SherryDAmore
Senior Cook
I agree that it is our biggest failure in our community. We have two grocery stores; a Piggly-Wiggly and a Wal-Mart. Drive for a half hour west and Dubuque has some more, but not really much different. Our little community does have a farmers' market, but it rarely has anything I don't grow in my (very small, very limited) garden.
Since the grocery stores are part of larger chains, there is almost no local produce available. Even when local stuff is great, it is hard to find it. I can "do" my own tomatoes and lettuce. But it seems strange to buy asparagus from some other country when I know it is grown locally (I can occasionally find a friend of a friend and buy some locally)and during the season. SOme years I can get morels, some not. But, in fact, our local farmers' market is more geared to those who do canning & preserves. Nothing wrong with that.
I definitely do NOT believe in ONLY buying "locally in-season". Nice fantasy, if you never want to eat lettuce, tomato, etc, in the winter above the frost line. But when it is good, and it is near-by, why can't it be in the local stores?
Now that I've been here ten years, I have a source for lots of this stuff, and I'm happy for it. But ten years?
This why I love Wegman's: They buy from local farmers, and post what farms they are buying from. Because we have two huge Universities here, one, Ivy league, we have people from all over the world, so we do have some imported veggies and other international food (thank heaven, it's the only place I can find vegemite and marmite) but they have as much as possible from local sources.