Dining with my sister has always been a challenge. Since we were kids, she has exhibited a near pathological desire to uncover what exactly is, or is in, her food, lest it have "cooties." When she goes to restaurants, she insists on asking the waiter multiple questions. The inquisition goes on for what seems like the same amount of time it would take to prepare and consume the food in question: "What is good tonight?" "Are your chickens organic?" "Are the scallops ocean or bay scallops?" "Is the salmon wild, Atlantic, or Pacific?" "Is it made with sugar or honey?" "If so, is the honey raw or pasteurized?" And this goes on and on as my neck muscles tense and my growing sympathy for the waiter compels me to casually order the least-demanding item on the menu, therefore revealing ourselves as an onerous "Mutt and Jeff" routine.

Over the past few weeks, I have had to relive the discomfort of the demanding diner. This time, my sister was nowhere in sight, and I was the food apologist, the demanding diner, and the locavore. A locavore, by definition, is an individual choosing to consume—exclusively—food that has either been grown, farmed, or produced locally. The catchphrase and ethos are the creations of three San Francisco Bay Area locals who, out of concern for the environment and the viability of local farmers, began a movement to compel friends, family, and the fanatical to consume only what has been created within a 100-mile radius of where they live. Other reasons to join the fray include supporting the local economy, attaining fresher product, eating seasonally and reasonably, promoting sustainable farming, and even protection from bioterrorism. (If I eat Hawaiian pineapples, have the terrorists won?) So, as a personal endurance test, I became a temporary locavore and began my selective grazing, sticking to it for all of August and for three more weeks, only eating food raised within the fertile Hudson Valley.

Now, it is fitting that this locavore concept would have been the brainchild of Californians. I don't say this with disdain or judgment. I was born and raised in California, and consider myself quite intimate with the mindset, as well as the agricultural landscape. Of course, in a state that supplies roughly 80 percent of the nation's produce and bestows the indulgence of backyard avocados year-round, it makes enormous sense to get on your culinary high horse and feed. However, Upstate New York (regardless of how bountiful the summer months may be) does not hold a carrot to the vast quantity and quality of California produce.

Much like carnivores, locavores are strong adherents to their own ethos, and take their mission very seriously. There are numerous websites devoted to their mission (including www.locavores.com, www.eatlocalchallenge.com, and www.foodroutes.com) and the discipline of keeping it local. Challenges with wording vaguely reminiscent of goads and enjoiners often seen in the Jenny Craig Diet world abound on many discussion boards. This brought back memories of the one and only time I had ever attempted a diet. It was less a diet and more of a fast/cleanse that consisted of lots of salt water and lemonade and promised to detoxify my system. The dominant memories I have from that time are that of nonnegotiable hunger and a ruling narcissism that compelled me to think of only what was going in and coming out of my body. Needless to say, if I could avoid it, I will never saunter down that path again. But this was different, eating locally had everything to do with bounty and pleasure and nothing to do with deprivation. I could eat to my heart's content, and feel mighty neighborly in doing so.

The most sensible place to begin my new regimen was the market. Since it was Monday and there were no local farmers markets happening, I decided to hit Adams Fair Acre Farms in Poughkeepsie. Less a farm now and more of a supermarket, Adams has long-established roots as a roadside farm stand. In business nearly 100 years, the store proudly displays colorful "Buy Local" banners throughout its interior. So I picked up my Bear Naked Granola from Darien, Connecticut (65 miles away); organic milk from Ronnybrook Farm in Ancramdale (25 miles away); wheat bread from Bread Alone (16 miles away); and peanut butter from Woodstock Farms (30 miles away). Things became ever more challenging when I hit the produce aisle. The raspberries were from California. The kiwis were from Chile. The lemons were from Chile as well. The tomatoes were from a hothouse in Canada and the apples were from New Zealand, on the complete other side of the Earth. I flagged down Paul Fitzpatrick, an employee and produce buyer at Adams, to inquire about how one was to stay local in a produce aisle that represented the United Nations more than the United States. He explained that Adams is committed to buying locally but cannot afford to do it exclusively, due to seasonal issues and growing demand from customers. "As local crops come in, we faze out the imports. When we have a choice, we go local," he assured me. Upon telling him what I was trying to do with my locavore regimen, he gave me a halfsmile and told me that "with half a billion people in the world, I find it hard to believe that everyone would be able to eat locally all the time." With that, he directed me to a pile of local peaches from Milton, and went on stocking oranges from Mexico.

I had better luck at Taliaferro Farms in New Paltz. There, husband and wife Peter and Robin Taliaferro have been providing locally-grown and organic produce to their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members and local farmers markets for almost a decade. They both are huge supporters of the locavore movement and prophesize that we, as a nation, "are running at a tremendous deficit, and this time of abundance will eventually end." Peter urges me to think about all of the Styrofoam, plastic, and gasoline used to package and transport foodstuffs all over the globe, and he goes on to champion how the CSA functions as a much-needed counterweight to a system of burden and excess. I see his point and stock up on chard, tomatoes, onions, and wonderfully knobby organic carrots.