After reading this post, don’t forget to enter our contest – you could win a new dishwasher. Plus, do you have your own story to tell? Send it to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com (no more than 300 words, please), and you could win one of 30 daily prizes.

Local, seasonal eating has become hugely popular over the past year, partly due to (or perhaps simply coinciding with) the release of one of my favourite books, The 100-Mile Diet (I interviewed the authors last summer, too). But as we all know, it’s one thing to eat local when you live in California; it’s another when you’re craving some fresh fruit in the middle of February. Plus, so many recipes don’t take seasonal availability into consideration. I remember reading a comment in a book once – can’t remember what it was, but I think it was a travel book set in Russia – in which the author noted what an odd combination peas and carrots really is, considering that their growing seasons don’t coincide at all without the help of imports and freezers. (You can read more about the benefits of eating locally produced foods in a post I wrote for the book blog The Savvy Reader.)

The Canadian Living Test Kitchen does a great job of incorporating seasonal ingredients into every issue – in the May issue, for instance, there’s a series of delicious-looking asparagus recipes (I’m planning to make the Asparagus, Mushroom and Red Pepper Strudel on page 130). But there are also a number of cookbooks being released that focus on cooking with seasonal ingredients.

One of the best I’ve seen is Anita Stewart’s Canada, which comes out on April 26. It’s a hefty book, and it’s more than a cookbook – Stewart tells stories of food producers across the country, and of the history of different foods in Canada. (Maple syrup gets its own chapter, naturally, along with honey and molasses.) She also explains the history of immigrant groups to Canada and how they developed their cuisines to follow Canadian ingredients, and in fact, many of the recipes are from around the world, just like so many Canadians are. The best part, for those of us who are trying to cook with local foods, is that recipes take this into account. This book would be a wonderful gift for anyone interested in exploring Canadian cuisine.

What are your favourite local and seasonal ingredients? What are you craving right now?

Today’s code word: Canada

Read more:
• 6 easy steps for seasonal summer eating
• 14 delicious rhubarb recipes
• CanadianLiving.com’s food blog: The Foodie File