A ONE-WEEK LOCAL MAKEOVER

I smell. No, I stink. My wife has let me know this in no uncertain terms and my kids taunt me with names like “stinky head” and other such olfactory-anatomical cruelties. I’ve tried showering, but to no avail-this funk can’t be scrubbed from the skin. Instead, it emanates from deep within my every pore. You are what you eat and today I am living proof of that cliché. I am a ramp-and damn proud to be one.

Ramps, for those of you unfamiliar with Allium Tricoccum, is a wild leek that springs up in early Spring here in the mountains of southern Appalachia. And wild can also describe its untamed taste: Think of it as a cross between an onion on steroids and garlic with attitude. Which is why I smell the way I do. This week I’ve gobbled down ramp meatloaf, ramps with potatoes and bacon, ramps sautéed and (bravest of all) raw ramps. Once a staple of poor mountaineers (some of whom recall being forced to sit outside of the classroom due to their rampiness) ramps are now featured in fine dining establishments. But no matter what you pay for them, if you eat them ray they tend to stick around.

But my ramp infused diet wasn’t an attempt to be trendy or ward off vampires. I ate ramps because they’re local. Once again, for this year’s Green Issue, the brain trust at Blue Ridge Outdoors challenged me to be a green guinea pig for one week. Last year, my goal was to live as organic and energy conscious as possible. But that was so last year. As anyone with a pulse or a subscription to Time magazine knows eating local is the new Green. Possibly it’s because that pesky inconvenient truth about global warming just won’t go away, despite the Bush administration’s best effort to ignore it. Nonetheless, people across the country are waking up to the fact that food-even organic food-shipped and trucked across vast distances is part of the gluttonous consumption of energy that threatens our planet. Sure, fresh romaine in February tastes great, but at what cost?

So my quest this issue was to live and eat as local as possible for one week, with the goal being to minimize my clodhopper carbon footprint. No problem, I figured; Asheville and its environs is chock full of local farms and tailgate markets. But I attempted my Live Local Week in the middle of May and there’s not a whole lot cropping up here this early in the growing season (with the exception of those yummy ramps and some greens). Where are the tomatoes, the carrots, the pole beans and the other goodies I’ve grown accustomed to finding year-round in the produce section of the local mega-mart? What’s a spoiled shopper like me to do?

My answer came from Charlie Jackson, the director of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), a West Asheville-based non-profit organization that supports farmers and rural communities here in Western North Carolina. For Jackson, it’s a matter of getting in tune with the local food cycle and becoming familiar with the variety of local farms: “We need to think about seasonality, and people do eat more fruit and vegetables during the growing season-but the limitations don’t extend to everything. We have a lot of small farms around here producing great meat, cheese and other dairy products year round. And when more people demand more local food, local farmers will respond to meet the need.” As an example he pointed out a local farmer in my neighborhood’s tailgate market who was offering the first tomatoes of the year at the tail end of May. The farmer had seen the demand and invested in a greenhouse to meet it.

Jackson added that consumers are ready for more local food: “We’ve had an abundance of inexpensive but unhealthy food available to us for years-and people are seeing that it’s making us sick. We’re seeing a shift in consumer demand from quantity to quality.”

And Jackson has the proof that the shift is occurring. His organization annually publishes the ASAP Local Food Guide, a directory of local farms, tailgate markets, restaurants featuring locally produced food and even bed and breakfasts for those looking for an option to chain hotels. Five years ago ASAP published 5,000 guides. This year they’re putting out 250,000 guides and a colorful calendar listing market dates and other local food events.

And while a purist might scoff at the greenhouse tomato I bought at the tailgate market, think about this: It traveled exactly 10 miles from its home in the ground to my plate. And it was delicious. Although it wasn’t officially organic (most small farmers can’t afford the USDA certification process) the farmer looked me in the eye and assured me it was. He even invited me out to his farm if I had any doubts. In comparison, an organic tomato I found in a nearby supermarket hailed from California. I estimated that it had traveled roughly 2,300 diesel chugging miles to get here. I thought about driving cross country to check out the farm it came from, but with gas at three bucks a gallon I quickly nixed the idea.

