The Hazard of Eating Locally

I'm a label reader. Where is this from? What's in it? What the hell is Red #6? Eating food that isn't overly processed and is sourced locally is important to me. I'll confess, I have my weaknesses. Who doesn't? But, I've found that local fruits, veggies and meats taste better. More flavor, everything is fresher and since I know my farmers, I'm more confident that there's not going to be an E Coli breakout in my spinach or ground beef. I've tried more varieties and new varieties of, well, everything, in the past 2 years than in my (almost) 30 years total on this earth.

Right right, so where is this going? This summer was hard. Wait, make that Hard, with a capital H. We went with a new CSA this year and boy, what a disappointment. That picture up there? That's from last year. Each week I'd leave work and fill my bags with pounds and pounds of produce. There were weeks I brought so much home that DH and I weren't able to eat even half of it. This year though. Wow. The early summer rains decimated the farms that were involved in our CSA. We received 3 summer squashes total this season, as opposed to the pounds of summer squash we got last year. I think I still have some from last year, in the frozen depths of my freezer.

We made do with what we got and supplemented from other farms that had a better go of it by going to farm stands and farmer's markets. I was also lucky enough to find local produce in the grocery stores in the area.

I've already decided that next year, I'm planting a garden. It'll be a container garden, because of the whole condo thing, but that'll do for the 2 of us. I'll have to plant some extra carrots for the pup, but that's doable! I figure though, if I'm going to be disapointed in the quality and quantity of produce that I'm receiving, I'd rather be disapointed in myself, than local farmers that are having a harder time of it than me. I'll still be at the Hope Street Farmer's Market Saturday mornings though, coffee in hand, oohing and aahing over the tables of veggies and buying Bruschi's favorite dog treats...