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Up for a challenge


The challenge: For the month of September 2013, to only eat, as far as possible, food that is grown or produced within a 30 mile radius of Chepstow. By Jo Crockett


Pictures: Ian Hall I


love food and I enjoy cooking. I like the idea of eating locally too and all that goes with that: eating food that has less ‘food


miles’, knowing where my food has come from, where possible eating food that has been farmed ethically and sustainably, and supporting local businesses. I also like the idea of the sources of the food I eat being self-suffi cient and secure. And so, with my husband having recently


deployed to Mali with the British Army, I decide to distract myself by taking on this challenge. Little do they know, my two daughters are signed up too, as it seems senseless for me to continue to shop at the supermarket for their food, when I’m trying to source mine locally. I decide early on that I’m not going to be


fanatical about sticking to the rules of the challenge. I want to fi nd ways of shopping, cooking and eating that are maintainable long term. There’s no point enduring a month of deprivation, only to run back to the supermarket like some long lost friend at the end of it. The organisers of the challenge, Transition


Chepstow, provide me with a directory of local food producers. As I read down the list I can’t quite believe my luck. I seem to have found myself in local food heaven, a land awash with farm shops, markets, butchers and veg box schemes. There is Wye Valley honey, Somerset cave-aged cheddar,


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Netherend Farm butter from just up the road, and more local icecream producers than I can shake a stick at. Free range meat is plentiful, and breweries and vineyards abound - hurray! Local producers make and sell bread and cakes, fruit juices, preserves… there is even a local farm making charcuterie. I’m seriously excited, if a little apprehensive about what this is all going to cost. As September approaches I keep


thinking I should probably start preparing. I brainstorm some ideas for the three main meals of the day and stock up on a few store cupboard ingredients. It all feels a bit hotchpotch though and I fret about how we are going to last a few days, let alone a month. With my daughters joining me on this dietary journey, I feel a keen responsibility to feed them well. Mild feelings of panic erupt when it occurs to me that, no matter how good our summer was, I’m still not going to fi nd avocados or bananas growing near Chepstow. Just in case things get a little desperate,


I research the possibilities for foraging. Elderberries, hawthorn berries, rose hips and hazelnuts are all up for grabs in September apparently. Wild strawberries and raspberries are a lovely idea too but the only ones I’ve seen nearby have been wrapped in plastic and sitting on the supermarket shelves. And the two locally grown punnets I’d bought at Monmouth show had hardly


survived the car journey home, what with my two little ones sitting in the back guzzling them down. September comes and initially I get a little


carried away, spending several hours during the fi rst week exploring different places, and even websites, to buy delicious locally made foods. But after a couple of weeks my shopping habits settle into a comfortable rhythm, with the vast majority of my food coming from just three places – the Hanley Farm shop, a butcher in Tutshill and the trusty Chepstow Farmers market. With the apples and pears in my garden, the billions of blackberries that are around, and the occasional sympathetic friend donating a jar of homemade jam or chutney to my cause, I feel pretty well set up to last the month. Breakfast proves a struggle from day one


though. When my elder daughter asks for Rice Krispies, I wince on the inside when I tell her we’ve run out. She looks puzzled and challenges me on this, and I eventually concede that ‘Oh yes, silly me – we do have some’. I then change tack and start explaining the concept of the food challenge and why we can’t have breakfast cereals for a while. She looks even more puzzled and maintains that she still wants them anyway. I don’t think she gets it, but then I suppose she is only three. In time I manage to wean them on to toast with homemade jam or honey, and


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