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!