Tag Produce

That’s a Bargain!

Michael Leave a comment

There’s something very satisfying about finding a great buy. I’ve run into quite a few lately. No, not at the used car dealer, not on a call from a broker, not even at the dollar store – and you know how much I love the dollar store. The bargains I’ve been running across have been at the meat counter.

Really, the meat counter. Everything we’ve heard this summer says meat is the last place where there should be bargains. Droughty conditions are still responsible for less than the traditionally fatted calf not to mention the somewhat older steaks on the hooves. Bird flu is dropping chickens like clay pigeons. Pigs seem to be making a comeback but bacon prices are still playing the yo-yo game. Meat just isn’t on top of the specials lists.

One of the effects of not going to work every day is having lots of time on one’s hands. And I still have to get my exercise in. At this stage of my recovery walking is the best exercise I can take on. But with temperatures in the 80s and 90s a casual walk around the neighborhood could mean a sudden case of heat stroke, or worse. The answer is daily walks around the local mega-mart.  A trip along the perimeter is quite a healthy distance and I get to pass produce, bakery, deli, fish, meat, dairy, and the as-seen-on-TV section. With the exception of the tele-specials it’s almost like shopping at a local farmers market. I can buy just the veggies and salad fixings I’ll be using that day, I can get fresh rolls every morning, the fish monger is laying out his catches of the day just as I’m passing buy, and at the meat market they are marking down all the stuff left from the day before. I’m saving 30 to 40% from the regular price because they want it out of their refrigerators and into someone else’s. Mine will do.

If you figure the regular weekly shoppers are picking up a few days’ worth of meals on one trip, they are ending up with the same day old product at home in a couple of days. I’m buying what I’m going to be cooking in a few hours. And saving a bundle doing it.

Yeah, I know it’s a little over the top for just a couple of dollars but it gives me something to do before the noon news comes on. You have to make a little fun for yourself somehow. What better way than a good hunk of meat, fresh veggies, and a gadget that lets you make a bowel out of several strips of bacon. That’s a bargain.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Support Your Local Garden

Michael Leave a comment

Locavores are not people who eat their neighbors. But they are people who eat their neighbors’ meat and produce. It’s not a new idea, it’s not a new term, it’s not a new fad. It’s as old as backyard gardens and farmers’ markets and the term was first used in 2005. It reached a milestone in 2013 when AqSuared released an iPhone app just in case you didn’t know what was in season around your home.

If you’re a food junkie and you spend some time watching TV or surfing the net in search of articles and shows built with foodies in mind, catch phrases are growing faster than zucchini during a hot summer. Locavore and Farm to Table are two of the hottest right now.  (Farm to Table is another not new idea going back to 2003 as a recognized “movement.”) Why are they so hot? Probably because it’s hot right now.

Everything tastes better in the summer. It should. That’s the peak growing and harvesting season for almost everything we eat that comes from the earth. It’s when farmer’s markets pop up in parking lots every week, when local coops are wholesaling produce to the local supermarkets and purveyors, and when a salad bar at the neighborhood restaurant isn’t such a bad thing after all. It makes you glad that somebody in the early 2000s was thinking we should eat local.

Wait a minute! In the early 2000s? How about in the early 1900s, 1800, 1700s even. I can’t speak personally of any of those but I can reach back to mid-twentieth century when my father and every other father in our little neighborhood turned most of their backyards into vegetable gardens. The dads would come home from work some spring day and plan the “patch.” That weekend, shovels, rakes, and hoes turned and prepared soil for seeds and seedlings. Daily watering and weeding was added to kids’ lists of chores from then through the summer months. Moms started planning for summer sides for those veggies put to immediate use and for canning, freezing, and otherwise preserving those grown in quantity for use during the fall and winter months.

Locavores claim “locally produced” means within 100 miles. Those old gardeners did it within 100 feet! Oh there is nothing like eating a tomato or an ear of corn that you picked up at a local farmers’ market from a real local farmer. But even they pale to the ones that grow outside your back door. Now that’s local!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

To see a previous post on Farmers’ Markets, click here.

Don’t Keep Them Down on the Farm

Michael 1 Comment

Around our part of the world May heralds the beginning of Farmers’ Market Season. The weather is breaking into a comfortable spring/summer pattern and the local growers are breaking out what they’ve been working on all winter.

