As I am sure you have heard before, every time you make a purchase you are voting for the kind of world you want to live in.  This is so true and important when it comes to food.  Having access to fresh, local, seasonal, sustainably harvested vegetables, meats, and artisan products is one of the true joys of living in the Pacific Northwest.  But the only way we can maintain this local food economy is to continually nurture and support it.

The Oregon Environmental Council has just launched the Vote with Your Fork! campaign to educate folks about how to support and sustain the local food system.  You can take their pledge to make at least one change in your eating habits - if everyone in Oregon did this, we would see some major positive impacts on local economies and ecosystems. 

Here are just a few of their ideas about how you can vote with your fork:

Host a local foods potluck.  With the farmer's markets bursting at the seams with the most dazzling array of seasonal produce, it is a great time to invite your friends and neighbors to share the bounty of summer.

Compost your food scraps.  Even if you don't have a yard to establish a composting system, there are great under the sink or counter top composting options, such as Bokashi.     

Support a local farmer.  Buying directly from farmers, either at the farmer's markets or at a farm stand means that your entire food dollar goes to the hard working farmer and stays in the local economy.

To do my part, I am about to go cook dinner with fish we picked up at the farmer's market yesterday, greens from our friends at Sweet Leaf Farm in Eugene, and shallots and tomatoes from the good folks at Deep Roots Farm in Corvallis.  And I think I will mix up some vodka tonics with vodka from New Deal Distillery, which happens to be right up the road from where we live.  Eating local is sweet! 

When Chris and I were planning the Pacific Pie Company menu, we knew we had to include some lamb pies, because what is more Aussie than lamb?  But we weren't sure how lamb pies would fly in the States - while the typical Aussie eats 30 pounds of lamb per year (and the Kiwis chow down on 57!), Americans eat less than a pound of lamb per year.  Which is quite a shame, given how scrumptious a roast leg of lamb can be, with tons of garlic and rosemary and mustard.

Another delicious way to enjoy lamb is in a PPC pie, and our market customers certainly agree.  Much to our surprise (and the delight of our lamb farmer), lamb pies have been a hit at all of our markets.  Our Sunday Roast Lamb pie is Chris' favorite dinner packed into PPC's flaky crust - free range lamb brasied in red wine, rosemary and onion, which is then combined with oven roasted organic yams, carrots, and yukon gold potatoes.  I drew the inspiration for the Golden Lamb Curry pie from my absolute favorite cookbook author, Nigella Lawson.  Her fabulous Feast cookbook includes a recipe for Lamb Maharaja, which is a wonderful tumeric and chile-spiked curry.  I tweaked the recipe a bit, and added yams and yukon golds, which pair beautifully with the tender curry-soused lamb. 

The lamb in our pies comes from Anderson Ranches in the Willamette Valley.  Reed Anderson raises Certified Humane lamb on the lush pastures of the Valley.  The lamb is totally free of antibiotics and hormones.  We think it tastes fantastic, and we're so glad to be partnering with Reed Anderson to bring our customers yummy lamb pies.   

Tonight I am making Greek Lamb patties, which will be so good wrapped in pita with yogurt sauce, tomato, lettuce and feta. 

Greek Lamb Patties

1/3 cup bread crumbs

1 garlic clove, minced

1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint, basil, parsley, or whatever herbs are growing in your garden 

1 1/4 lb ground lamb

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon good dijon mustard

1/4 lb feta, crumbled

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Mush everything around in a bowl with clean hands (or a fork, if you must).  Form into patties and pan fry or grill for about 4 minutes per side.  Wrap in pita and smother in yogurt, veggies, avocado, and whatever else you can find in the fridge! 

We just returned from a fantastic trip to visit some of the farmers who supply our meat. It is really important to us to know where the ingredients for our products come from, so we went to see the animals, check out where and how they are raised, and talk to the farmers about their practices. We even ate some grass from the lovely pastures at one of the ranches!

We travelled through the Columbia River Gorge and across the Oregon border to Idaho, where we met up with Don and Virginia Wilkinson of Pasture Proper.  While in Idaho we visited several farmers who specialize in grass fed beef.  We then continued back to Oregon and through Bend, where we stopped at Pine Mountain Ranch, where Alan Rousseau raises grass fed buffalo, elk, and yak.  Finally we drove through some lovely snow to the Eugene area, where we met up with Reed Anderson of Anderson Ranches and Petrene from Sweet Briar Farms.  A really great trip and we will be posting lots more about each of these special farms in the coming weeks.

The main thing we discussed on this trip was grass.  PPC only purchases 100% grass fed, pasture raised beef, bison, and lamb.  There are tons of reasons why grass fed is the way to go - Chris is working on some posts to tell you more about this.  But if you are excited about grass, this really is a beautiful time of year.  As Don Wilkinson said with obvious glee on a balmy Boise evening, "The grass is growing!"