Halloween has come and gone.  Next up...Thanksgiving.  I've hosted the festivities for family and friends in the past and have always loved the challenge.  This year, however, I intend to up the ante.  My wife and I have lately embraced a movement called "Slow Food".  It encourages being very involved in all aspects of the food you take into your body.  Eating things produced locally, sustainably and responsibly. 
   
    Eating fresh and knowing where your food is coming from is no easy feat, particularly in this age of industrial food production.  The trade off:  Decentralizing a vulnerable national food production system, healthier and more nutritious fare which supports your local economy and enables you to know where your food originated and who is producing it and how, a sustainable approach in food distribution with a smalller carbon footprint...And taste.  Putting the flavor back into the most important thing in everybody's life-- food.

    Anyway, the experiment this year is to provide a feast as enjoyable as in years past using the principles of "slow food".  Everything comprising the meal will have originated within one hundred miles of my front door.  The vegetables- seasonal.  The ingredients- locally (and at the very least, organically) produced, right down to the wine (all Virginia vintage) and, yes, even the turkey (which will be pasture raised or free range).  The guests have been invited and assigned an item (something that each of them shines at).  Their participation in the challenge is entirely optional, but they have been briefed on the prerequisites should they choose to accept it (the ingredients, of course, originating within 100 miles of their homes).  So far, there has been surprising willingness (and surprising skepticism) about the whole affair.  To ensure that even the naysayers enjoy themselves, I will provide a supplemental turkey breast that is the same old, same old.  It actually provides an oppurtunity to taste test the two side by side and compare.

    Well, wish me luck.  I will document the whole endeavour so there is some record about what it took to put this thing together.  How hard was it compared to a regular year?  How much more (or less) expensive?  How did the feast compare taste-wise to any previous? Does eating only things in season rob you of a lot of options? What kind of variety can you get from all of your guests using items locally available to them?  I'm excited about the possbilities.