Melissa Makes a Local Meal

Okay, most of you know that eating is my forte, not cooking. So the eat local "challenge" was doubly challenging to me. But you know what? It was easy!

I started out with a trip to Via Elisa Fresh Pasta. Got my fave: porcini ravioli. Anyone can make this and it's super delicious. You just boil the water, put the raviolis in carefully, stir once, wait 10 minutes and it's ready. Yes! I chose one of Elisa's sauces - Sofia's Sicilian Caper - to go with it. All of this is available at Whole Foods too.

Honestly, I could just eat the pasta and be happy but it seemed like I needed a salad or something green. I stopped by the Peachtree Road Farmer's Market and, while I saw many great products and even got a glass of homemade lemonade, I couldn't find the simple green that I had envisioned as my side. So over to Whole Foods Buckhead. They had tons of local micro greens from Sweetwater Growers and I selected watercress - my favorite. Then I found a yummy local dressing from Onion Guys. It's called Vidalia Vinaigrette. To add a little color to the salad, I included a tomato bought at a roadside stand in Alabama (thanks, Mom!).

Lastly I chose a wonderful red blend from Dahlonega's Wolf Mountain Vineyards. It was the 2006 Instinct. Delish.





I decided that my golden retriever, Norma Jean, should eat local if I was so I got her some homemade treats from Taj Ma-Hound while at the market. She loved them!
The Whole Foods Eat Local Challenge was a lot of fun and I'm going to try to do it more often!

Cool Loans From Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market aims to keep good things growing in Georgia at Harris Family Heritage Beef, Sweetwater Growers and Via Elisa Fresh Pasta. The company has a Local Producer Loan Program and, in Georgia, these three local producers will receive more than $500,000 in low-interest loans to achieve their goals. These loans pack a lot of bang in each buck, and each brings a bounty of sought-after foods back to Whole Foods Market shelves -- and ultimately to our plates.

Harris Family Heritage Beef at White Oak Pastures, Georgia’s leading grass-fed beef producer, was able to use the loan to complete a long-awaited on-farm facility designed to process beef according to rigorous humane animal treatment standards and to minimize environmental impact. Besides enabling White Oak Pastures to expand beef production and distribution of its 2008 Flavors of Georgia Grand Prize-winning products, the on-farm plant will nix farm-to-processing cattle stress and do away with the need for fuel-guzzling 18-wheelers to transport cattle. Sweetwater Growers, Inc. is using its loan to add two new greenhouses, thus increasing the farm’s harvest of high quality, fresh micro greens, basil and other herbs. Via Elisa Fresh Pasta, a genuine fresh pasta shop in Atlanta, has purchased a pasta cutter with its loan. The new cutter will enable more efficient pasta cutting, which translates to more plentiful pasta for you and me. The ingredients for the authentic, homemade pasta remain the same: 100% organic flours, 100% organic semolina, eggs from free-range hens and luxurious cheeses imported directly from Italy. Find products from these conscientious producers and others at area Whole Foods Markets and Harry’s Farmers Markets.

For more inspiring stories about the people and places behind our food sources, visit Whole Foods Market’s Farm to Market Blog.