Cost of Local Eating

So today I received an email from South Mountain Creamery. They are raising their prices by 7%. So about $.25 per bottle. This is the second price increase this year. This past August they raised their prices $.25 per delivery. The baby will be 2 years old this summer. Then we can switch to only having two types of milk in the house. And in the fall she will be in school a few mornings a week. So for the next few weeks, I'll be looking into other milk options. Do I go back to the grocery store organics. How much have those prices gone up this year? What are other local dairy options? I don't know what it is about spring, but local food is back on my mind!

zen habits

So I've been reading zen habits and mnmlist lately. And I haven't taken much action. We've been renovating our home, which in some ways is sort of the opposite, and some ways moving us towards. B/c there were things our house did not have, that I'm hoping that now that we have, I can compensate less. We know have a guest room. And a second bathroom, and a laundry room, b/c it's unecessary for clean laundry to hit a dirty floor before it even makes it to the dryer. (This evening I used the laundry with a clean floor for the first time in this house, almost three years after bought it. yay!) But I'm hoping, that now that I think we really do have enough space, I can learn how to use it well, and get rid of what we don't need.

Related to food. I'm in some ways a horrible shopper, I got to three or more different stores every week, and there is no order to it, and while the mnmlist is sort of against eating meat, I really would just like to simplify my acquisition and consumption of meat this year. Related to storage and using a freezer. Which I'm excited to say that I've broken the habit of using the second fridge since we've started renovation for everyday use, I hope I can keep it up. Just plugging it in for when I'm hosting. (which will happen more b/c it's easier to host when you can use your house).

I have some new sources for meat I haven't explored much yet. Even though I cook all the time, and bake often, you'd be surprised at how rarely I cook meat. Maybe another topic to work on. More different kinds of recipes. I use ground beef often, but it's probably not ideal for everyday.

Talk soon!

In honor of my new reader!

I haven't tried this yet, but I think it's a wonderful fall recipe. I'm tired of keeping it up on my browser window, really I'm not going to make it this week.
Serve with veggies. I'm thinking Spinach....

Apricot Chicken Recipe

If you don't have fresh apricots, you can use a combo of dried pitted apricots and apricot jam. Chop up about a dozen dried apricots and add them, with a half cup of apricot jam, to the stock in step 4 (skipping steps 1 and 5).

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds apricots, roughly chopped, pits removed and discarded
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 2 pounds skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 to 2-inch pieces
• Salt
• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter (can sub olive oil)
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cups chicken stock or broth (use gluten-free stock if you are cooking gluten-free)
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons Tabasco or other hot sauce (you can add more if you like)
• Black pepper

Method

1 Place the chopped apricots in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and the vinegar. Let sit while you brown the chicken in the next step.

2 In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches, place chicken pieces in the pan, without crowding the pan, and brown them on each side. As the chicken cooks, sprinkle salt over it. Once the chicken is browned, remove the pieces from the pan to a bowl and set aside.

3 Add the remaining oil to the pan and sauté the onion until it begins to brown. As the onion cooks and releases moisture, use a flat edged spatula or wooden spoon to scrape off the browned bits from the chicken (called fond) from the bottom of the pan.

4 Once the onions have browned a bit, add the chicken stock and lower the heat to medium.

5 Put about 2/3 of the apricots, along with any juice they have given up, into a blender and blend into a purée. Pour the purée into the pan with the chicken stock and onions.

6 Add the cinnamon, rosemary and Tabasco and taste. You may need to add some salt. Bring to a simmer, then lower the heat and gently simmer for 10-20 minutes.

7 When you are ready to serve, put the chicken and the remaining apricot pieces into the pan and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Peaches!

So a few weeks ago now we made our (now) annual trip to Kingsbury Orchards. We had a great time with our friends and our visit to their animals (a bunch of cows, this year with some baby cows, and a donkey and a goat).

I restrained myself and only bought a 1/4 peck of yellow and a 1/4 peck of white peaches. I should probably have written down the variety since the orchard has about twenty but I forgot. Next time. I also bought a half peck of donut peaches, and although not as perfectly ripe as other years, they are still my favorite.

Although I did use the word restrain in the last paragraph, I did have a lot of extra peaches, so for the first time, I canned something that was not jam!! * It was pretty easy. I canned about 4 quarts of peaches using this recipe. So I'm pretty excited about that. I won't know how it went till the winter, but the idea of yummy peaches in winter was pretty exciting. And I think the girls will love opening up a jar in the middle of winter and remembering our trip to the farm.

