New Traditions for the Holiday Season

Chain-store challenged? Box-store battered? Shopping-mall shamed? Parking-lot panicked? 

Do Black Friday and Cyber Monday tend to cramp your style??  There is a new tradition you can adopt to cure your holiday-shopping stress and add some meaning to your thoughtful purchases. Consider getting out there this Saturday, November 28th, to support your local businesses during Small Business Saturday.

This awesome new holiday, created in 2010 as the antithesis of Black Friday in response to dying main streets and frustrations with supporting corporate conglomerates, has gained steam quickly.  Heavily supported in ads funded this year by American Express, one of the largest small business lenders in the US, Small Business Friday has hit the mainstream and looks to be a permanent and growing fixture in American holiday shopping tradition. While the holiday shopping season of 2015 is expected to be the strongest in years, more consumers than ever are now turning their dollars toward small mom and pop shops and retailers. And as they should! Small businesses power the US economy; according to the Small Business Administration, 54% of all domestic sales and 40% of all retail jobs come from small businesses.

I encourage you to kick off your holidays with a tradition dedicated to supporting local businesses on Small Business Saturday. But how can you join your fellow neighbors in seeking out new ways to support your community businesses as an ongoing tradition that extends far beyond one day? Here are ten awesome and easy ways you can support your local businesses this holiday season:

1.  Consider making holiday traditions that support local businesses.  This is not just about using your purchasing power on Small Business Saturday (though that's a good one!).  This is about finding ways to integrate your local community in your merry-making traditions.  Whether it's supporting the same mom and pop restaurant every day-before-Christmas-Eve, or making sure you always use some locally packaged hot chocolate from the corner store every year after light-seeing with your children, or getting together with friends to do a local holiday beer-crawl taste testing, there are oodles of ways you can incorporate supporting a local business into a yearly event.

2. Announce LOCAL! When you give a local gift, make your receiver aware of the gift's source. Making known your thoughtfulness and deliberateness as a purchase adds meaning to your gift, often makes it more valuable in the receiver's eyes, and helps the receiver know where they can source more should they want to support the business further. Consider including a business card with your gift, using an extra tag that announces that the gift is local, using a gift tag that proudly declares where the product was made.

3. Do not feel guilty for browsing!  I'll admit it: I always feel a little socially awkward walking into a small store if I don't intend to buy.  Perhaps it's because I like to browse without feeling obligated to open my tiny wallet, and sometimes I feel guilty saying no in more intimate situations than when I can easily reject a box on a chain-store shelf and keep walking.  But don't let your social/emotional feelings about interacting with a small store keep you from interacting with products. Know that you have no obligation to buy anything, and remember that your ability to have closer interaction with owners and employees is a GOOD thing, even when you risk feeling socially awkward. Become familiar with what products and services your local stores have even if it means simply browsing and not buying. Then when you need do something specific, you know where to go and you know you can get it locally. Small business owners know it is better to have clientele browse and leave empty-handed than to never have entered their local store at all.

4. Get over sticker shock.  YES.  Buying from a small producer almost always comes at a slightly higher price. There are a number of reasons for this, usually related to both quality and compensating someone appropriately for their hours so they can in turn live with a suitable quality of life. Remember that these reasons for paying a higher price are noble, and if it makes consumers in turn less likely to waste, then it is not actually such a terrible thing...

5. Shop local even on the days you don't want to get out of the house!  Winter weather getting you down? Consider using websites like Etsy, which have search engines capable of connecting you with artisans close-by, right in your home state!

6.  Look for the intersection between Cyber Monday and local businesses. Not enough time to hit up all the local stores on Small Business Saturday? Many local businesses will also offer Cyber Monday deals when you order from their website.  These deals can sometimes be seen days before Cyber Monday, helping you to put local products and deals on your radar from the comfort of your couch before the mad holiday rush begins.

