The rain was pouring down in sheets, the streets smeared and shiny as licorice along Larkspur's main drag. You'd think that, on this chilly, wet Monday night, everyone would be at home pulling a pizza from the freezer and flipping through the Netflix stack, but up and down Magnolia Street, there's not a parking place to be found. By eight o'clock, nearly every table at Picco is full and happy.

Welcome to Marin Mondays, chef-owner Bruce Hill's popular eat-local brainstorm. The concept is simple: each Monday, the restaurant offers a homey, five-course prix fixe menu showcasing local producers, for $30-$33 a person. (The restaurant's extensive regular menu is also available, and the Marin menu items can be sampled à la carte.) Think Ad Hoc with a locavore twist, and so far, it's brought out big crowds every week, on a night that's typically a slow one in the restaurant biz.

This might be a tricky proposition in, say, Fargo, or Cleveland, but with the Pacific Ocean on one side, San Francisco Bay on the other, and the rich, rolling green fields, woods, and pastures of rural West Marin (plus oyster-friendly Tomales Bay) in between, Marin County is pretty much a year-round bounty of bliss for local-conscious eaters and producers alike. Fishermen, dairy ranchers, farmers, vintners, and foragers all work the land (and water) here, raising sheep, cows, goats, and chickens on grass, farming oysters in the bays, making cheese, distilling liqueurs, catching squid, growing greens, picking mushrooms, baking bread in wood-fired ovens, and more.

So, sourcing: not a problem. And the menu's once-a-week status gives Picco's cooks the chance to be micro-seasonal in their creativity as they come up with new recipes based on whatever cool stuff is available each week. As long as there's enough of it to feed one night's worth of customers, they can use it-- a great boon to the foragers and farmers with just a few acres of continually cycling crops. And the menu isn't strictly local-limited; there's coconut milk in the curry, candied ginger on the ice cream, sriracha hot sauce on the fish cakes. But flavorings aside, the bulk of the ingredients come from nearby, because even in the depths of winter, abundance reigns.

And the menu is open to interpretation each week, instead of being locked down in the pristine, unadorned Cal-Med style, all sea salt and olive oil, that has become the de facto way of cooking local here. On the night we went, the inspiration was Thailand, with a side of Jersey & Buffalo. Or at least that's how we interpreted the appearance of sliders, chicken wings, and soft-serve ice cream between the squid salad and beef curry. To sip, there are two local libations, a Stubbs Estate organic chardonnay and a Shaken, Not Stirred cocktail made with house-infused elderflower liqueur and Square One cucumber vodka, made in Novato.

Last Monday, in honor of Beer Week, there was beer from Marin Brew Company in every dish, from Hog Island manila clams steamed in Albion ale to a fritto misto battered with IPA, cheddar soup with pilsner and rye croutons, and a stout cake with Straus Dairy caramel ice cream.

But back to Thailand in Marin. We started with a light and lovely squid salad, tender and tangy and tangled with cubes of crunchy Asian pear and fresh herbs, alongside a puff of succulent miners' lettuce, that wonderful winter weed named for adding much-needed vitamins to many a Forty-Niner's salt pork-and-sourdough diet.

Next up, a gloriously (but not excessively) greasy fish "slider," White Castle meets Thai fish cake. Unlike the fish cakes in Thai restaurants, which are often bounceably rubbery, these were more like crab cakes, made with rock cod from Bolinas, gentle and just a little springy, lavished with crunchy County Line cabbage and Star Route Farm carrot slaw, dripping with sriracha-spiked mayo and paired with super-crunchy, extra-salty chiplets made from sunchoke curls.

Superbowl-sublime chicken wings from Coastal Hill Farms followed, lacquered sticky-meaty mouthfuls, messy and wonderful. A thick puddle of seasoned Straus yogurt sauce and a mound of shredded celery root with baby watercress replaced the ranch dressing and celery sticks of sports-bar tradition. Dressing up lowbrow favorites doesn't always work (I'm still shaking my head over the dainty arugula-and-mandarin-orange salad served with the lobster roll at nearby Yankee Pier when they first opened—when, as every New Englander knows, a true lobster roll needs nothing but a bag of chips) but in this case, it's great.

