In 2005 after eating a rather pinkish hamburger, I went to bed feeling a little off. I will not go into the details, but I woke up the following morning being more than a little off. I quite honestly thought I was dying and after the superb medical staff at University of Rhode Island told me my thyroid was off (which it was, but that is besides the point), Dr. Google diagnosed me with e. coli food poisoning. A blood test I insisted on proved I was right much to the admiration of the moronic doctors URI employed. Side note - They once told my roommate she had West Nile when in fact she had a bad sinus infection. Anyway, I lived to tell about it and thus began my brief stint as a vegetarian.
It was brief because I began dreaming about bacon. In the meantime, I started doing very basic reading about the food industry. You know, the typical books: The Omnivore's Dilemma, Eating Animals, Fast Food Nation, etc. All of it was pretty disturbing, but at the same time kind of paralyzing. You realize what you are putting in your body is not actually food as it used to exist in nature, but what in the world do you do about it? You browse in the organic sections in the grocery store and watch the $$ quickly add up. Who affords this stuff outside of Hollywood? And who exactly is ensuring it is in fact grown organically?
It gets worse. Then you start reading about GMO's (genetically modified organisms) in our food, Monsanto, the end of the small family farm, and so on and your head starts to spin. Granted, there are a lot of people who grow up only eating locally but I'd wager they are in the minority among average American families. We grew up eating a lot of vegetables from a home garden and 99% of the seafood we eat is caught locally by my father and assorted friends and relatives. But I guarantee you it never crossed anyone's mind when chicken was purchased in the grocery store that what we were about to eat for dinner was a freak of nature.
None of this is supposed to be guilt inducing, but where my food comes from is something I think about a lot. Now that we are as settled as we're going to get for awhile in our house, I've been looking into the various local farmer's markets, farm stands, and local food options. We are lucky in Hampton Roads that not quite everything has been turned into treeless neighborhoods of McMansions yet and some of the small family farms are holding on. Farmer's Markets are popping up everywhere and the word is getting around as these farms come into the Facebook age and offer online ordering.
Old Beach Farmer's Market started up right as we moved to Williamsburg, but since it opened for the 2012 season we've been going on Saturdays mornings. I recently bought chicken there from one of the market's vendors (Full Quiver Farm in Suffolk) and last week had my first ever non-grocery store chicken. To be honest, I can't say that it tasted much different. I could tell a difference in the texture of the meat, but eating it
felt different. Yes, I know that sounds super lame. We had local tomatoes along with it and while Patrick was eating asked "Are these the tomatoes from the market? They are so good!". I think that local produce most definitely tastes better and I like that by buying it I'm helping a family hold onto their farm and continue to produce for our region.
Unfortunately it's pretty difficult to find local grass-fed beef in Hampton Roads. Full Quiver Farm sells out of theirs immediately and is trying to buy more land specifically for cattle. There are some local butchers that sell grass-fed beef, but I'm not sure where they get it. Trader Joe's offers it from New Zealand. Hopefully in the near future more local options will become available, but Hampton Roads was never really a beef producing area. There are some farms west of here that bring it to the Williamsburg Farmer's Market, but I can understand why they don't want to deal with tunnel tourist traffic in the summer to come Hampton Roads.
So, I'm doing what I can. On Monday Mom, Finn, and I drove out to Pungo to check out the farm stands. We got some of the last strawberries of the season, tomatoes, peaches (from SC as they're not ready here yet), and I got the first of the blackberries. I'm excited for blueberry season to start very soon, and I hear some farms are about to get the first round of corn. I will be placing an order shortly with Full Quiver Farm for a broiler chicken, chicken breast, and eggs to pick up at this week's Old Beach Farmer's Market.
Isn't all of the expensive you ask? Yes, it is more expensive than the grocery store. But I'm paying for more than the food and am 100% more likely to make an effort to not waste any of it since I know where it comes from. Plus Finn hasn't eaten meat in a good 6 months so we're not feeding 3 quite yet. It's anyone's guess as to what His Highness will be eating on a given day, so I don't really factor him into the food equation. If someone could start making a good local cheddar, I'd be all over that since it pretty much all he eats.
Next house renovations installment to come shortly: A roof with a side of shame.
