Local Organic Produce = Love

I am so in love with my local organic farm.  Their market is open on Fridays and Saturdays, and I make it out there once a week to get our family’s vegetables and fruit.  They grow what they can there, and the rest is brought in from elsewhere.  I prefer to buy local, and try to organize my meals around what it grown there.

I used to really fight going out there.  I would think, “oh, it’s so far to drive.” But then I realized that it’s better for me to drive my little car out there once a week than to have all of my produce shipped to my supermarket from all over the planet.  I love supporting my community and knowing that my dollars are going in my farmer’s pockets, rather than to some megastore conglomerate.  I’m inspired to find more local food, and you can too, at localharvest.org.

Since I live in the south, I can get beautiful produce all winter long.  Sadly, they close in the summer because it’s too hot to farm in over-90 degree temperatures.  I actually overheard them say one day that the spinach was “melted.”  And it was all wilted right there in the ground.  So rather than the winter being their off season, it’s the summer.  And let me say that I miss them so much in those few months.  Buying smashed up, half wilted produce at my local supermarket is so depressing after being spoiled by gorgeous local food.

It’s so beautiful driving up and seeing all of my food growing right there in the dirt.  I know that a lot of what I buy was in the ground that very morning.  How beautiful is that?  At The Farm, I can touch all of the produce.  It’s not all sealed up in plastic and styrofoam.  I can buy in any quantity I want.  If I want one carrot, I will buy one carrot; I am not forced to buy a pound of something if I don’t want it.  And that means a lot less waste for me.  Since I started visiting The Farm, I throw away a lot less food.  I mean a lot.  Because I can buy what I need, and because it’s so fresh, it all gets used before it goes bad.  And the quality makes me swoon.  Heads of green leaf lettuce so huge they won’t fit in a bag, or celery with all the tops still on.  Basil so fragrant that you can smell it from feet away.  It’s making me fall in love with cooking all over again.

I have to say that since I have started going out there, it has really changed the way I cook.  I feel more in tuned with the seasons now that I don’t buy crummy produce flown in from around the world.  They don’t always have exactly what I want at The Farm, but they always have something beautiful.

I’ve also tried lots of new things that I’ve never had before.  Have you ever tasted sorrell?  I have to admit I didn’t even know what it was when I saw it there.  I bought some and brought it home, curious as to what to do with it.  I ended up putting it in salads, but I think you can basically treat it the same way as spinach.  It tastes somewhat spinach-y, but with a citrus hint.  It is so beautiful with its green and red leaves.  And The Farm sells it with the roots still attached!  It is so lovely.  I have been known to pull it out of the fridge and show it off to people.  Am I daft?  Perhaps I am just in love with food and wonder why I never had sorrell before.  And why don’t I have a photo of it?  I mean, you can’t just blab on about sorrel and not have a photo of it.

Sorrell photo coming soon.