By this time, we're pretty happily fed. The main dish, a Mussaman beef and potato curry, looks a little skimpy lurking at the bottom of its big white bowls, but it's deceptive. Rich and coconut-sauced, dotted with translucent, almost fetal baby radishes, the Marin Sun braised short ribs fork tender and lush, it turns out to be all we need.

All we're expecting for dessert is a bitty swirl of Picco's famous Straus Dairy soft-serve, what might fill a Chinese-restaurant teacup. Instead, we get a massive swirl towering above a cereal bowl, heavily crunched with candied ginger and pecan praline. Lovely, palate-cleansing, and crazily big.

Then again, being graced with too much ice cream made from the milk of happy local cows? Way, way down on my list of Bad Things.

Picco
320 Magnolia Ave.
Larkspur, California 94939
Map
415.924.0300
Picco on Facebook

Photos by Debra St. John

No, I don't have a back 40. Maybe I have a back four like you, a 4x4x4 chunk of concrete back patio in Bernal Heights, ancient cactus in one corner, Wizard-of-Oz cyclone cellar door in the other, a few beat-up chairs, windchimes, and ashtrays filling in the rest. Perfect for a garden! Last summer, my gardening lust didn't get tripped until July, when I came home with high hopes and a couple of leggy tomato plants, only to find myself running a soup kitchen for a hungry neighborhood of whiteflies and aphids. Embarassing for someone with a certificate in ecological horticulture, to say the least.

This year, I put that hard-won CASFS knowledge to use. To wit: pests prey on weak plants, plants growing out of season, deprived of the nutrients they need. A healthy eco-system is one that supports beneficial bugs and pollinators, with a mixed palette of plants and bugs that can overwhelm destructive pests. Food not lawns, sure, but flowers can be just as hard-working as veggies, pumping out the nectar that feeds the bees and wasps, and in the process both enabling plant sex and elbowing out less desirable insects. Bachelor's buttons, borage, sweet alyssum, morning glory, cosmos, sunflowers: they all bloomed and did their part, along with the stunning salpiglossis that was just there to look gorgeous.

So, what was growing in the back four by four? Tomatoes, of course, which no summer gardener can be without, even in too-chilly, too-foggy San Francisco. Not having the willpower of the Zen gardeners at Green Gulch, who bow to the powers of their surrounding cool marine winds and don't even try, I compromised with a couple of cherry tomato plants, a Chadwick Cherry (named after Alan Chadwick, mad genius and founding UCSC gardener) and a Golden Nugget, both birthed from thumb-sized starts from the Free Farmstand. The rest of the veggies came from seeds, thanks to my conviction that unless it's grown from seed, you didn't really earn it and it's not really yours.

Now, I'm not a spiritual person. Planting seeds is the closest thing I get to an expression of faith: you hold these tiny specks, all shapes and colors, and trust that they contain everything to rise into life. You slip them into the dirt, water them every morning, and the day after you've skeptically succumbed to doubt, they pop up, all fresh and new, eager to spin the whole wheel again. Samsara, sure, only it all tastes really, really good.

What I grew, all in containers using just potting soil, encouraging words, and (no, I'm not proud, but I'm honest) the occasional dose of Miracle-Gro, along with size-10 sneakers unashamed to stomp on lettuce-munching caterpillars: French Baby Nantes carrots, which stayed pinkie-sized but were amazingly sweet and crunchy; sugar snap peas, prolific and delicious, despite a leaf-devouring case of fog-borne powdery mildew; the aforementioned Golden Nugget and Chadwick Cherry tomatoes; African blue basil, skimpy-leaved but prolific in pretty mauve flower spikes; tiny whorls of green and red container lettuce, mostly eaten by those effing caterpillars; and of course, early summer's fingerling potatoes.

My old pals Sally and Christina, who came over to photograph, then eat, that first potato crop, came by again to dine on the fruits of the Summer Salad Project, augmented by a variety of local items. There was some crusty sourdough flatbread I'd made from locally grown and milled grains: whole-wheat flour from Eatwell Farm and cornmeal from Erin at Ridgecut Gristmills, glossed with olive oil from McEvoy Ranch near Petaluma and flavored with summer savory from a Marquita Farm mystery box.

With it went garden antipasti: the five ripe cherry tomatoes we could pick, a handful of sugar-snap peas and baby carrots, sheep's milk ricotta from West Marin's Bellwether Farms and a bowl of homemade mayonnaise. And Julia Child's advice aside, you don't even need to warm the bowl; as long as you go slow whisking in the oil in the beginning, making mayonnaise is a snap. All it takes is olive oil, lemon juice, salt, egg yolks, a little mustard, a whisk and three or four minutes' worth of patience.

