January 17, 2009: Locavore Nation

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This week it's the truth about eating local as we check in with our Locavore Nation volunteers. They're at the end of a year of eating eighty percent of their food from local sources. We find out what they've missed, if they're converts or released prisoners, and more.

It's seafood politics at its best for Jane and Michael Stern at the Ecola Restaurant and Market in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, has been following our Locavore volunteers the past year and weighs in with her take on the project.

Then documentary filmmaker Aaron Woolf, who tracks government policies, imagines his ideal food system.

Christopher Kimball of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated magazine stops by for a blind tasting of that panacea for all woes, canned chicken soup. And social activist and poster artist Ricardo Morales talks a new calendar that gives a month-by-month history of coffee.

Recipes

Butternut Bean Soup

This hearty and warming vegetarian soup of white beans and meaty portabella mushrooms is served in "bowls" of halved and roasted butternut squash. Get the full recipe

Soup of Fresh Greens and Alphabets

This soup was how my Italian grandmother got me to eat the greens I detested. They say I was a bright child, but I didn't catch on to what she was doing until I was well into my teens. Get the full recipe

Features

Jane & Michael Stern: Ecola Restaurant and Market, Cannon Beach, OR

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Visitors to Cannon Beach on Oregon's majestic coast shouldn't miss the Ecola Restaurant and Market, named for nearby Ecola State Park (an oceanside rain forest). Gorgeous display cases await customers who come to buy fresh seafood of all kinds. Others can have their choices prepared to eat on the premises or to take away.

It's all here: oysters, clams, prawns, scallops, Dungeness crab, halibut, albacore tuna, troll-caught salmon and more. Order the Fish & Chips and take your pick from the cases for the fish part of the equation.

While you're in the area try to catch the sunset at nearby Haystack Rock. This giant outcropping of rock rising from the surf is most spectacular late on a sunny day when the sky turns pink and the mists roll in. It's worth the trip.

Ecola Restaurant and Market
208 North Spruce Street
Cannon Beach, OR
No credit cards accepted
503-436-9130

Locavore Nation

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Thanks so much for this past year. We are humbled by the commitment and tenacity of each of you. Talk about candor, resourcefulness and imagination -- you folks are the models. Thank you for teaching us and our listeners so much about what is possible.
--Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

Canned Chicken Soup Tasting

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Christopher Kimball of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated stopped by the studio for a blind tasting of canned chicken soup with Lynne. Brands tasted were:

• Healthy Choice Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup
• Wolfgang Puck Organic Chicken with Egg Noodles
• Campbell's Original Chicken Noodle
• Progresso Traditional Chicken Noodle

The verdict? Progresso Traditional Chicken Noodle took top honors with Wolfgang Puck Organic Chicken with Egg Noodles coming in second. Healthy Choice Old Fashioned and Campbell's Original were deemed "inedible!"

The Coffee Calendar

How about a new calendar for the new year? Poster artist and social activist Ricardo Morales, a native of Puerto Rico's coffee-growing region, has produced a calendar that gives a month-by-month history of coffee, including the so-called dark side of the story. His 2008 calendar won the Best Graphic Design Award at the National Calendar Awards. For more information log on to www.thecoffeecalendar.com.

Heard on the Show

• The Sterns visit Ecola Market.
  
• We check in with our Locavore Nation.
  
• We chat with author Barbara Kingsolver.
  
• We visit with Aaron Wolf.
  
• Christopher Kimbal joins us for a Chicken Soup Tasting.
  

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