* OK, so in writing that it was my first time canning, I realized that I recently made some rhubarb mustard that I canned. And by the time I had finished writing the paragraph I remembered about the cherries I canned in syrup, so I guess I'm starting to can on a regular basis. But it feels like a new experience every time!!!

Recipes

So I'm struggling with the idea of a Paleo diet. A lot of my friends do it. They seem real happy with it. I have mixed feelings about it. There are some things I am very unanxious to give up.

Challah
The occasional homemade cookies with my husband
Ice Cream
Rice with asian food.

But on the other hand, when I think about it. I never really have found local sources for grains. Sugar is obviously not available. So maybe Paleo is a good way to continue my quest for local food.

I love reading cooking blogs, and on the one hand, that is definitely part of the problem. On the other, I think I'll start using this blog to collect Paleo recipes, and let's see how I do.

There are some items that I am not sure are paleo or not, and I'm still struggling with the idea of milk not being paleo, b/c I really, really like dairy. But, ... we'll see.

The first find:

Straccetti con Rucola e Funghi
serves two

1 pound steak, cut crosswise into thin slices (I used New York strip, but you could use skirt or sirloin as well. Ask your butcher to slice it crosswise as thinly as he can.)
2 cloves of garlic
4 rosemary leaves
1 shallot
2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms, preferably porcini, trumpet, or chantarelles
1 tablespoon good balsamic vinegar, plus more for garnish
2 ounces baby arugula, washed well

Garnish: shaved parmesan (optional)
salt and pepper

Trim steak slices and pound until very thin. Cut into "tatters", about 1 inch by 2 inches. Salt well.

Smash and slice garlic. Slice shallot into thin ribbons and mince rosemary. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large cast iron skillet. Add garlic, rosemary, and shallot and cook over low heat until transparent. Add mushrooms and saute until cooked through, about five minutes, then remove to a bowl and set aside.

Turn heat up to medium and add additional tablespoon olive oil if needed. Add steak, spreading out the pieces so there's no overlap. Cook on medium heat, turning once, just until there's no visible red, about 3 minutes total. Return mushroom mixture to the pan, add balsamic vinegar, and toss to coat. Remove pan from heat. Add arugula, tossing to wilt slightly. Serve immediately, garnishing with salt, pepper, shaved parmesan, and additional balsamic vinegar if desired.

---------------

So, what about balsamic vinegar. Not sure if it's paleo, or if I could make it...

Jamberry!

It was a long cold winter.

I was thrilled to celebrate the beginning of summer this weekend with my family and SIL at Butlers Orchard! We picked 20lbs of strawberries! It was fun and perfect weather and we ran into some friends and it only took a couple of hours at the most.

Sunday evening my SIL and I made Jam. Serious Jam.

When I was little, every few years, my mom's best friend would visit with her family. And we would go strawberry picking. And make Jam. (and daiquiris, and strawberries with cream, and chocolate dipped strawberries). One year the eight of us picked 63 lbs of strawberries. IT was a little ridiculous. But so much fun! And such fabulous memories.

So we started with a box of 12, 4oz jars, and then decided that we needed some 8 oz jars when I bought the pectin and sugar, and then decided that for 10lbs of jam, we should probably have one more box, so my husband went out and bought us a box of 16 oz jars, and then we decided to add in some rhubarb that I just bought from the farmers market, and it would be nice to give that away so we went to target after two batches and bought some more 8 oz jars. And as we were finishing up last night, my SIL suggested, 'why don't we make two more batches before I leave tomorrow. You have a LOT of berries still in the fridge'. So we did. In total we made 2.5 gallons of jam.

Things we learned:
Follow the directions on the box of Pectin.
Powdered Pectin seems better then the gel kind.

What happens if you do it wrong:
Not enough sugar, it doesn't set. (we weren't trying to save sugar, I just left the last cup on the counter)
If you put the sugar in before the powdered pectin, it doesn't set.
If you don't cook it with the pectin and sugar together for a full minute, it doesn't set.
If you cook it for too long, it gets very, very thick.

No matter what, it still tastes fabulous!

Guest Post

I had my first guest post here! I guess I should have posted this when it was published last week. I'm sort of slow. About a lot of things I guess. Having been snowed in for the last week, one would imagine I might have gotten around to the couple of posts I've been thinking of. But no. Maybe next week.

