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- October 4, 2008: School Food Is Way Ahead of Wall Street
- October 1, 2008: fresh chicken + a few turkeys this weekend!
- September 28, 2008: on money and food
- September 26, 2008: October Eat Local Challenge
- September 25, 2008: October 10th dinner at Flag Hill Winery
- September 24, 2008: closing the gap in recycling
- September 23, 2008: Farmer wanted
- September 22, 2008: Open Creamery Day at Silvery Moon Creamery
- September 21, 2008: Local food co-op in Brentwood!
- September 20, 2008: Menu online for UNH's Local Harvest day!
1. Seacoast Eat Local
2. Books for inspiration and ideas
3. more local food websites
store bought local food
The vast majority of my summertime shopping starts at the farmers’ markets. This puts the most money straight into the hands of the farmers, gives me the opportunity to stock up without having to do too much driving to farm stands, and is generally a fun time - chatting with producers and growers, seeing all the neat stuff each farm brings. But sometimes I just plain can’t make it to the market, or run out of dinner material on a Friday night before the big Saturday markets.
Fortunately, we have several stores and markets that do a decent job selling local products, and to a lesser extent, local produce. By local products I mean those things created here or near to here, but not necessarily from local ingredients, such as our wonderful local bakeries. There just isn’t local flour to be had, but we have great local companies we can support.
Two stops - Golden Harvest in Kittery, for the tomatoes from Mackenzie’s in Milton and the bread, and Philbrick’s Fresh Market in Portsmouth for the bacon from North Country Smokehouse - netted me these amazingly delicious BLT’s. The lettuce is Meadow’s Mirth’s Love My Lettuce salad mix gotten the previous week at the farmers’ market - and because it doesn’t spend time travelling it can spend a bit more time in my fridge before I use it.
The mayonaise, well, it’s Hellman’s. Some things are just necessary for a perfect BLT, wherever they may come from.
July 9, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I am so glad to find your new eat local blog. We’ve been feasting on summer squash the past few days. Summer is here, let’s eat!
July 11, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I, too, have found Philbrick’s Fresh Market, and their food is wonderful. They also have a decent wine selection (we like to have wine with dinner sometimes.) However, I bought a bottle of wine there that was priced at $15.99. Later, I found the same bottle of wine at a local wine shop that was priced at $10.99. I worry that markets and owners as well as farmers’ markets might take advantage of our desire for good, healthy foods and beverages. What are your thoughts?
July 11, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Price consciousness is always a good thing - these are businesses looking to succeed, and their margins are smaller on some products than others, so individual product mark ups from one business to another can vary significantly.
But I don’t know that I would go so far as to say “take advantage” - they aren’t offering a public service, they are businesses, so they are doing what businesses do.
This all touches of another one of the reasons I prefer farmers’ markets and other methods of direct sales — all of the farmers I know care very deeply about issues of affordability and don’t want their products to become available only to the wealthy. They struggle so much more often with not charging enough for their labor, input, investment, and err on the undercharging, as far as I’m concerned. Farming is hard work. Direct sales also mean the middle man doesn’t need a cut, so the price we pay is often lower than a store bought price. But it isn’t always as convenient, thus the price trade-off.
Good discussion question - I welcome others’ thoughts on the issues.
Pat - ps, ever try local wines? Jewell Towne Vinyards and Flag Hill both produce whites that make very fun summer wines, along with some very good reds.
July 12, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Yes, actually, I have tried both and both are quite good. In fact, I took a cooking class at Flag Hill that focused on buying locally and Chef Ted cited several excellent sources for buying local and organic foods. I hope to take more of his classes.