How local is your Shabbat? Many people set themselves the challenge to “eat local” for a meal, to focus on what’s available in a given place and season. My experience of eating local this summer so far transcends the cliche that I have to pause to remember how unusual this experience is, how much I have learned from it.

I’ve been growing food on 5 acres of land with a dozen or so other young Jews this summer at Adamah. Tonight is our last Shabbat together as a community, and we’re in the process of cooking a feast. The food is abundant, fresh, & for the most part, grown right here. The question is not, “What shall we make for dinner” but, “What shall we do with the tomatoes?”. It’s a relationship with the earth and the weather, and we’re learning that all things are possible — but not all the time. And noticing the results of a particular blend of sunny and rainy days, or the earth tilting away from the sun, or the summer winding down into fall, reinforces our awareness of the awesome diversity of edible plants.

Finally, if it’s true that “you are what you eat,” this meal is made with the sweat of some of the most talented, beautiful, caring, inspiring people I have ever met. The conversations while weeding, the grunting from behind the tiller, and everytime two people share the load of a heavy harvest bin full of zucchini — these are all in the food we eat. I don’t have to tell you it tastes damn good! Don’t let the concept of “eating local” get you too caught up in the number of miles or the gallons of gasoline. Eating local means eating the world you want to live in, the world you do live in. It means your food is a reflection of your experience of time passing, and a way to celebrate it. It means that instead of being nourished by proteins and vitamins, you’re being nourished by the people and the energy and the world around you.

So here’s what’s on the menu for tonight — shabbat shalom!

- Roasted Tomato Soup: four different kinds of tomatoes, all ripe from the vine, onions, thickened with milk from Angie and Zilpah, our nanny goats

- Potato Leek Soup: “We have so many leeks in our field” “Better go call the plumber then!” The jokes abound — but seriously, leeks are one of the more delectable members of the Allium Nation. We love them. We’re also putting a little fennel in this soup, one of the 6 bulbs that the deer didn’t nibble on…

- Baked Eggplant with Farmer’s Cheese and Dried Tomatoes: Imperial Black Beauty Eggplants are lighter than it appears they should be; it’s almost as if they float under the pointy leaves of the eggplant plant. Eva made cheese yesterday, and we’ll bake that with tomato sauce and fino verde basil (tiny leaves - so sweet!)

- Salad with greens from Chubby Bunny Farm, our great neighbors Dan & Tracy, and tomatoes, and onions, and whatever other goodies Naf can find…maybe a carrot or two (they’re almost ready — we’re holding our breath!)

- Grated Veggie Pancakes: potatoes, zucchini, beets, turnips, eggs, a little flour to make it stick, onions…. basically latkes, because who doesn’t love fried food?

- Roasted Garlic: our garlic is now in it’s fourth generation — meaning, we don’t buy seed, we save cloves every year and use that to start the next year’s garlic. After four years, this garlic is truly Adamah garlic, our own variety, particularly well-suited to the micro-climate of Falls Village, CT. Roasted till soft, spreadable on challah….

- Whole Wheat Challah: we went to Hawthorne Valley Farm on Monday, an amazing and inspiring farming village that includes a Waldorf school, co-op and robust farm and dairy operations, as well as a bakery. They don’t grow the wheat for their breads and cakes at the farm; rather, they import bio-dynamic wheat berries from the midwest, and mill them on-site. I bought some of the flour, and it has little gritty bits of ground wheat in it! The challah also includes eggs from our chickens, several different sizes, and shell colors, including blue!

- Peach Pie: peaches picked at Starberry Farm last weekend, $1/lb, from a 1200-tree orchard on the sloping hills of Washington Depot, CT. The orchard has been there for over 30 years, and is low-spray, and, as with cherries, when the trees are ready, the abundance pours forth! The wasps were having delightful feasts on the ripe fruit, a good sign that they’re not too covered in pesticides, and that they’re sweet!