Chipotle

So when we lived in CA, my husband and I eschewed Chipotle for two reasons. 1) There were so many better burrito shops. 2) It was owned by McDonald's.

So, we moved to the East Coast in 2004, and we quickly found that 1) There are very few burrito shops, and 2) Everyone went to Chipotle (see 1). So we got out of the burrito habit. I won't say we never go, but we've tended to avoid it over other options.

About a month ago my SIL suggested we go for lunch when we were at the local mall, and given the other options, I said sure. I was surprised at how good it was, better than I remembered.

Yesterday my mom tells me that Michale Pollan was on Oprah. And so was the guy who owns Chipotle and he was talking about how they use as much local ingredients as they can and all organic meats. And I said, they are owned by McDonald's. And she was like, 'no, I don't think so, the owner was on the show'.

So, I went to Wikipedia, and low and behold, " In 1998, McDonald's made an initial minority investment in the company. By 2001, the company had grown to be Chipotle's largest investor" and in addition "In October 2006, McDonald's fully divested from Chipotle.^[16] This was part of a larger initiative for McDonald's to divest all of its non-core business restaurants".

SO. I'm very excited. Happy Eating!

A Year Later

OK, really, it's more than a year, but close enough. I really enjoyed this experience and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. The challenge of choosing local has reaped some wonderful experiences, conversations, and food.

Here are my successes:
South Mountain Creamery
Salt River Lobster
Garrett Park Farmers Market

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other
Grosvenor Market
MOMS Organic Market
Polyface Farm


The past week or two I gave up on choosing local products as a lifestyle choice over convenience. I will still choose local sources as a first option, but sometimes it's just too much of a pain in the ass to shop, prepare and cook, a healthy, variety of foods year round.

I am so thrilled to find a fish and seafood source. They are lovely. Their prices can be slightly high as there are no discounted sale prices ever, but they are reasonably competitive, and you can't beat their quality or service.

Really, I could probably keep scouting for local veggies, but, particularly as my red meat consumption has decreased, my need for iron has gone up. And broccoli is all well and good, but I like spinach too. And it is easier to send my daughter to lunch at school with peppers, and cucumbers and hummos than most anything else. And she likes it. And eats it, and for a toddler, that is important. And since I've been working out, I have been trying to eat more protein and what they call good fats in every meal. which often means almonds, which are not local, or olives, which are also not local.

But I am much more aware of where my food comes from, how I can get it, and concessions I make regarding ideal and reality.

I'll keep writing as I find other options, try new things, etc. I would like to review certain things I tried last year, (comparison between two local egg nogs) and maybe some restaurants that have expressed that they try to source their food locally.

Eating local wherever you are

So the last three weeks, the girls and I have been staying on the Delmarva Peninsula, just outside of Fenwick Island. We've had a lot of fun and we've eaten pretty well. Here is a quick review of some of things we've learned and enjoyed while we're here.

First of all, all those fields that are not corn fields, what are they? I told PJ that they were broccoli plants b/c I didn't know what they were, but it turns out, they are GMO soybeans. Who knew? Not me, They are modified to be Roundup resistant, also known as Roundup Ready Crops. So I was sort of upset to learn that, but knowledge is power right?

On to happier things.

So what is a summer vacation without ice cream? I made a lot of it the past few weeks. My cream of choice? Lewes Dairy. I typically look for dairy that is growth hormone free, but I also like to balance that with choosing a local product, since the total amount of cream one person consumes is small, it's not as important to be rBGH as our drinking milk is. So, since the grocery store we use does not have rBGH free cream anyway, I was thrilled when I started to learn more about Lewes Dairy Cream. First of all, Lewes dairy has been a family run company since the early 1920s. Second, most of the milk they bottle comes from Sussex county DE, and distribute locally in DE and MD. And most importantly, the cream is FABULOUS! Really, it tastes great. I have no idea what they do differently than other dairys, but I fell in love. Apparently that is common as their website proclaims "Restaurants from the shore to our nation’s capital often proudly proclaim “We use only Lewes Dairy Cream!”". I can understand why.
So the last three weeks, the girls and I have been staying on the Delmarva Peninsula, just outside of Fenwick Island. We've had a lot of fun and we've eaten pretty well. Here is a quick review of some of things we've learned and enjoyed while we're here.

First of all, all those fields that are not corn fields, what are they? I told PJ that they were broccoli plants b/c I didn't know what they were, but it turns out, they are GMO soybeans. Who knew? Not me, They are modified to be Roundup resistant, also known as Roundup Ready Crops. So I was sort of upset to learn that, but knowledge is power right?

