Slow Food article

I read a great article in the SF Chronicle about the owner of the Monterey Market, a grocery store in Berkeley, CA.  Below is an excerpt or read the full article.

Fujimoto buys from local growers – even those with just one or two prized rangpur lime or ‘Hachiya’ persimmon trees growing in the backyard. ‘There is no minimum,’ Fujimoto said.

But local sourcing happens as much by default as by intent at Monterey Market. “I focus on seasonality and quality, and in doing so end up being very local.

‘Bill (Fujimoto) has a marketing theory that you buy high and pay as much as you can to your vendors, then sell at the lowest possible price,’ said David Eichorn, a Kensington gardener and wild-mushroom forager. ‘If he’s selling my wild chanterelle mushrooms for $11 per pound, he’s going to give me $8 per pound.’

If they are open for Labor Day, I am going to pick up a few bags of produce tomorrow and scare up a feast for some friends who are coming in town for the Slow Food Conference.  I’m thinkin’ about garlic cheese grits, avocado and goat cheese salad, roasted root crops, and pork chops with mustard.  Some homebrew (cherry ale) and sake too!

Wall-Mart will sell local produce, locally

…I read the good news on my favorite foodie blog, Eating Alabama. This is really exciting, not because I shop at the Wart, or because it validates my previous post, but because it will put nearly half a billion dollars into local farms this year.

Wall-Mart is famous for supply chain management, so it is nice to see they finally realized the benefits of buying farmer John’s tomatoes rather than shipping them from a hot-house 3,000 miles away.
Is this caused by high gas prices? Will they sell local food in season, then switch to oil-soaked food in the winter? I can imagine the shock when people realize that food grown in their zipcode is fresher than imported winter crops. There may even be an uprising! In Pynchon fashion everybody will sound together in unison:

Down with Iceberg,

Don’t feed me shallots.

Throw out the t’maters,

We’re onto your plot.

Give us what’s fresh,

Or cans of what’s not.

Cuz’ we have the power

To buy or let rot.

Food packaging is corporate foil

Sunday is grocery day in my house, and it is always a struggle to decide where to go. Over the last few weeks I have been a regular visitor to the Shattuck and El Cerrito farmers markets and a produce only grocery store, the Monterey Market. Today, Wendy and I were lookin’ for some non-farmers market essentials like toilet paper, soap, and mouthwash. We talked of Trader Joe’s or Safeway but I hate that everything comes prepackaged. Do I need a box inside a package inside a container? When did food packaging become so esoteric? Does it really help prevent spoilage or is it just more surface area for advertising!! This is a real turn-off. Just because I can recycle the packaging doesn’t mean I want to have to do that in the first place. I think the whole food industry is missing the boat.

Sara Fuller has a nice blog post on food packaging as part of a group locavore experience called Eating Alabama. Here is a snipett:

I realized this when my parents came for a visit and I bought “conventional” groceries. We had to throw away bags from potato chips, paper from cereal boxes, milk containers from soy milk. It adds up. Even if you think that how you are eating is ethical- the organic potato chips or the antibiotic free milk, there is still the issue of waste to consider. How we make decisions about food should not exclude this concern.

Thanks Sara for bringing up this great point. I am going to do my part and try to buy food that doesn’t come prepackaged or have advertising on it. When I get produce, grains, nuts, and dried fruit in bulk I’ll try to reuse the plastic bag. Bringing cloth bags to the store also helps. When I eat out, I have a nifty little tin for leftovers a-la Sigg, a Swiss-based company. If all this works I’ll know because the trash can will need emptying much less.

For more on food and food packaging:

• an article about what you can do from the Univ. of Florida
• an article on the differences between the EU and US
• a new book by Barbara Kingsolver :: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• image from another good resource, Californians Against Waste
  

Locavores: Eating Alabam blog

My friends from Alabama are embarking on a new adventure, one that involves their minds and stomachs. Their goal is to be “locavores” for 4 months, and consume only food grown in their home state. Their efforts are being documented on the blog Eating Alabama.

In a state like Alabama, where we have one of the longest growing seasons in the country, you would think we would have a strong farm economy. But the only local products in the grocery store down the street are muscadine wines from an Alabama vineyard and bar-b-que sauce from local restaurants. Our produce section is dominated by citrus from California, potatoes from Idaho, asparagus and squash from Mexico, and avocados from Chile. …Some of the chicken is from Alabama, maybe even from a chicken farm up the road. But first it’s shipped to Arkansas for processing before making the trip back to your plate.

We don’t anticipate solving the problems of our industrial agriculture system in the next four months, but we hope to get a better glimpse at small farmers throughout the state who are trying to make a difference. (blog)

Good luck y’all! I am eager to check back with you on your progress and get some more good collards/ greens recipes.

For those not familiar with this new local food movement, Wikipedia explains locavores, the 2007 Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year, as:

…coined by Jessica Prentice from San Francisco Bay Area on the occasion of World Environment Day 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100 mile radius.

The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to produce their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Local grown food is an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, since supermarkets that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. (wiki)