There were also deviled eggs made using more of that mayonnaise, because who doesn't love a deviled egg? For dinner, garlicked-and-lemoned greens, made from a mixture of erbette chard, radish and beet greens, all pulled from the mystery box, and the piece de resistance: a succotash of Brentwood corn mixed with roasted serrano chiles, heirloom tomatoes, basil and savory from Mariquita, plus roasted torpedo onions and fresh flageolet beans grown by Annabelle at La Tercera Farm. In our glasses went pink vin gris from Bonny Doon, bought on sale at Good Life Grocery up the street.

Now, I'm name-checking for a reason. This isn't brand-naming just for some kind of locavore dirt cred. The dinner was local on purpose, but it also wasn't particularly hard to put together, thanks to the agricultural abundance surrounding us. What was on our plates was also community through commerce; all these vegetables were the livelihoods of people I've gotten to know, even just a little, through buying their vegetables week after week, visiting their farms, walking through their fields or orchards. It doesn't take much time to put a face on your food, and to make it part of a larger web of interlocking stories and histories, a personal geography marked by olives and zucchini, the taste of a milky green wheat kernel or the sight of two tiny leaves poking up out of the dirt.

And that night, looking around the table, Christina said grace to thank the earth, the farmers, the cook, and friendship, for making it all worth it.

Saturday morning at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market was classically representative of the way I shop the market. My plan was to get in and out in about an hour and go home to start my day. But all the vendors had stories, and I ran into friends and two and a half hours later, I was trudging home, my arms laden with lots of delicious goodies for the week.

This time of year is special at the market, as I think that the market changes drastically from week to week.

A couple days before the market, CUESA mentioned on their twitter feed that Lagier Ranches would be selling the elusive sour cherry this week. That was enough to motivate me to get to the market right when it opened, and it was a good thing that I did. The scene around the small yield of sour cherries was intense. "That woman just bought $50 worth of cherries!" my friend Jenn mentioned to me. I know that sour cherries are pretty rare here, and that they have a nearly cult following among some communities. The cherries were completely gone within about 45 minutes, and I brought home my precious two pounds to brandy for cocktails.

Fruit crops burst on to the scene for just a moment and are gone. My favorite Bing cherries are here, but only for about a month. I tasted Bings from many vendors this week before deciding that I would purchase my weekly ration from Johann at Hidden Star Orchards. Sierra Cascade Blueberries will be around for the next few weeks. I love Sierra Cascade's blueberries because they are small, full of flavor, and slightly tart. You can find them in the back of the building, right below the Gandhi statue. This morning, Sam mentioned CandyCot apricots which are only around for a couple of weeks a year as well. These apricots are extremely high on the Brix Scale for sweetness, and I see people carry them around the market like treasures.

If you know Nigel Walker, the proprietor of Eatwell Farm, you know that he is always working on new, fun projects and products. Word has it that he is working toward a grain CSA which would provide customers with a variety of grains and dried beans throughout the year -- much like his vegetable CSA does now. When I saw that he was selling large bunches of triticale (a wheat-like grain) this week, I knew that soon he would be providing us with fantastic local and organic grain.

This week, Fatted Calf debuted a new all-beef hot dog made with lamb casings. The beef is sourced from Marin Sun Farms, and I am really looking forward to tasting them. By the time I arrived at the Fatted Calf booth around 8:15 am, they were gone so I will be sure to pre-order by email next time.

The photo at the top of the post is of the lovely strawberries that Lucero Organic grows. Many of us are still missing our beloved Ella Bella Farm -- a great farm that closed up shop in California last year. But I've found that Lucero's strawberries almost make me forget how much I loved Ella Bella's. They are a great replacement from a farm that brings impeccably beautiful produce to the market.

Last Sunday, a brand-new farmers market opened in one of my favorite San Francisco neighborhoods: The Inner Sunset. The market, in the parking lot at Ninth and Irving streets, is run by the Pacific Coast Farmers Markets Association and will run from June through November. Walking into the market, you get a feeling of a true community event. Neighbors are greeting each other, and the general atmosphere was festive and fun. The market is mostly vegetable and fruit vendors, but shoppers can also purchase eggs, baked goods and prepared foods. There is even a tofu vendor, but I don't remember seeing any cheeses or meats.