7. Create a local wish-list. If you want to support local, don't just consider things you are purchasing for others during the holidays. Think of what others are giving you!  With oodles of apps and websites dedicated to wishlists for holidays, wedding celebrations, and baby showers, consider ways you can unplug from the box-store wish-list machine and instead encourage others to get involved in local shopping by turning their attention to things you would enjoy having sourced locally.

8. Shopping local is not just about a one-time stop.  Don't forget that Small Business Saturday is just one small day.  But many small businesses pride themselves every day of the year on customer service and filling personalized, specialty orders that provide you with a unique and precise product that answers your needs in a way a box store cannot.  By creating repeated interactions with merchants, customers are often able to reap the benefits of an intimate customer-producer relationship far beyond one day of shopping a year.

9.  Consider gifting an activity.  The holidays are not just about giving objects.  And supporting local is not just about buying knick-knacks and small, artisan products. Supporting local can also be about ways people can interact with their community. Think about activities offered in your area that can be done with others: things like making use of skiing passes, restauranting with friends, attending a local performance, hiking a local state park, checking out a local farm, touring a nearby winery, and seeking out a local museum with friends are excellent ways to give gifts that support local community.

10. Teach your children that this is what you value.  If you want your kids to grow into adults that recognize the value of small producers and family operations, display that behavior first-hand for them to witness by putting your dollars into those things.  Your actions will speak loudly and your valuable intentions will be imprinted on their hearts.

Here's wishing you a great kick-off to your holiday shopping on Small Business Saturday.  May you make local an integral holiday tradition!

Local Flour for a Local Cake!

I don't know why I feared it; I have gone through re-learning how to cook oodles of times with every move to a new country.  And yet when my family decided to go gluten and dairy-free, I was intimidated.  It is one thing to look for new ingredients that can be put in place of particular ingredients in familiar recipes. It is a whole other thing to relearn the chemistry behind baking from a new angle that requires new recipes never tried.  Then I came upon gluten free all-purpose flour.  And life has never been the same.

I am pretty sure if I were trying the dairy free gluten-free thing thirty years ago, I would be pulling my hair out and running to twenty stores to find food necessities.  But one of the amazing things about living in 2015 is the easy access to alternative foods that has literally gotten ten times easier in just the last five years.  Today I am featuring two well known flour companies, both of which have alternative gluten-free options right on my average-run-of-the-mill local grocery store shelves just down the road.

Arrowhead Mills, a company manufacturing gluten-free flour in Lake Success, New York*, has been a pioneer of organic food products for over fifty years.  Started under the premise that chemicals like herbicides and pesticides pollute the food chain, Arrowhead Mills is now a passionate voice in the push for environmental commitment and an integral part of the NON-GMO project.  Though their home base is located in Texas, the company pushes local resourcing throughout the country and boasts an 80% American grown ingredients rate in their products.

Don't be fooled; the second company I am also featuring as part of this love letter to gluten free flour is just as fantastic!  King Arthur Flour, now headquartered in Norwich, Vermont after its renowned start in Boston, MA, is nothing but committed to social responsibility.  At over 220 years old, America's oldest flour company and 100% employee-owned Vermont gem knows a thing or two about environmental-footprints and local community care.  I will definitely be popping into the flagship store the next time I'm near Norwich!

SO, now that I've introduced you to two awesome companies making some great gluten-free flour, let me introduce you to one of my favorite New Englandy recipes for the fall, featuring nothing but the most local New England apples, twenty feet out my back door.  Could there possibly be anything better than New England apples in the fall?  Perhaps New England apple cake!  ...  DO try this recipe.  Gluten free or not, you will enjoy!!

This funky "Appul cace," as he spells it,
  has been decorated by my fantastic 6 year old sous chef.

New England Apple Cake

2 1/2 cups of Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour

3/4 cup (organic is best!) brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of baking powder

¼ teaspoon of salt

3 eggs

1 tablespoon of lemon juice (and a bit of lemon zest if you want an extra lemon punch!)

