Ideal Bite

Every year the University of Virginia Student Planners Association has a large Thanksgiving Dinner for students, faculty, staff, and family. The past two years we've challenged ourselves (and deliciously rose to the occasion) to hold a 100 mile Thanksgiving. This year our focus is a 'glocal' thanksgiving...telling stories from around the world with food using local ingredients. We usually have 40+ dishes, plus no party is complete without local beer and wine!

Standard Thanksgiving: Turkey with all the trimmings Mushroom Stuffing Corn Casserole Green Beans Mac & Cheese Pumpkin Pie Wine

GrandParents Turkey Dinner Butterball Turkey topped with bacon Jimmy Dean sausage apple stuffing Homemade Turkey Gravy Mashed carrot and turnip mixed together with butter (Mom's favorite) Mashed Butternut squash with butter, cinnamon & nutmeg Cranberry jellied mold made in bundt pan with walnuts (Aunt's specialty) Boiled baby onions Homemade Apple Pie

I live in N. Central Montana, where we have numerous Hutterite colonies. I go to one near me the day before THanksgiving and pick up my locally grown turkey, corn, and green beans, sometimes onions and homemade rolls. My menu this year includes the following: Roast Turkey with Sage (homegrown) stuffing Sauteed Green Beans with corn Mashed Potatoes (locally grown) Sweet Potatoes Cranberry Orange Relish Homemade Whole Wheat Rolls and ORganic butter Roasted Vegetables Pumpkin Pie from Organic, Fresh Pumpkin Yum! Thanks, Pilgrims.

As I'm hosting the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge, we're very committed to having a local Thanksgiving. So far we've sourced everything we need from producers within a 100 miles for: - Heritage free-range turkey - stuffing - mashed potatoes - cheese broccoli souffle - salad - appetizers - pies - ice cream

Leg of lamb raised by a local 4H kid. Veggies will be whatever I get in my bag from the local CSA...probably squash and greens! Dessert will be apple crisp made with apples from the apple farm about 5 miles away.

Squash soup w/ local squash + onions/veggies. Apples + cheese from local farms Mixed salad from wherever mixed salad at the co-op comes from. Local wine. Whatever the rest of the family shows up with, but I'll challenge them to do this too!

Thanksgiving menu from the Finger Lakes Region in Ithaca, NY! Locally raised turkey with garden herbs Ithaca Stuffing (Ithaca Bakery breads, garden sage, farm fresh eggs) Arugula Salad with Local Goat Cheese & Candied Walnuts (Lively Run goat cheese, NY maple syrup) Farmer’s Market Roasted Fall Vegetables with Herbs (butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, thyme, rosemary, NY maple syrup) Cranberry Pear Crisp (both grown in NY!) NY Apple Pie (with local heirloom apples) NY Wines, Champagne, & Apple Cider (Six Mile Creek 2005 Riesling, Montezuma Winery Cranberry Bog, Bully Hill Champagne, Bellwether Hard Cider, Littletree Orchard Apple Cider)

What fun to read other's menus and how they source their food! In Denver, we'll be having mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, salad and squash from our local CSA (Monroe Organic Farms), dressing will be made with bread from a local bakery (Pajama Baking Company) and eggs from Monroe, turkey and baking is not my forte, but an apple tart with Colorado apples (Forte Farms on the Western Slope). YUM!

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Local Menu: -Roasted Heritage Chicken -Garlicky Kale -Roasted Roots: Purple Potatoes, Carrots, Turnips -Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Honey -Cranberry Apple Sauce with Maple Syrup -Oneida Heirllom White Cornbread -Pumpkin Pie (local eggs, milk, whole wheat flour) -New Glarus Dancing Man (local wheat) Beer