On to happier things.

So what is a summer vacation without ice cream? I made a lot of it the past few weeks. My cream of choice? Lewes Dairy. I typically look for dairy that is growth hormone free, but I also like to balance that with choosing a local product, since the total amount of cream one person consumes is small, it's not as important to be rBGH as our drinking milk is. So, since the grocery store we use does not have rBGH free cream anyway, I was thrilled when I started to learn more about Lewes Dairy Cream. First of all, Lewes dairy has been a family run company since the early 1920s. Second, most of the milk they bottle comes from Sussex county DE, and distribute locally in DE and MD. And most importantly, the cream is FABULOUS! Really, it tastes great. I have no idea what they do differently than other dairys, but I fell in love. Apparently that is common as their website proclaims "Restaurants from the shore to our nation’s capital often proudly proclaim “We use only Lewes Dairy Cream!”". I can understand why.

So I love the beach because there are so many farmers markets. This year I found a favorite farm.
It's called Parsons Farms Produce. It is run by Paul Parsons As far as I know, he has two markets, one every day on Rt 20 Roxana and Dagsboro, and one market in Fenwick Island on Mondays and Wednesdays. We only stopped at the Rt 20 market stand. We had a fabulous time there. We found their produce superior to that of other local farm markets, both in quality and selection.

In addition they had two bonus features. The first is Poodle. Poodle is an Angora Goat. Paul Parsons has other animals too - three goats, two cows. When you walk into his market with a toddler, he asks you if you would like to feed them. He has a laundry basket of extra corn and corn silks, and can feed the animals. This was a highlight of three weeks at the beach. We went twice. The animals are very gentle and happy to have the attention.

The second bonus feature was a program called Epicurean Kids. It's run independently by Chef Maria, and she has a number of different programs, but we participated in the last day of her summer drop in program. We took a tractor hay ride to the field, picked a spaghetti squash, and came back and since it was the last day of the program, we made fruit tarts to celebrate the rainbow of summer produce they had picked. Paul Parsons drove the tractor and spoke to the kids (ages 2-7) about the fields and different fruit and vegetables. I highly recommend this program if you pass this way next summer. Chef Maria had safe knifes for the kids to use, and aprons, and a hand cleaning station. We had a lot of fun and it was well run.

Local Dinner

This past winter we made some new friends in a far away place, who happen to live nearby and we now get together every 4-6 weeks for dinner. These are amazing dinners. They also love to cook, and enjoy the cooking and kitchen time as much we do and we have had some wonderful evenings with good food and good times.

Last night we had a yummy summer dinner, that while not close to 100% local meal showcased some delicious local food.

It started with a wonderful surprise on the part of our guests. A few months back our guests spent a day on the Frederick Wine Trail. They had two bottles left and brought them to share with us! We immediately opened the Syrah 2006 from Black Ankle vineyards. It was a lovely wine to start with. Very smooth, not to bold. While prepping the salad, soothing a fussy baby (not with the wine!) and getting the grill and main course ready, we decided a taste would go well with the wine. We opened up a cheese I had just bought for the first time from SMC, a goat bleu cheese from Firefly Farms. We had no idea what to expect and laughed out loud when it was gooey in the middle. We all agreed that it was wonderful to have the bleu cheese flavor but in the milder goat cheese.

We started the meal with a salad of spinach, nuts and scallions. Although the spinach and scallions could have been local, the showcase of the dish was the vinaigrette! Inspired by this post at The Kitchn we used this recipe. It was so amazing, that after making it in about five minutes, and eating spoonfuls of it, we decided to triple the recipe! It was fabulous. The pepper actually made the recipe. We ended up having enough extra for both of us to use it again this week which I am looking forward to - my husband just bought some local spinach at the farmers market this morning!

Next up was the main course which we grilled on charcoal. Our guests made corn, zucchini, and salmon. The corn and zucchini were local and fresh! The salmon was prepared and cooked beautifully. The salmon and then dessert were enhanced by the second bottle of wine from Elk Run Winery. The Riesling was sweet but not heavy and sticky.

This paired nicely with our slightly sticky dessert - roasted peaches with bourbon whipped cream!

Oh right, so the peaches. Last night we only used RedHaven peaches. They were local. I can't find a link to the orchard right now, and the story of getting them is a post in and of itself, but as a teaser, I bought over a half bushel of peaches last tuesday. Three different varieties.

