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.

Will Work For Local Food

Are you the type of shopper who goes to the store on a mission? List in hand, meals planned out, rarely straying from the preappointed items and skipping whole aisles because you don't really need anything in them? Or maybe you're the type who has a few "must gets" and then kind of pokes around and might try something new or get inspired to create a meal around something that happens to be on sale? Or maybe you are like my mom who was notorious for making multiple trips to the store each week because she was forever buying cream cheese and no bagels or stocking up on more canned potatoes than any human should ever have to even look at, but forgetting to buy milk. I can't blame her though, she was married to a man for nearly forty years that ate a very well balanced diet from his own personal four food groups - coffee, Coke, mayo and salt. Seriously.
I would say that I am definitely a list girl, but if I see a sale on something I will definitely jump at the chance to stock up and occasionally that leads me to change my meal plan. The thing about Farmers Markets, is that they can really throw someone like me for a loop because they are very Forest Gumpy Chocolates. You never know whatcha gonna get. Last month's market was a prime example of this. I went in vowing to strike out to get more shopping done than the previous month, but my plan was thwarted by the very evil placement of the Sunflour Baking booth directly across from mine. I was starring at all their insane goodies while thumbing the predesignated spending cash in my pocket. Finally, I could fight it no longer and hopped down from my cozy corner booth and attacked a Cinnamon Beast. Selfish, but oh so worth it.
I was definitely interested in checking out the Fleur de Sel table and perused it with great interest. I am definitely a salt snob. I am also my father's daughter and, therefore, salt goes on and in everything except maybe pudding. Although if it was pistachio....hmmm. I have come to know and love Kosher salt. Oi! So good. But the price was a little steep and if I came home and said I spent the whole lot on a jar of salt I think David would have known that I have finally lost it and revoked my market privileges.