One Local Summer, Week 7

This week's Farmer's Market bounty:

Six ears of corn, peppers (green and purple), yellow squash, a cucumber, a tomato, an onion (obscured by the tomato), baskets of red potatoes, pie cherries, and plums; two kinds of colby cheese- jalapeno and Italian; and a dozen eggs.

$31- one dollar over budget. I could have bought the potatoes cheaper at a different table, but I really like this particular farm and wanted to buy something as a show of support.

Does anyone else do this- deliberately split up their shopping between vendors?

It was too bloody hot to cook anything. I did boil up those ears of corn, but aside from that, we grazed all day, cutting up the peppers and tomato and eating them raw, pulling chilled plums from the fridge, and serving cuts of cheese on slices of cucumber.

Philly Farmer Kristin was visiting with baby Michael Lee, and reminded me to mention that "cucumbers are nature's crackers".


Funny, how quickly local food became a fact of life. No longer a big production, really.

We eat locally because we buy locally. And it was no big deal. We just shifted our dollars to the local market, rather than the supermarket.

We buy locally for a number of reasons-

• We enjoy and look forward to going to the market, out in the open air. So much nicer than the stress of the supermarket, especially when you travel with three kids.


• We like having actual conversations with the vendors, and with other shoppers.


• We like the quality and variety of our produce and by extension, our diet.


• I particularly like that somehow, I am getting fresh, mostly organic, produce: for cheaper than I can find it at the supermarket.


• I like that my kids are more likely to try new foods if someone at the market recommends it to them. ( Last time it was dessert cucumbers, which appeared to be normal cucumbers, but in a kid-sized, to-go package.)


• The kids like that I am much more likely to bake and cook new things if I am excited about a market find. (Really, when was the last time you were excited over a grocery store find?)

I guess I'm saying we buy locally because we like buying locally- the excellence of the food is a nice bonus.

Eating local foods has become more than a Sunday evening affair. It's what we have in the fridge, an everyday event. Not every meal, mind you, and not always every ingredient. But pretty darn close and getting closer.

I don't doubt it will become more difficult as we move past the prolific fruits of the summer months. Frankly, I'm a little nervous about it, and beginning to consider what foods I can realistically put by.

But for now, eating locally is a given, the way things are around here. Rather than feeling challenged, we feel richer for it.

Local: the new normal.