During my Live Local Week my family and I got a kick out of cooking up the regional grub we procured-there’s a giddy sense of empowerment when you know that you can make a dent in global warming by eating fresh, tasty food. As a bonus, my kids got a local geography lesson when we talked about where each item hailed from and its proximity to our home. As a treat, we splurged and ate out one evening, using the local food guide to choose a restaurant. My daughter Grace selected the Early Girl Eatery for its cool sounding name. I’m sure the folks at the Michelin Guide do the same when they’re awarding stars.

The restaurant’s owners, Julie and John Stehling, moved to Asheville because of its wide open green spaces and the local farms that occupy them. Their dream was to open a restaurant that focused as much as possible on providing fresh local food. And they succeeded. Today, the Early Girl Eatery is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed restaurants in town. For John, the emphasis on local food isn’t just about taste and freshness-it’s about community: “I know these farmers. We’ve become friends. We love Asheville and it’s important for us to give something back. By buying local we help keep these farmers going and those green spaces open-and out of the hands of the developers. Also, our money stays here in the community.”

Alas, man can not live on local food alone. There’s got to be something to wash it back with. For that I turned to Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain, home of some seriously good micro-brewed beer that’s organic to boot. Some friends and I made a visit during their weekly open house on Thursday evenings. Brewmeister Jason Caughman showed us around and kept our glasses full with a selection of his ales and porters that recently nabbed 4 medals at the Carolina Beer Championship. “We love making beer, and we love making it here,” Caughman noted, sweeping his arm in the direction of the green field behind his brewery that was filled with friends and customers – although distinguishing between the two was near impossible. And while Pisgah does need to import its ingredients from out of state, it meets my measure for localness simply because it takes those bags of hops and barley and converts it into thousands of gallons of product. That brew is then driven to local bars-and I can promise you it doesn’t go too far. The delivery truck is a small, beat up Toyota pickup. When asked if he wanted to expand his fleet and cover more territory, Caughman looked at me like I’d been sampling too much of his wares: “Nah, bigger isn’t always better.”

The next day I saw his trusty truck laden with kegs outside of the Westville Pub-a neighborhood watering hole near my house. When he pulled in several of the regulars looked up from their pints and grinned like kids on Christmas morning, and greeted the driver by name. The pub’s manager Drew Smith told me that the Pisgah Pale ale is a hot seller. As he talked I could see over his shoulder the pub’s motto: “Think Global, Drink Local.” When asked about it, he proudly spoke of a half dozen other local brewers they buy from and the local farms that stock their kitchen and the local musicians they book to perform. He then rattled off a dozen reasons why it was critical to do so-on the top of that list was the importance of building community. Nothing on his list concerned money or profit. Yet, the Westville Pub, like the Early Girl Eatery, is doing a booming business. And although I don’t have an MBA, I clearly detected a business trend that bodes well for the future.

With my week almost complete, I turn my attention to other steps I can take to shop local and reduce my carbon footprint. As fate would have it, my family’s clothes dryer burned out. I mulled over buying a used one while sitting on my porch on a warm, sunny day when I had one of those eureka moments that great thinkers tend to have when faced with the conundrum of reeking like ramps and needing clean clothes. That cord strung across my back yard-the one I curse every time I have to duck under while mowing the lawn-that’s a laundry line! Honestly, I’ve lived in this house for nine years and never used it once for its intended purpose. I smiled at the beauty of its simple design and lack of plug. Of course, I had to walk to the store to buy some clothes pins, but with every step I could practically see my carbon footprint growing smaller in my fume free wake.

While hanging my shirts out to dry on my new fangled solar-powered dryer, I noticed that some of them were a little ratty. Now, I may not be the greenest guy on God’s green earth, but I’ve always shunned clothes shopping and malls. However, within walking distance of my house was a thrift store. Used clothes-the ultimate in recycling, I figured. So I took Grace and her sister Ella up to the Goodwill store and was pleasantly surprised to find a huge selection of really good stuff. A byproduct of a consumer society is that people are, by what I observed hanging on these racks, buying new clothes every few days and donating last week’s styles to charity. I’m not a charity case, but the planet sure could use a little help so shopping here was like fighting global warming one cool retro tee-shirt at a time. As I held up one great find for my daughters’ approval Grace grimaced and held her nose. “What, you don’t like it?” I queried. She backed away and replied: “No, it’s you. You smell funny.” Her sister squealed in delight and rattled off another olfactory-anatomical combo directed at me.

“That is the smell of a man saving the planet,” I replied, with all the pride a stink-butt could muster. •