I will never eat another regular apple again...

This morning, I found myself at the U-district farmers market. I am trying to eat more locally, and I figured that would be a good place to start. The farmers had potatoes,leeks, cabbage, parsnips, turnips, daffodils, and dairy products. These are all things that are in season now, and I prepared to get all of the things I would need to make veggie-shepherds pie.

Here was a surprise. They had apples. I asked the farmer (who's name I never caught) how they could sell apples. I know apples are not in season.

He told me that the apple I was ready to buy had been grown in November. Fuji apples are apparently grown because they have a long shelf life. The apples they are currently selling were picked in November. Imagine that... an apple that was about 5 months old.
I bought four.

After unloading a truckload of topsoil, I decided to put apples in water and make fruit water. I have to say, before today, I did not think I liked apples. I stand corrected.

These have got to be the sweetest, crunchiest most beautiful apples I have ever eaten, and I don't know if I will ever to look at another the same way.

Food really does taste better when it has been cared for.

Locally grown organic foods?

I feel like this journey is a bit like driving by a car accident.
You know what is going to be there. You know you don't want to look. You try to keep both hands on the wheel and your eyes straight ahead, but it almost never works.

Sometime when I was very young, and I realised where meat came from, I began to pretend that it grew on trees. When this failed, I told my mother that I was now a Vegetarian. She laughed and figured it was a phase. I am now 30, and my phase still isn't over. I truly believe that some people can't be healthy with out the animal protein that meat provides, and I respect that. I also know that some people just enjoy meat too much to give it up, and I respect that too. (I feel that way about musical instruments.) For me, I just feel better with out meat.

I'm beginning to have this same realisation about how vegetables and fruit are grown.
It turns out, when food is really cheap, grown by machines instead of people, and laden with chemicals, we suffer dire consequences. Obesity, plaque on our arteries, Cancer , not to mention environmental changes that make me re-consider having children, because I worry about the world we will leave them.

Not to mention, we are loosing touch.
Last summer,I grew a Brussel sprout plant. Because I had never actually seen a brusselsprout plant, I couldn't imagine where the Brussel sprouts were... until about August when I found them under the leaves.

The more I learn about how our food is created, the more items I cross off my grocery list, or label only when in season.

We have begun eating asparagus nightly...because it is in season now.

I bought a bread maker today... from a thrift store.

My tomato plants have 2 true leaves.

I know we are all just trying to evolve, but for me to do so, I think I have to go back to my roots.

Tomorrow, I'm going to plant shoots of Garlic... I can't imagine where the garlic bulbs will come out of... Don't tell me. Let it be a surprise.