By the time I arrived, the eggs were sold out, but the vendor -- Smart Eggs -- looks interesting. It's a student-run egg farm that is from Modesto Junior College.

There are quite a few farms from the coastal region and several from the Central Valley. I will be returning to this market. It's a fun, mellow option for a Sunday morning market.




The vendor list, as I noted it, is as follows:

Serendipity Farms
Far West Fungi
Berrylicious
De Palma Farms
Capay Organic
Wassum Ranch
Smart Eggs
Tofu Yu
Bakers of Paris
Her Farm
Arizmendi Bakery
Garcia Farm
Rodin Farm
Calolea
City Bees
Fifth Crow Farm
Kashiwase

Inner Sunset Farmers Market
9am - 1pm, Sundays
In the parking lot behind the Irving Street shops.
Enter from 9th or 8th Ave
Runs through November 22

For about as long as I have been talking about eating food from local farmers, I have been talking about Gary Paul Nabhan. He is the author of a book called Coming Home to Eat which definitively changed my life's course and really made me focus on talking about eating local food.

Gary Paul Nabhan spoke at a CUESA-sponsored event last week, and I cleared my calendar to go hear him speak. I'd never seen him in person, and was excited to do so. I was running late and starving, so I grabbed a quick salami sandwich from Boccalone and dashed upstairs at the Ferry Building to get a seat.

I have a tiny aside here that I need to mention before I go on: I am pretty shy socially. Around my friends, I'm brave and slightly irreverent. But when I have to introduce myself to strangers, or have to speak or represent myself, I'm pretty shy.

That's why it's remarkable that halfway between scarfing down my salami sandwich and settling in my seat, Mr. Nabhan walked over and I casually introduced myself and we chatted about the Eat Local Challenge. He and I had emailed last year (when he submitted a post for the Eat Local Challenge site), so I was pretty safe in introducing myself, but I'm still a little stunned that I was able to calmly chat with one of my heroes like he was a friend of mine. It was a thrill.

Mr. Nabhan was speaking in conjunction with Ashley Rood about their book Renewing America's Food Traditions which highlights the endangered foods in America. Mr. Nabhan is a proponent of Eater-Based Conservation -- the idea that if you want to save a particular food, you have to eat it. He says that without a demand for a unique food or varietal, a farmer will never make room on their farm for it. We have many examples of endangered foods here in California. I talked about Santa Maria Pinquitos a few weeks ago, and they are highlighted in the book along with the Sierra Beauty apple, white abalone, and other native foods.

Mr. Nabhan and Ms. Rood had wonderful stories of foods around the country that have been revived through this project -- from the Marshall Strawberry to the Makah Ozette potato which can be found in the Northwest and is now more widely available.

The CUESA staff recorded this discussion and will be posting it at CUESA Listen & Learn when the recording is ready -- it's worth a listen.

It's an exciting time around the farmers market these days. I hadn't been to the market for about two weeks, and was amazed at how much the market changed in a short amount of time. There is a promise of summer fruit in the air, and the spring vegetables are in abundance. Here are some of the things I am looking forward to this month:

CHERRIES

Cherries are making their way to the market, and should be available for approximately a month. We usually see the Brooks variety cherry first which is a crisp, tart cherry. That will be followed by Bing cherries, Rainier and sour cherries among other varieties. I am partial to Bing cherries from Lagier Ranch -- Mr. Lagier brings them to the market when they're perfectly ripe and delicious. This year, I will be keeping an eye out for sour cherries, as they make for a delicious brandied fruit which can then be used throughout the year for cocktails and desserts.

POTATOES

A while back, I told you about new potatoes -- the beginning of the season potatoes that are spectacular in flavor and freshness. I'm happy to report that they are back and I spotted them at the Berkeley Farmers Market last week at the Full Belly Farm booth. They are expected at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in the next month or so.

PEAS

Denise told you about making a pea soup this week, and I am looking forward to trying out that recipe. The fact of the matter is that my peas rarely make it past the shelling stage as I usually eat them raw or slightly steamed. But if you have the willpower, now is an excellent time to shell and freeze peas. My favorite place to purchase them is the Swanton Berry Farm booth that is in many local farmers markets.

