Just Gotta Poke Around

I know it's Monday, well technically Tuesday since it's after midnight, and I should be throwing out a veggie wonder, but I am pooped and the foodie in me really wants to discuss the amazing egg pizza I made this weekend. I can't get it out of my mind and therefore, I don't want to talk about other recipes until I have time for that one. So there.

I do want to get some yummy thoughts out there though, and so, I decided to glean my title from "Shakedown Street" and to encourage you to keep hunting for local goodness as you go about your food shopping. March is tough times. Most of the storage items and preserved harvest from last year has run out (we are down to our last jam) and spring is taunting us with inklings of garden goodness. There is, of course, the amazing culture of the winter farmers market that seems to have exploded this year. I have been loving the apples I have been getting there. My kids were so excited to have this fresh fruit a month or so back and now when I serve them yet another apple they are like "Seriously? We want a banana woman!" and I just give them my standard reply "When you can grow a banana in NH you can have one." Is it any wonder they call me the "meanestest mother in the whole worlds!"?

But I have been pleasantly surprised to find some fairly local stuff at Hannaford as well. Potatoes and butternut squash from Maine were huge hits on our menu last week and I found them very reasonable. It takes me a bit more time, but I have now trained the kids to look for signs indicating where the produce was grown. Even in the big chains I find that most of it is labeled as "Product of Wherever". So first we rule out anything other than USA and then start to get as geographically close as possible, although I am sure there is some extra mileage in there when we take into account the crazy distribution system. For some insight into this you should take a listen to this episode of This American Life, my favorite NPR program and current addiction. And if, in your audio wanderings, you happen to catch some good Dead tunes, you'll be that much better off.