Our Eat Drink Local Challenge doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, which means our first real entry, 14 quarts of canned tomatoes in gold and red from our online editorial assistant Amber Benham, is extra impressive. If you’re lost, what we’re talking about is the idea that a week of eating and drinking locally (meaning Eat Drink Local week, of course) is way more than dining out at restaurants that support our local foodshed (though you should certainly do that too). It’s also about cooking at home, hitting farms and farmers’ markets, making jam or yogurt or beer for the first time or simply planting a seed or reading a book about food politics.
We’ve put together a list of 20 ideas along those lines, called it a Challenge, and we’re hoping that over the next two weeks you’ll try one or two and post photos of your handiwork to our Eat Drink Local Flickr feed (Amber’s toms are up there now) or if you don’t have photos, maybe post your reports to our Facebook page. We’ll be posting too, and hosting prize-filled culmination celebrations — just bring evidence of your work — at Chelsea Market on Oct. 4 and at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Oct. 7!
