I know I said I’d pull it together last week to pursue the Eat Local Challenge**, but I’m a little ashamed to say I spaced on my local farmers’ market Oct. 1, the inaugural day of said challenge.

Luckily, I live just a few blocks from Co-opportunity, a co-op grocer in Santa Monica that offers a good amount of locally grown and produced products. To make things easier for myself, I decided to define local as anything from California — and dropped by Co-opportunity to find something, anything, that’d be appropriate for my Eat Local diet.

What I found: Some Cali-grown purple potatoes, gala apples, lemons, and garlic — plus rainbow chard from Givens Farm and extra virgin olive oil from Santa Barbara Olive Company, both in Santa Barbara, Calif.

I brought the bounty home and concocted a lunch out of the stuff. What I learned: Local eating inspires some very interesting dietary combinations. Below’s my yummy Tunisian potato salad with a side of garlic rainbow chard.

Okay — So the spices — salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper — were not local. And I was supposed to use new potatoes, not purple potatoes, for the potato salad. Still the dishes were both mostly local — and quite yummy despite the potato substitution.

For dessert, I bit into one of the Cali-grown gala apples. Then for a mid-afternoon snack, I made myself a tasty sweet and nutty yogurty concoction** that was 100% local!

Life is sweet. What are you eating for your Eat Local Challenge?

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