It's a process

Well, the winter passed fairly uneventfully. I spend little time focusing on local, sustainable food, and mostly on making sure there food made it to the house and my processes for procuring it was vaguely streamlined. With a toddler and being pregnant, for me, this was enough. As winter started to wind down and I started preparing the house and our lifestyle for two kids I started re-visiting my family food goals.

I was absolutely thrilled when our local farmers market re-opened weekly for the summer.

I know they come by once a month in the winter, but half the time I was out of town the week they were here, or I counted wrong on my calendar and went the wrong week. I just really needed a weekly routine this winter.

In any case, I was thrilled when they re-opened weekly. I bought more rhubarb than one would tend to imagine. I discovered an amazing rhubarb ice cream recipe. (More about ice cream in a later post). I bought asparagus by the dozen and mostly roasted it. I bought a few apples and potatoes that had seen better days but appear to have made it though the winter storage, we bought spinach (all green leaves are "salad" according to my toddler), a few early hothouse tomatoes, oh and at my daughters insistence, we bought radishes, but we're probably not going to do that twice. I bought some basil which is now doing fabulously in a pot in our front yard. Oh, and how could I forget the early garlic!! And I'm sure some some other stuff, but I think that was the bulk. Sometimes I'm a little unclear, where he gets his produce from, some is labeled organic and non organic, and I'm not sure how much I care, but I wonder about distance a little..

And I have to admit it, I drove. It's about a half mile away, tops, but I am just too big and awkward to walk with my toddler and carry the bag back and not have the whole experience take three hours, so, I coordinated the trip to pick up my mail. Maybe by the fall, I will be walking again.

So, veggies were sort of taken care of. But of course there is my favorite summer experience. PYO!! I went three times this year for PYO strawberries and two of those times I picked some english peas. I've been going to Butler's Orchard since I was a very small child for both strawberries and pumpkins. I've tried branching out to other PYO farms, and sometimes I do, but the appeal of being able to drive my car to the field so that I can sustain my energy on child care and picking rather then carrying produce and walking with toddler is too great this year for any other option. She LOVED the English Peas. I was amazed at how interested she was in the peas over the strawberries. The yield on both were not great this year due to the ridiculous rains. But we had a great time, and there is nothing like a strawberry eaten straight from the field. The other up side to this experience is that we shared it with friends. We went on two visits with friends who had never been to a PYO field before so that was great. I bought a ton of seconds on peaches (again, not 100% sure where they come from) but was thrilled to have them.

And sadly, I just haven't been up to the kind of prep for storage I was hoping for. Mostly we've just consumed everything, though some fruit was cooked down for later desserts. Oh, and 4 cups of strawberries were frozen for bread.

On other exciting storage notes though, we bought a new refrigerator! I love it! It holds everything, the lighting is great. I'm still working on organization a bit, but there is so much room, it's been easier to use what we have.

Lastly on my quest to simplify and localize food acquisition, we have started glass bottle milk delivery. So far it has been fabulous. I highly recommend South Mountain Creamery for dairy, eggs, bread. Their granola was wonderful, if not expensive, the cream has had slightly mixed results regarding shelf life, but otherwise wonderful, the meats were amazing, although also expensive. Oh and the yogurts are great. My mother couldn't believe they were no sugar added. They are a little liquidy, and therefore sometimes difficult for my toddler to eat on her own, I'm not up to sending her to school with them yet, and they only have 6oz containers, and I would love to be able to buy a few large containers instead of lots of littles, but nothing that we can't live with. Supply on yogurt is also not up to the apparent demand as two of the four weeks they have not been able to completely fill our order.

So, once a week I go to TJ's and pick up turkey breast, some cheese that SMC does not have, and some extra produce or whatever. But I am thrilled to report I have found so far, this new system to be less stressful and quicker for me.

(Guess I should post more often).

Lazy Local Eater

I've become a lazy local eater. I'm blaming it on winter. I did not make it to the farmers market today. But in fairness, when I went to Harris Teeter (HT) this evening, I did not buy any produce except their bananas from Costa Rica. (And I have come to terms with the fact that my child goes a bit bonkers without a morning banana and having honeymooned in Costa Rica and visiting Dole Banana plantations, I am comfortable supporting that economy).

