One of the first things we learn as kids, informally and formally in school, is that all animals eat something else to live. Ecologists will go further and classify food webs by the direction of diversion from the plant world. Plants are the creatures that suck in carbon dioxide, combine it with water using the energy from sunlight and power the cycle of life. Herbivore-based food webs start from critters that eat living plants, like deer browsing or squirrels hiding acorns. Detritivore-based food webs start from critters that eat dead plants, like leaves on the forest floor or rotting logs.

Locavorism aims to be firmly in the herbivore camp. Non-locavorism is definately in the detritivore section.

Why I bring this up will become apparent during lunch.

Breakfast

Nothing special to report. Just the routine good stuff.

Oct 16 Breakfast

Bread from Pheonix bakery, toasted and layered with Petaluma butter, streaked with Willits honey. Strawberries from our yard. Cottage cheese from Petaluma. Apple-pear juice from neighborhood trees.

Lunch

This was another social occassion where I strayed from the Puritanical Path of Strict Locavorism. Some very interesting people who care deeply about local food systems and are keen to invest in a means of creating one came to town. I wouldn't deny this opportunity and so didn't deny the advantage of going to Al's Redwood Room for lunch and indulging in Thai food. Al's is also one of the favored bars for the bikers on the Redwood Run. But a local boy married a Thai woman who happens to be a chef and we have dramatically increased the culinary diversity of this small town.

I won't picture the lunch since it is shameful and was derived from massive inputs of fossil fuels for its creation. Instead of recalling the sensation of coconut milk in that green curry, I will instead think about the diesel truck that brought it here and how stinky and dirty it is. I will think about the natural gas powered fertilizer plants fouling the air along the Mississippi River in Louisiana and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico from the runoff resulting from the industrial ag system.

Today, for lunch, I certainly was a detritovore. The food chain goes all the way back to an oil well somewhere, eating ancient sunlight.

Ahh, Thai food!

Dinner

I am much prouder of the meal we arranged later in the day.

Oct 16 Dinner

Potato soup from our own taters, onions, and garlic, combined with milk and cream from Petaluma, topped with goat cheese from Lakeport. Biscuits from our own flour. Tomato, cucumber and sweet pepper salad from our garden. Tap water.

After dinner snacks included a couple of small apples, from neighborhood trees, and this fantastic creation from my wife and kids.

Oct 16 Snack

That's our juice, plus zucchini bread. Backyard zucchinis, Laytonville plus backyard eggs, local flour, and Petaluma butter. I am afraid non-local sugar and oils were used. Perhaps the recipe could have been modified to use honey and butter instead, but I am not about to push the issue too far with my wife right now who did do a heroic job pulling this off while getting the kitchen cleaned up and the kids to bed while I was out at another meeting.

Sometimes I do know when to keep quiet.

Sometimes.