Were any of you among the crowds at Piedmont Park yesterday for the Dave Matthews Band concert? We were sitting on the back hill across from the stage enjoying the show with friends. I've seen the crowds pouring in at the
Peachtree Road Race finish line, with just as many people participating, but with the Race it's more of a constant flow. It was wild seeing 50,000 plus people all in that part of the Park at one time for that long! Perfect weather, awesome production, pretty well managed overall. Hope you enjoyed the show!
Aside from the concert reference above, I do
actually find myself with so much to say! Why is it that it seems like life is the "same old, same old" and then all of a sudden there are lots of things to talk about and share? As you know, we've been trying to eat locally this summer, purchasing a lot of our food from the
Morningside Market, the new
Peachtree Market (at the Cathedral on the big curve,) and filling in with local or green items from Whole Foods. It's been interesting eating what is available. Growing up, that's what we did in large part. My folks were full into the acceptance of world-wide markets and new-
fangled products, as most Depression Era babies tend to be. But we always had a huge garden which we children helped tend. On a simple 1/4 acre, in-town lot our family had fruits and vegetables galore every year. I didn't realize how lucky I was until I moved out and started my own household and began to miss those fresh sour cherries for pie, multitudinous blueberries, fresh asparagus, strawberries, and all the basics from the vegetable gardens.
I was able to garden in containers and squeeze things into ornamental gardens where we rented, but it was not the same as growing and putting up the results of our labors as in my childhood. And the world continued to change. Gone were the days when you could tell what was in season by the price of the
broccoli, or the corn, or the strawberries. On any given day we could walk into our non-gourmet grocery store and find these "treasures." I admit, Tim and I fell victim to the allure of those near perfect
specimens, available whenever the chosen recipe called for their use.
It is so much easier to follow a diet, or "way of eating" as we like to call it these days, when you can get exactly what the plan says to eat. But does the food satisfy? I used to think so. Until we started regularly purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables from the local market. And the meats and cheeses? Some of you aren't old enough to remember when chicken actually had a flavor, and wasn't just some bland white meat that was jazzed up with any number of tantalizing sauces. I have a distant memory of "meat having more flavor" from when I was young, and my mother actually grew up on a farm where her mother raised chickens for eggs, and they harvested chicken when the time was right. Mom has never thought store bought chicken tasted like what she grew up with.
So why the excitement today about eating locally? After weeks of eating summer squashes, cucumbers, melons, okra, tomatoes, and potatoes the first of the GREENS showed up again at the market. I was NEVER so happy to see turnip greens and arugula!!!! The seasonality of eating locally "makes everything new again" as we go through the year. In May we were sick and tired of eating chard (a green,) and yearned for a change. Then it came. Working our way through the summer season produce we started to yearn for another change. Saturday was cause for celebration! I'm cooking our first late summer greens tonight for dinner--Hurray!!!!!
I am the first to admit that eating locally is a luxury--the
acquisition of food is claiming a bigger part of our budget than when we shopped at the local chain market. The quality of food we are eating has gone up tremendously; the pleasure we get out of buying our food, preparing it, sharing it and then eating it has gone up tremendously as well. And over time the relationships we are building with the people who are producing our food have started to have a sustaining quality as well. The most cost effective way to eat locally is to support a single farmer through Community Supported Agriculture (
CSA) or a "share" in shorthand. Some farmers require a buy-in at the beginning of the season--this is the traditional method. A group of "investors" give the farmer his/her seed money (literally) and then all who purchased a share can partake in the harvest (which like in any investment can been either be really good or really bad.)
We were able to join the
CSA at
Riverview Farms in the early part of the season, but long after the seeds had been purchased, and benefit from this program. We get a portion of whatever is ready at the farm for the week. That means we get some foods which are new to us, some which we are pretty sure we don't like, and some that we go crazy for. And it means that we get to claim whatever we can use of the over-abundance which nature provides at times. One week it meant a bushel of corn in addition to our other foods. Which brings up another challenge of eating locally--nature sometimes requires us to rearrange our schedule. In our
homogeneous world we have also gotten very used to dictating our own schedules. Nature doesn't keep as strict of a timeline--sometimes the conditions are perfect and we get just enough. Sometimes, as in this summer, we get draught and we have to harvest the crop all at once or risk losing it all together. Which means that all of a sudden you've got a bushel or corn to share or "put up" to eat later, when food is more scarce. Did we have "time" to do that? Not strictly speaking, but in the end we appreciated having nature's little reminder that we don't have as much control as we think we do. And I know several people who appreciated sharing in the bounty, and we'll enjoy these reminders of summer in the dead of winter, too.
If you have any questions about getting started eating locally, send me a message or post to this blog and I'll try to get the info for you. Time to go eat my greens--hurray!!!!
