VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY:Buying locally grown food good for you, environment

Imagine my embarrassment when I read our column in the Independent two weeks ago and discovered I had sent in some rough notes about Vic’s natural history class field trip to Wrightwood instead of our carefully crafted column. Major whoops.

We had been rushing to catch a plane to Seattle, and I accidentally sent the wrong Wrightwood file to our editor. In retrospect, it’s no wonder. We’ve been gone so much lately that we barely have time to get the laundry done before we’re packed and out the door again.

This past week we were at Mt. Palomar with Vic’s birding and natural history classes. We stayed at the Bailey Mountain Resort’s quaint Planwydd Cabin. While Vic led his classes over hill and dale in search of birds and other natural wonders, I hunkered down in the cabin with my laptop. I am on deadline for finishing a photo guide of the plants of Bolsa Chica, a project I’ve been working on for nearly two years.

Spending time on Mt. Palomar at the cabin was heavenly. The only sounds were those of the local birds: Steller’s jays, mountain chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, acorn woodpeckers and Nuttall’s woodpeckers. By 10 a.m., the dawn chorus had subsided and I got down to work. Without the distraction of the Internet, my garden, the refrigerator, television and a dozen other diversions, I was finally able to make some real progress on the book. The temperature neared 90 outside, but the pine smell and low humidity made it feel much cooler and more comfortable than that.

After several solid hours of work on the plant book, I took a break to read. I’m deeply engrossed in Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable and Miracle,” her beautifully written saga of eating nothing but locally grown food for a year. She and her family raised much of their food themselves, canning and freezing the summer’s surplus.

The basic premise of the book is that by eating locally grown foods, we can help combat global warming. She points out that most food travels an average of 1,500 miles from its origin to our dinner table. Even relatively locally grown foods may be shipped to a central distribution point before coming back to our local stores. Kingsolver suggests we visit farmers’ markets and grow a garden. Eating locally burns less fossil fuel.

Vic and two of his students came back to the cabin late in the afternoon. They had found a newly opened restaurant, Palomar Mountain Lodge, and wanted to try it for dinner. I suppose “open” was really a stretch of the definition. Proprietors Brian and Sabrina Covington are in the process of renovating a 1920s historic community center into a bed and breakfast, and construction debris littered the hallways. The restaurant isn’t really open yet and there is no menu, but we prevailed upon them to cook something for us.

Sabrina called Brian on her cell phone. He hustled over to the lodge and fired up the grill. He had some potatoes, onions, hamburger, bacon, cheddar cheese, sourdough bread, juicy tomatoes and leaf lettuce that he turned into the best bacon-cheddar burgers we’ve ever had. The potatoes and onions were so good we wolfed them down before even starting in on the burgers. Did we mention they were half-pound burgers?

Vic mentioned there was a local birding couple who sometimes let people come watch birds at their feeders. Sabrina knew who they were, and gave Joe and Mary Robinson a call. They said to come on over. Life on the mountain is a lot more laid back and friendly than down here in the midst of 14 million people.

We got to the Robinson’s place at dusk as the last birds were leaving their two-dozen feeders. The view from the deck around their late 1800s log cabin was stupendous. We watched the sun set over San Diego County, sinking into the marine layer that hid the Pacific Ocean. Bats whizzed back and forth, scooping up insects. Joe and Mary gave us a tour of their rustic cabin, showing us photos of a mountain lion that had been shot there in the 1920s. Vic arranged to bring his natural history class there the next morning.

Shortly after dawn, Vic trooped off into the hinterlands while I worked on my book. During my afternoon break, I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s engaging book. I didn’t finish writing mine. But I came close enough that I will be able to turn it in to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy on time.

On our way back down the mountain, Vic and I stopped at a farm stand to pick up some locally grown avocados, corn and tomatoes. And in yet another nod to buying locally, we stopped at Orfila Vineyards near Escondido and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We bought some wonderful wines made from Merlot, Syrah and Sangiovese grapes grown there in the San Pasqual Valley.

When we got home, I thought about some of my food-buying habits. I have Sicilian lemon juice in the refrigerator, Italian olive oil in my pantry, and Australian wines in the wine rack. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle. California grows great lemons, olives and grapes. We’re going to spend more of our food dollars on locally grown foods and wines in the future. That’s a simple step we can take to help combat global warming.