STRAWBERRIES

Northern California is very lucky: our strawberries have an extremely long fruit season, and we will have them around for a while. Still, this is the perfect time to buy strawberries and freeze them if you can. If you have room, I suggest hulling the berries and freezing on a large cookie tray before storing in a freezer bag. I buy mine from Lucero Farm and from Yerena Farm.

ALMOND BUTTER

This is not really a seasonal product, but I just wanted to give a shout-out for Greg Massa's excellent Almond Butter. You may know Massa Organics farm for selling really delicious brown rice at many Bay Area markets. If you check his booth carefully, you will notice an almond butter that he has been producing for a few months. I am addicted to this almond butter, and highly recommend trying it. It's pricey, but if you eat almond butter as slowly as I do, you'll only be making the investment every few months.

What are you looking forward to at the market this month?

In addition to some personal New Year's resolutions, I have a couple that have to do with lowering my impact on the earth and shrinking my carbon "foodprint."

I am pretty proud of my low-impact ways: I eat locally, I car share, I recycle, and I buy bulk from the co-op. In short, I live a lot of my life taking the environment and my impact on the environment into consideration.

But I've known for a while that I could do more, and have tailored a couple of resolutions to that end.

Resolution #1: Cut my food waste.

We've all heard the statistics: one-third to one-half of all food in the United States goes to waste. Now, there's a lot of that waste that happens way before the food gets to me: it spoiled at the farm or factory, or was thrown away during processing, or was otherwise wasted before it ever reaches the consumer. But what I do have control over is what happens to the food once it gets to me. As a single person who loves to cook and shop, I tend to over cook. I would be quite mortified if any of you saw what I throw away some weeks. I know I'm not alone, but it's still quite shameful. Even if I can compost it, I need to get into the habit of not buying this food, or using it all up when it's purchased.

This Sustainablog article has great pointers for other ways to cut down on food waste, and I'll be using their pointers as I go through the year.

Resolution #2: Meatless Mondays

Nearly all studies show that a meatless diet is better for the environment than an omnivore diet due to the amount of energy it takes to raise our cows and pigs and chickens. A 2007 article from Grist suggests that "If every American had one meat-free day per week, it would reduce emissions as much as taking 8 million cars off the roads." I don't eat meat at every meal, but it is novel for me to intentionally go completely meatless one day a week. I'm going to try to keep it up through 2008.

These resolutions mean that I am going to have to more planning of my meals. I don't think I will ever be someone who plans my meals for the week like I am planning an international trip. If I can even plan on a notecard like you see above and stick to the plan, I will have succeeded in working toward my resolution goals, I believe. I'd love to hear any menu planning tips that have worked for you.

As I've mentioned here, October is Eat Local Month around the nation. While I tend to concentrate on local eating throughout the year, October is a fun time to renew my efforts and find new local products.

Toward that end, I shopped at the Sunday San Rafael Farmers Market this weekend. Sporting my new Praise the Lard t-shirt, I hopped in a Zipcar and drove the twenty minutes to the Marin Civic Center.

I really love the San Rafael Markets -- they are held at the Civic Center (a Frank Lloyd Wright creation) on Thursday mornings and Sundays. While the Thursday market is mellow, quiet, and impressive in its produce offerings, the Sunday market is jam-packed, loud, and quite large.

It had been several months since I'd been to this market, and some new vendors were in attendance. The market seems to be really pushing for more local products, and the farms seem to be much more locally-based than ever before.

Devil's Gulch Ranch is in Nicasio and was offering milk-fed pork and rabbit. They are hosting a farm tour and dinner on November 8 which would be a great way to see the farm in person.

My absolute favorite find of the trip was the new organic dim sum booth that is located in the back of the market. The company is called Tru Gourmet and, for the time being, is only available at the Marin Farmers Market. I bought four pieces for $5 from their extensive list of offerings, and was impressed with the bright flavors and excellent taste. You can read more about Tru Gourmet in this article from the Marin Independent Journal.

It's a fun time of year to go to a market. Our California weather means that tomatoes are still available (the tomatoes pictured above being from Costal Fog Organic Farm in Petaluma) along with other typically summer produce alongside with winter squash and winter greens. Marin Roots Farm had absolutely gorgeous red carrots. When cut open, the insides are bright orange and the flavor is sweet. In addition to the carrots, I bought a kabocha squash from Paradise Valley Farm, beautiful braising greens from County Line Farm, and oxtails from Marin Sun Farms. Andante Dairy is attending this market and I picked up some Etude cheese, which I've already completely consumed.

