Local Food: "Yeah, I don't really have time to go to the farmer's market."

I've always found that when you feed people good food, the conversation becomes very productive.
--Alice Waters, head chef of Chez Panisse, Berkeley, CA
Find out more about her "Art. Food. Hope." dinner on inauguration eve.

I was down south visiting my sister last year. It was mid-spring and our farmer's markets here in the midwest hadn't quite gotten off the ground yet, owing to the amount of frost still on said ground.

We were driving to lunch one day (we drove to lunch every day--and to dinner) and I looked over the side of the interstate to see a lovely, sprawling, farmer's market occupying the majority of a mall parking lot. Now, this mall wasn't more than a mile or so from my sister's house, and craving some fresh food, given the long hard winter just behind us, I asked casually, "So, how is that farmer's market over there?"

"Yeah," she replied shortly. "I don't really have time to go to the farmer's market." Which pretty much ended the conversation.

Now, I will admit that, growing up, we didn't know anything about farmer's markets. We did have friends who grew some food, and we did know some of those "hippie types" who got their food from somewhere, but for the vast majority of our meals, food was procured from the nearest Safeway.

My sister has a lot of children, so on the one hand, I can see that she finds it easier to keep an eye on them when they're all trapped inside a store. On the other hand, I think the idea of spending an hour or so letting the kids get a look at what grows near you--which, let's face it, doesn't include junk food like potato chips and Twinkies--is a good lesson in how the world works.

But that, I think, requires a mind that thinks the world should work that way, and a fair number of people are very happy with their world in which they can microwave a pizza instead of slaving over a stove for an hour after a hard day at work.

I know exactly what they mean. As I got older, I found that the city we lived in did indeed have a farmer's market. But I never went there. It was in the middle of town, and we lived on the outskirts, and then I'd have to cook, and I was already working a lot of hours, and wasn't farmer's food more expensive anyway, and it was just a pain to get to and... yeah, I didn't really have time for the farmer's market.

Nowadays, living in the middle of fertile land as I do, I love my farmer's markets. I love that I can start getting the freshest, juiciest strawberries and raspberries and blackberries early in the season and enjoy them all year long. I buy twice as much as I need for a week and then freeze half, and it's done a pretty good job of getting this berry junkie through the winter. Though I have to say that I ran out of blackberries in December and broke down and bought some at the store last week. Somewhere between Mexico and me, the taste fell out of the box.

Another great thing about the farmer's market is that, if it's close to your house and you plan everything right, it can be one of the least time-consuming parts of a shopping experience. Once the season starts, we plan all our meals for the week on Saturday and go to the grocery store for things we know we can't get at the farmer's market. Then, on Tuesday, we go to the market that's on the way to the train station (on my way to work), and pick up what we need for the week. Even if we wander the whole thing, it doesn't take more than half an hour. I keep our finds in the fridge at work for the day and schlep it home and voila!

For two people, we rarely need more than one bag, and it rarely costs any more than it would to buy the same stuff at the grocery store. I do find, however, that the connection to the food itself is greater because I picked it up from the farmer him- or herself, so I make sure to use up all the food I buy there, where food from the grocery store already doesn't taste fresh and often goes bad before I can cook it.

Also, the farmers we know don't give me a funny look for bringing a tupperware to protect my berries in transit. :)

That's another plus to a farmer's market: the farmers. I love that one of the women who grows some of the best berries will see me coming and start picking out a pint just for me. Our "apple people" let us pick through and find the ones we want instead of selling us one of the baskets they already have made up for the nonregulars. Our "organic lady," who sells unbelievable garlic and tomatoes and greens, always lets me know which of the tomato strains is the tastiest this week. And of course, she actually knows that, because she and her crew are the ones who picked them and boxed them last night and drove the 70 miles from the farm to sell them to me in a museum parking lot this morning.

There's something comforting in knowing that my food wasn't picked three weeks ago and 1500 miles away. During the tomato contamination scare last year, I didn't have to worry if my tomatoes were from the farms in California that might be in trouble. I knew they were from Wisconsin and hadn't been processed at all--just washed and put in a box.

If you really, really don't have time to go to the farmer's market, there's still a way to get local food--you generally have to pick it up, but it comes in a neat box and you don't have to wander the parking lot. CSAs--community sponsored agriculture groups--are pretty much what the name implies. Community members buy into the farm at the beginning of the season, and receive "shares" of all the produce throughout the season. Since you pay up front before planting is even started, it's a way for the farmer to know that she's going to be able to pay the bills, or if she isn't, exactly how big the shortfall will be.

A whole share will usually feed a family of four every week, and a half share is good for two or three--if you're a single, you can win friends at work by giving away fresh produce or go in on a share with another person. The CSA will likely have a number of places where you can pick up your shares every week--often at your local farmer's market, which is like killing two birds with one stone.

One of the drawbacks of this way of locavoring is that you get whatever they grow. If you don't like zucchini, and the CSA tells you they're growing it, then don't be mad when you've got the little squashes coming out your ears because they had a bumper crop. Likewise, if the season turns overly wet or dry or pestilential, you're likely to get very little return on your investment.

So it's a risk, but because CSAs tend to make their living on the fact that you can have all the vegetables and fruit a family could want, just by buying into one, they'll usually plan a pretty wide variety of plantings to make sure that they keep the land biologically stable and provide enough diversity to keep shareholders coming back. Often, they'll have co-op agreements with local meat, cheese, and egg providers, as well, so occasionally through the year, you'll get bonuses in your boxes.

Interested in loving your local food? If you live in the United States, go check out Local Harvest, which has a very comprehensive listing of farmer's markets and CSAs and grocer/co-ops and such. If you live in Canada, you could start with Chef2Chef, but there doesn't seem to be a listing like Local Harvest in your country. If you know of any other resources for other countries and areas, let me know and I'll post them here in a later post.

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Food for Thought--and Others

• Try buying a CSA share for your local food bank or soup kitchen. Obviously, you'll have to go to the farmer's market and pick it up and take it to the food bank, unless they have other patrons who donate this way, in which case they may go pick it up themselves. It's a great way to make sure that people who need it are getting fresh, healthy food, while saving the environment a little, too!