Could you 'Eat Local' for an entire week?

The local Transition group has launched a challenge:  can you eat locally produced food for a week?

http://teigntransition.org.uk/eat-for-devon/#comment-87

The week starts this Sat 21 August and there are more details on their website - this is a South Devon challenge at the moment.

It's a really interesting proposition and I'm certainly keen to take the challenge myself, but will be postponing it for a week and doing it the following week.  Looking forward to the fish, meat, cheese, fruit part of it....but am rather worried about missing out on bread and pasta.  I guess it depends how strictly you follow the challenge - should we eat bread that was made in Devon but the wheat came from Canada?  I think the whole idea of the challenge is not to be too dogmatic, but just to really consider where each item comes from and to see what percentage of our normal diet is locally sourced.

Teignmouth Seafood House: Finest Crab, Scallops, Lobster...

It’s worth seeking out the tiny shed that is the Seafood House (newly opened Summer 2010) for the freshest, tastiest seafood in South Devon.

The small stable door, crab tank and chairs and table are between the Newquay Inn and the Ship Inn near the Back Beach and harbour.

They freshly catch and pick the crab to order (we only had one tiny piece of shell in 500g crabmeat which is quite impressive) and together with Nigella’s Forever Summer, I made a damn tasty Crab Linguine: white and brown crabmeat,  a squidge of garlic, some sea salt, a chopped red chilli, some grated lemon zest and juice, plenty of Extra Virgin olive oil and some chopped watercress or rocket, plus a heap of pasta.

Fresh crabmeat is the essence of summer food in Devon.  There are some fishmongers that pasteurise their crabmeat so that it extends the shelf life.  The stuff they sell here is so fresh and sells out so quickly they don't need to!

Place your orders on 07919 566630, or risk turning up Weds – Sun 10-ish till 4-ish.

I shall be trying their hand-dived scallops (95p each) and lobster (£4.50 / pot) on Friday and will report back.

Gelato - Italian Rose Petal Ice Cream

Normal transmission will resume in September, focusing on Devon...but in the meantime, I'm just back from two weeks in Tuscany, Italy and have some wondrous delights to share.

The ice creams kept us cool and the kids happy - we averaged one a day from this wonderful Gelateria in Buonconvento, Southern Tuscany.

Favourite flavours?  Kids - Straciatella (see the vanilla and chocolate one above), adults - Pistacchio or Crema (creamy custard).

This was a combo of vanilla and rose petal:

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