Eating Local

I recently read this article "10 Reasons to Eat Locally" and while most of the reasons make sense:
- tastes better
- reduces pollution from shipping
- reduces or eliminates preserving chemicals
- eliminates the possibility of bio-terrorism (that one is a bit of a stretch but given what happened with spinach and carrot juice last winter - who am I to judge!)
.....it wasn't until this morning that it all came together for me.

Today for breakfast I fancied a tomato sandwich. We don't have any tomatoes today - well - that's strictly not true - we have grape tomatoes (YUM) but I wasn't about to eat a sandwich with 15 grape tomatoes in it! WAIT - we are growing tomatoes in the yard! I looked outside and most were green. But on closer inspection, we found one orangey-red perfect tomato. So - we picked it. Took it from the backyard to the kitchen - like 15 feet - and cut it up onto toast.

Yum yum yum. That is the difference with local produce. That RIGHT there - a tomato that tastes like a tomato, isn't woody or gross.

What else do we have in the garden?

I'm making pasta salad for dinner. We added peas and carrots - FROM THE BACKYARD. I cut up one of our cucumbers with thin onion slices and I'm making quick pickles for dinner too! I feel like a freaking genius. MY family grew the food we are eating. Ben picked the carrots he planted. And while none of Sammy's jalapeno peppers are ready yet, I suspect that their arrival will coincide with the reddening of more tomatoes! We also have spinach coming out of our ying yang and herbs aplenty - anyone need any chives or mint?

This is the purpose to me of local produce. Its cool to have our own food - there is a sense of definite accomplishment for having things grow. Sure, we still need to buy bananas but hey, its kind of fun to not have to buy tomatoes.

Maybe next year we'll do zuchinni...garlic.....or eggplant....watermellon.....maybe even pumpkins!