1 cup of oil, I like either EVOO or coconut oil at room temp

3 cups of grated sweet apples (I’d say about 4-5 large apples)

1 cup of chopped pecans, or raisins/craisins if preferred

Confectioner’s sugar (optionally sprinkled on top)

Bake 350 or 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I have made this cake in all shapes and sizes; even muffins turn out well (though cook for a shorter time period).  The cake is dense, but super moist, and perfect with a bit of powdered sugar sprinkled on top! I like it better cooled, but who can wait?!

* Please note that although I do recognize New York is not actually part of New England, it IS local when food miles are concerned from geographical New England. For this reason, products made in New York are also featured on this blog.  (No corrections needed!)

Made in Massachusetts?!

Who knew a sneaker gem was so close to home?!  As my recent search for tennis shoes made me reflect on where exactly most shoes seem to come from, I found myself grasping at straws to come up with a locally-made option.  Then I found New Balance.

"Really?!  Made in Massachusetts?!"  Kudos go to New Balance, who surprised this shoe-skeptic!  With five domestic factories, two of which sit just miles from me in Massachusetts, it turns out that New Balance is the only major running-shoe company to produce a number of their products domestically.

Traditionally running shoes have been a labor-intensive product to create, requiring a number of assembly steps and a great deal of sewing.  For this reason, most of the large shoe-producing companies have their shoes made in foreign markets, where labor is cheaper. New Balance, though, has re-engineered many of their US-made shoes to require fewer labor inputs.  This is a notable achievement, accomplished for the sake of keeping their products more locally produced!

New Balance shoes only came onto my radar near the age of twenty, but the Boston-headquartered company has actually been in existence for over 100 years.  With a company value-list that includes three major tenets- moving the environment forward, social responsibility initiatives, and local community philanthropy- this is a company I feel good about supporting. Do your research and you will find a company taking care of its neighbors, donating over 6 million dollars per year to charities, and doing so with a concern for its local environment and employees. Please do check out New Balance's "Made in America" products ...made in our very own backyard!

http://www.newbalance.com/

A Local Halloween

A holiday gathering is an awesome time to celebrate what it means to value your local community.  Every geographical place does celebration a little differently, and it serves as a great reminder of some of the unique quirks that make home home.

My family enjoyed the first holiday of the fall season, Halloween, with a little extra gratitude and excitement this year for what it means to live in the Northeast.  After having resettled back after being abroad, it was our 6 year old Jonas's first Halloween. He had oodles of costume ideas running through his head, but finally settled on being poison ivy.  Do a google search of poison ivy costume, and you will see about 4,000 images of red-haired women in tight green dresses.  Good thing when Jonas' creativity gets going, it always comes with a strong vision and articulate directions!  

Jonas' idea for a homemade costume ended up being the perfect way to support local.  You may think I am ridiculous when I say that I am talking about Goodwill today on this local blog. 

"Goodwill? But that's a giant nation-wide organization!"

 

True. But one of the main tenants behind supporting local is resourcing what already exists in your region. Reusing, reducing, and recycling are easy to do when creativity and the perfect Halloween costume are involved!  I set out to Goodwill on Thursday with a list in hand for a pair of green pants, a green shirt, and a green hat, all sourced from local donations.  Fifteen minutes and eight dollars and 97 cents later, I swung by my local art store and purchased two small sheets of green paper, returning home with everything I needed to help Jonas' homemade costume visions come to life.

We were happy to enjoy a beautiful evening in the neighboring town of Windham, CT, where our child did his first ever trick-or-treating and (random local tradition) flashlight-egg-hunt at dark in the town square.  We saw oodles of fantastic costumes, happily ran into some great sets of friends, and got stopped by the local newspaper photographer who loved Jonas' locally-sourced, simply-handmade costume.  Though I have a lot of happy memories that take place behind a plastic Halloween mask from Venture or Target, my child's happy memories are not only of his first Halloween celebrations, but of our time making his costume together at home, letting him see his creativity come to fruition in his own hands.

Locally-sourced fun? Extra sweetness added to a very sweet holiday!