eating from that part of the country... but unfortunately I didn't have time to look for it. Shout out if you're from Indiana and let us know what you're cooking up!

Before I took off, however, Kiyah and I spent a weekend in the land of our nation's legislators visiting friends and family - none of whom are legislators or will ever be legislators. Most of them aren't really sure what legislators are. Hell, I don't even know. What I do know is that they have access to some incredible local food in Washington D.C.

We had the great pleasure of visiting the Sunday farmers' market in Dupont Circle. Wow. They had more going on than our market in North Carolina! I couldn't believe it. Check out these pics:

Cabbage, apples, turnips, potatoes, onions, eggs, cheeses, mushrooms!?, carrots!, meat products, and loads of greens! So high five to the farmers in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia who are working hard to spoon feed our legislators. Maybe they could reciprocate with some small-farmer friendly legislation.

I'm thinking of running for office now, just to get my hands on that market.

And as always, I welcome any comments from federal legislators.

Thanks to Greg S. for the photos.

OK. The Philippines is not that local, but I recently found
out about a wonderful project to sustain heirloom varieties of
rice produced for centuries by indigenous people living deep
in the mountains of the country. So this comes under the
category of sustainable and maybe falls into the 20 percent
leeway.



While working on her masters in 2001 at the School for
International Training in Brattleboro, Vt., former Peace Corps
worker Mary Hensley returned to where she had served 30 years
earlier.



When Hensley had worked in the remote area in 1976, the
villagers had subsisted almost entirely on the rice they grew
on ancient mountain terraces fed by an irrigation system
thought to be 2,000 years old. The rice was labor intensive,
and the villagers produced little more than they needed to
live -- not enough to sell.



In 2001, she found that younger workers were leaving the
mountains to work elsewhere and that the rice fields, which
had fallen into disrepair, were being farmed by a diminishing
number of older villagers.



Hensley decided to help and established a nonprofit NGO to
train farmers in new agricultural techniques using their
time-proven principles and to establish farming cooperatives.
She also established a marketing company to sell the rice to
restaurants and gourmet grocers in the United States. The
villagers also will own one-third of the marketing company.
This year, the farmers sold 17 tons of rice. Not only have
seven varieties of amazing rice been saved, but also the
heritage and the culture of the villagers preserved. If you're
interested in the story and want to know more, check
heirloomrice.com.



The rice is terrific and pretty widely distributed across the
country. I tried a variety that had a nutty flavor. The rice
is brown, but when you cook it, it turns salmon pink.



The rice may not be local, but in New England, that's not an
option, and I felt pretty good eating it.