Thanksgiving is coming up quick, and your entire family will be gathered around the dining table before you know it. With their Home for Thanksgiving campaign, the Great Basin Community Food Co-op wants to encourage locals to use locally sourced ingredients in their holiday meals.
“We wanted to conceptualize a campaign that would tie local food into our holiday meals and holiday experiences, and so much of the holidays is about creating memories with friends and family, and it’s about where we’re from,” said GBCFC outreach and human resources coordinator Meghan Collins. “Food and understanding where your food comes from is such an essential part of that.”
So the Co-op is having a raffle this month, and the winner will receive a gift basket full of Thanksgiving treats from the store. To enter, post a photo of your meal made with local ingredients or what local ingredient you’re planning on using in your Thanksgiving meal to Instagram, tag @greatbasinfoodcoop, and include #homeforthanksgiving. The winner will be drawn on Nov. 26.
Produce department leader Zach Cannady said there’s a variety of ingredients to choose from in the produce department.
“Avanzino Farms, they grow carrots for us all they way up to February, if the weather permits,” Cannady said. “We’ve also got beets from them, and they carry a wide variety of squash as well. And you get out into Lattin Farms, and they have those pumpkins, the sweet pie pumpkins. And then you can stretch all they way out into the Sierra Valley and the Sierra Foothills, and pull some of the watermelon radish from those guys and do some really nice sautés with those.”
There’s also local eggs from Hadji Paul, milk from Sand Hill Dairy, onions from Nevada Fresh Pak, butternut squash from Pioneer Farms, and many others. Cannady especially enjoys the winter squashes available because of the unique flavor profile created by our climate.
“What’s really cool about our local harvest is the temperature range, especially when it comes to these hard squash,” Cannady said. “What happens is as it freezes over night, it excretes more sugar into these plants, so they come out extraordinarily sweet. Same things with the melons, and that’s why we have prize winning melons.”
Regional turkeys from Diesel Family Turkey Ranch in Sonora, California, are also available to order at the Co-op only until Thanksgiving, while supplies last. They have non-GMO and organic turkeys available.
Buying local food contributes to the local economy and also can help the environment by cutting down on travel for food, but Collins believes it helps us connect us to our home, too.
“When we talk about celebrating where we’re from, we think about doing photography or learning about the history or going on a hike and looking at great views, but food is such an amazing channel to connect where we’re from,” Collins said. “We were talking about flavor profiles and unique fruits and vegetables that grow here and ways to connect to the people that grow food, so it’s just another means to get connected to where we are and celebrate it.