Year of Plenty: A Recipe for Living and Cooking Local

Craig Goodwin and his family undertook a year of sustainable living.  The result was an adventure and a lifestyle experiment that included churning their own butter, a backyard chicken farm, a vegetable garden, purchasing locally-made and used goods and getting to know local food producers, all documented on The Year of Plenty blog.  We interviewed Craig about the blog and his experience living a more sustainable lifestyle. 

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

I am a father, husband and Presbyterian pastor in the City of Millwood, on the urban fringe of Spokane, Washington. I am a certified Master Food Preserver, a backyard farmer, a farmers' market manager and I write a blog about the intersections of food, community and faith.

What was the inspiration behind creating yearofplenty.org?

Going into 2008 we were feeling burned out from the crazy consumption rhythms of Christmas and started brainstorming different ways of being consumers. Out of this conversation we decided to try to live for a year consuming everything local, used, homegrown and homemade. Surprisingly this new year's resolution stuck and led to a great adventure of living off the beaten path, walking to work, eating seasonally, living without sugar, making our own butter, turning our lawn into a vegetable garden and taking our whole family to Thailand at the end of the year.

We selected one international location to purchase items from during the year and made a pledge to visit it just as we committed ourselves to making field trips to the local producers of our consumer goods. We took our insurance check from our totaled minivan and used the money to buy 4 tickets to Thailand. Living with one car was our compromise for not being able to buy local fuel.

The blog started as a way to chronicle our experiences during the year and has evolved into an ongoing exploration of the issues and experiences. The blog was picked up by the Spokesman Review owned green living site, Down to Earth NW, which I maintain with mostly the same content on my yearofplenty.org site.

What can readers find on the blog?

I blog about a variety of topics, but food (local and sustainable food especially) is the thread that seems to hold it all together. The heart of the blog is a community of people interested in gardening, raising chickens, providing healthy meals to their children, and finding a meaningful sense of community and connection in their lives. One of my goals with the blog is to equip and provoke people to explore and discover their local foodshed and the farmers that cultivate it.

Could you describe one of the most uplifting moments of the Year of Plenty project?

Early on in our year we sat down around the dinner table and said our nightly prayers and along with thanking God for the food on the table we very naturally thanked God for the farmers who had provided the food, and who we now considered friends. Through the farmers' market I manage and our quest to find fresh vegetable in January in a northern climate we had developed lasting friendships.

Going into our year we said we wanted "To evaluate things in ways other than dollars. To form a new economy of consumable goods in our lives anchored in caring relationships with people we know." Those relationships continue to uplift us today.

What responses have you received from blog readers/neighbors/friends?

Along the way I've been confronted by the PR folks at the American Ag Bureaus for some of my posts about industrial agriculture practices and highlighted by Al Gore, NPR and the New York Times for my exploration of faith and churches going green.

While there have been a few high profile moments, the most rewarding part has been the interactions with ordinary folk like us sorting out life in what can be a crazy consumer culture. We're humbled that many have been led to start gardening or get chickens or shop at the farmers' market through sharing our story. We were very clear going into the year that we were doing this to save ourselves, not others. Preaching may be my day job, but I wanted to be careful not to take a preachy tone with the blog. I hope people are saying, "If those Goodwins can figure out a way to do some of this stuff, then surely we can too." We also learn as much from the readers of the blog as we share, so I really value the input we get.

Is the Year of Plenty a time-limited project or a way of life for your family?

It has become an ongoing project. We're not as rigid about our "rules" anymore, but our consumer lives have definitely changed and continue to evolve. We've learned the importance of investing in experiences as opposed to mindlessly spending our precious resources on stuff. Because of our experience raising chickens, I no longer eat industrially raised chicken or beef and have come to enjoy organic tofu. When we go to a restaurant, our children now ask to go to locally owned establishments and we plan to return to Thailand soon.

What are your favorite things to cook/bake?

Nancy is the real hero of our year(s) of plenty because she does almost all of the cooking and baking. She has developed a wonderful recipe for oatmeal bread and homemade vanilla ice cream. Fresh vegetables are the biggest hit during the summer. The girls eat lightly salted and pan seared zucchini chunks like they are French fries. Through the winter months we eat a lot of our fingerling and purple potatoes from the previous summers' harvest. For thanksgiving we had mashed potatoes made from purple, pink and white spuds. We can a year's supply of pickles, jam and salsa every summer and Thai food is also a favorite. Nancy lived in Thailand for three years so we're spoiled with authentic Thai meals every week.

If you could summarize sustainable living into one quote, what would it be?

Sustainability for me is a life of consumption dedicated to caring for people all along the supply chain, not just the people opening the fridge or plugging in the appliance. This requires us to get to know the people and land that are involved in bringing our consumer products to market. It leads us out of the fog of disconnection and leads us to responsibility.