In the coming weeks, I am looking forward to seeing more pomegranates, brussels sprouts, and pumpkin varieties. I hope to see you at a market!

October is Eat Local Challenge month around the nation. Over at the Eat Local Challenge blog, we are excited to have over two hundred people who have committed to eating locally in their area for the entire month. We choose to eat locally because it supports the local economy, because it supports local farms and farmers, because it's lighter on the earth, and because it supports responsible development.

Since its meager beginnings in 2005, the Eat Local Challenge has grown to a movement that is beyond any of our dreams. This is evidenced by the cooperation of many organizations in San Francisco that are bringing you a myriad of eat local events throughout the month of October.

Even if you don't commit to eating locally for the entire month (though we'd love if you sign up and participate!), there are lots of ways that you can support eating locally in October in the Bay Area. Here are just a few ideas:

1. Support restaurants in the Bay Area that make a habit of buying from local farms. Just a few ideas include Delfina, A16, SPQR, Flea Street Cafe, Coi, Piccino, Pizzetta 211, Serpentine, Hog Island Oyster Company, Pauline's Pizza, NOPA, and so many others.

2. Support restaurants in San Francisco that are committing to buying locally in October. Eat Local SF is a local organization that has worked with restaurants to provide special Eat Local menus during October. Those restaurants can be found via Open Table.

3. Learn more about eating locally by attending a lecture. The Commonwealth Club is hosting a four week series about eating locally. I will be attending several of the events. I sat in on some of the planning sessions for these events, and am excited about the panelists at each. Events include:
October 1. Local Food, Local Pride: Policies for Sustainable Economies
October 8. The Water Connection: State Policies and the Impact on Local Food Systems
October 15. From Farm to Feast: How chefs, farmers and artisans strenghten our community
October 22. Food as Medicine: Health and Food Safety

4. Attend tastings of local wines and food at 18 Reasons each Thursday night in October. 18 Reasons is a great art + food gallery in the Mission, and I am excited to check out these celebrations of local wine.

5. Use the Buy Fresh Buy Local database to find local food in your area, and support those purveyors in October.

6. Attend a farmers market each week in October. Use the Chronicle website to find your local market.

7. Ask your supermarket manager where your meat, produce and dairy is coming from. Remember that market managers are trained to realize that for each person actually asking the question, at least 7 people want to know the same answer. Make a difference!

However you decide to support local eating in October, be sure to let us know what you're doing and how it goes.

No matter where you are in the nation, summertime is the perfect time to consider eating more locally grown food. It's good for your local economy, good for the environment, and good for your families. Besides all of that, it tastes great.

When I began the Eat Local Challenge in 2005, it never occurred to me that it would become such a part of today's conversation. At that point, it was just a few of us around the country banging the drum for the importance of supporting local farmers and artisans.

Then came the influx: the eat local movement has been discussed in virtually every major newspaper and magazine and continues to be a top discussion nationwide. I never thought I'd see Wal*Mart saying "buying local can be a great thing for the planet." While the proof will need to be in the pudding before I start shopping at Wal*Mart, it's still a very interesting and exciting feeling when large corporations start talking about eating locally.

If you're interested in brushing up on your eat local news, the New York Times has published an on-line, comprehensive guide which has an archive of all NY Times articles and links to many eat local discussions.

If you'd like to watch an Eat Local Challenge take place in a practical manner, the One Local Summer challenge is occurring as we speak. One Local Summer challenges folks around the nation to cook, and write about, one entirely local meal each week through the summer. It's been a joy to read along as people from all reaches of the country report about their local meals.

Each year, the Eat Local Challenge website hosts a month-long challenge which asks people to consider eating locally grown food for the month. The challenge can be what you make it -- either eating entirely local food, or just committing to shopping at a farmers market each week, or having a party with all local food at some point during the month.

For the first time publicly, I'd like to announce that this year's Eat Local Challenge will be in the month of October, and we are joining together with several local groups to bring you some interesting events and exciting on-line challenges during that month. I'm more excited for the Eat Local Challenge this year than any of the previous three years, and hope that you'll keep an eye on the Eat Local Challenge website in the upcoming months to find out how you can participate.