Spring brings new things

Okay, so here's one of the things I meant to write about awhile ago: The Farmers' Market has started up again. Both the downtown and Poplar's Grove markets have been packed every time I've been there - it looks like business is booming. That's good stuff around here. There are all kinds of great new things coming in to add variety to my life.

Here's a sample of what we picked up this Saturday for less than $20:

Head of lettuce
Beets
(Black River)
Carrots
Romaine
Another head of lettuce
Tomato
Onions
Cauliflower
(Gilbert's)
Sweet potatoes
(Hanchey's)
Chevre
(Nature's Way)
Zucchini
Squash
(Swart's)

I made up a menu that will allow those staples to feed us for the next two weeks, along with what we've already got in the house. We've recently started adding in some non-local food to help stretch our food budget. Although we are still doing almost all of our shopping from local sources, we've added a few "luxury items" to make up a meal. This saves us from running out of food mid-week and deciding to just go out, which we've found ourselves doing more of these days. This is not good for the purse nor the plan we had for ourselves.

So, for example, here is our menu for this week. Everything non-local is indicated:

Mon - Roasted veggies (zucchini, squash, cauliflower, carrots, onion, sweet potatoes)
Tues - Salmon (not local) with snap peas and rice
Wed - Chicken gyros with cucumber, feta and tomato (pita bread not local)
Thu - Pork chops and Bibb lettuce salad with Green Goddess dressing and beets (using an avocado to make the Green Goddess)
Fri - Gnocchi with Pesto sauce (Gnocchi not local)
Sat - Curried veggies and rice

Looking at this list, I think - I could use a locally caught fish instead of salmon. Maybe I will if the Fish Market has something comparable. I could also leave out the avocado in the dressing, but I'm trying to recreate the salad I had at Chez Panisse. I could also make my own Gnocchi, and will if I have the energy, but I'm trying not to make myself crazy. It's funny - we've remained relatively ignorant of rising food costs, since so much of what we've eaten has been put up from last year, or purchased from local sources. So adding a couple of non-local items doesn't hurt us financially, and actually helps by adding to the variety of meals we can make with a majority of local food. For example, there's no way to make chicken gyros without pita bread - but if we spend $2.00 on some flatbread, we can use up our leftover chicken, tomato and cucumber in a way that makes us happy. That's worth the non-localness to me.

As a side note, Saturday's market was extra fun because my sisters joined me for the first time. They were astounded by how inexpensive everything was, compared to the grocery store. Having not bought produce in the grocery store for some time, I was unaware that ONE pepper can apparently go for $2.99. Mr. Gilbert was selling his for 5o cents each. I was warned beforehand by my youngest sister Rachel that they were not into "chatting with farmers", but they actually had a great time, got some delicious, inexpensive food and ended up doing some chatting after all.