I bought local ice cream today, and I was happy to finally find deli organic turkey breast at a reasonable price at HT, we bought a new Brita, b/c our old one had to go as we cleaned it and broke it and then it started spitting out white stuff and we had had it five years at least. Small victories today. But it seemed lazier to not even post about it.

Tonight's dinner

Was a little about eating locally, and a little about enjoying a meal with a friend.

I used up some veggies from my local farmers market, preparing to buy new stuff on Saturday morning, and some stuff that was not local but was healthy and comforting, and sometimes that is the best one can do, and sometimes, it is enough.

My local Farmers Market

So there are a lot of nice farmer markets in Montgomery County. I've visited a lot of them over the years. However, I like my routines, so I only go to one regularly. I always say I'll stop by somewhere else just to try something new, but this one market really carries all my produce needs.

The Hare Valley Growers

They are in town every Saturday morning from June through November and come once a month through the winter. They have wonderful eggs at the best price in town. They have a large variety of produce and some cheeses and sometimes flowers.

Where I Shop... and Don't Shop

So I am still looking for the perfect grocery store. The one I can go to weekly to fulfill all my families needs (and a couple wants). So for the meanwhile, I hit up all these stores with some regularity. (Produce is whole other story for another post)

The staples that I buy pretty much every week:
Pepridge Farm Honey Whole Wheat
Deli Turkey Breast, we try to find antibiotic free for our child, but we're not always willing to pay the price for ourselves.
Organic Milk, more on this in future posts
Skinless chicken breasts (sometimesI buy in bulk and freeze)
Organic ground beef (sometimes I buy in bulk and freeze)

Trader Joe's - When it comes down to it, they have the cheapest prices on some of our stand-by brands and products. I have not found the to be a wonderful resource for local products. They are located near the bestest Challah place in town. But I've started making our own Challah every few weeks and that is a huge cost savings, if not a time expense. So my TJ's shopping is decreasing, but I'm still going there once a month or so. They carry some organic meats but I think not chicken breasts. The prices on these are high.

Harris Teeter - OK, I know we're still in the honeymoon phase, (they opened here just a month ago) but I love this store. They work hard to carry local products. (Including ice cream). They have a huge Kosher and Israeli section. They don't have a lot of local produce, and they don't carry a lot of our favorite brands. They don't carry happy antibiotic free turkey breast. Or organic meat. The store has two levels, which is annoying when doing a large shopping, or shopping with a toddler. I love that they make some of their cheeses in the store, such as mozerella and ricotta.

MOMs - The first time I shopped here, I was in love, there were no bad choices here. Everything was a good choice, the time saved over shopping here versus HT or TJ was huge, but they are very small. They often don't have chicken breasts or roast chickens. They don't carry any fresh meat or fish. Their prices are on the high side.

And today, I found a new market to try. They are much further away than any of my other regular stores, but I think they might actually carry almost everything we want/ need. Welcome to my list:
Roots Market
I'm very excited to try them out. Today PJ and I went on a scouting trip and we were very happy.

If I can possibly avoid it, I don't shop here:
Giant or Safeway
Whole Foods (though when their new store opens next year I might eat my words)
Grosvener Market

The Grosvener Market is sad for me because they used to be my favorite place, but after three visits this summer when they had run out of organic whole milk, including after I spoke with the buyer over it, I can't waste my time there anymore. If you can't stock milk, I can't shop with you.

OK, I hate ending on a sad note. Although overwhelmed some weeks, generally I feel very blessed to have so many choices. While I sometimes struggle, or am not yet willing to fight to find certain local and or organic product choices, I'm enjoying the search for more options for my family.

Getting Started

About a month ago I read Animal Vegetable Miracle. I was head over heals inspired to try and eat locally as much as possible. I also started looking around online for other people who were inspired to eat locally. I found a lot of websites, but not as many blogs as I expected.

Things I hope people will see here:
stories of our experiences,
recipes and reviews using local and seasonal ingredients,
reviews of local stores, markets and maybe restaurants,
questions, maybe some answers, our successes and trials and tribulations.

Other things you will be sure to see:
words misspelled. I try my best to make what I write readable, but I am not very good at spelling and I mostly don't notice when I misspell things, please forgive me and keep reading, I know it can be frustrating to some folks.
Me getting frustrated about customer service. I'm happy to pay for my services, and I try to give props when I can, but I HATE, inattentive, unhelpful, and rude service. My mom says I sometimes bite off my nose to spite my face, but usually after a third problem visit somewhere, I talk with my money and take my business elsewhere.

Thank you for reading!