Farmers’ markets get the buyer as close to buying local as one can get. When dealing with fresh foods, buying local is never bad.  And at our markets, fresh food doesn’t just equal produce.  Here we’ll also have farmers who prepare their own sausages, jellies, pickles, and even baked goods. A trip to the farmers’ market is like a trip to the market.

Now let’s take it yet an extra step.  At our markets we also have entertainment.  At one market in the city’s downtown, there will be a concert presented by the local opera company every week.  It will also showcase featured vendors every week.  And to round off prepared food choices, food trucks will offer their special provisions.

It wasn’t always like this.  Ten years ago the markets were apples, corn, greens, tomatoes, peppers, squashes in chip baskets stacked neatly in the backs of pick-up trucks.  Somewhere along the way they morphed into events people planned their weeks around becoming social occasions as much as opportunities to experience fresh food items.  Still the center of attention is the produce.  Now it has a full supporting cast.

Are we getting a little nutty over something as simple as local harvest?  Perhaps we are.  City dwellers and near suburbanites look forward to opening of the farmers’ markets as much as they do the opening of baseball season, swimming pools, and spring clearance centers. For months the only fresh ingredients we’ve had for our dinner recipes have been the herbs grown in small pots scattered about the kitchen.

A handful of fresh strawberries scattered over fresh greens with a fruity vinaigrette drizzled over it may not seem like much but after a few months of bagged salads it can be the crowning glory of the evening meal.  In a few weeks one will be able to assemble an entire royal feast.  And that includes the flowers on the table.

You can’t get any fresher than that.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Move Along Please

Michael Leave a comment

We’re starting to notice something in the stores that we’re patronizing.  There are crazy people out there.  Allow us to explain.

Just a few days ago we were in a grocery store.   Not one of the mega marts that has everything from fresh dragon fruit to Lint Lizards.  This was a much smaller version that had everything from soup to nuts as long as you didn’t mind the canned variety of either.  It’s not unusual in either version’s produce section for people to shake, sniff, thump, or rattle the offerings in search of the freshest of the fresh, or in mid-March to find the least out of season depending on the origin of the well-travelled fruit or vegetable.  And at the meat display one will check out the marbling of the well fatted full grown steer.

On our trip to that store on that day we were in search of ground beef.  Not much you can tell from ground beef that isn’t on the label – its pre-grinding primal cut, fat content, weight, price, and the date ground, hopefully matching the date to be purchased.  Yet there in front of the entire display of ground beef, shopping cart angled to extend across the complete linear footage was a lady carefully examining each package of ground beef.  Well, perhaps not each package but several of them, and each of them quite carefully, looking them over as if to determine that the fat content printed on the label wasn’t what her eyes were able to discern.  We wanted to say “Move along lady, it’s all from the same cow and whatever you’re making isn’t going to be that fabulous or you’d be up at the other end where the cows are a little more put together. “  But we didn’t and eventually she found one that had the color, size, shape, or fat content of her liking and we snagged ours.

It was on that same trip that He of We decided it was time to spend a couple of dollars on our retirement plan, also known as the Power Ball.  So he stopped at the window where some young man was robotically entering the numbers of the daily number players into the state lottery computer and exchanging “Sure Thing” dollars for “Can’t Miss” numbers.  The line moved quickly, most of the hopefuls hanging their hopes on the quick pick versions of their numbers du jour.  And then there was just one in front of He of We.  And that one began with “Gimme Big Four, 1-2-3-4, fifty cents straight, 40 times,” and the young man punch the number in once, hit the quantity for 40 and we waited while the machine printed out 40 identical tickets.  “Anything else?”  “Yeah, gimme the Daily, 1-2-3, a buck straight, 40 times.”  Again we waited for the little machine to gasp out 40 more identical tickets.  “Anything else?”  And this was when He of We said “No, you’ve reached your limit.  Are you trying to make certain that if you should in your wildest fantasy actually hit both of those numbers that by spreading out your 60 dollar wager the IRS won’t figure out you’ve won around $20,000 because you did it 50 cents at a time!?  Now, move along please.”  Well, actually He of We just thought that and breathed a sigh of relief when the big spender asked for one more pick but more conventionally taking just the one wager and then passed a handful of bills to the still robotic young man.

Yet another shopping outing of ours put us into the main aisle of a national chain of stores that claims to provide items for the bedroom, bathroom, and other rooms beyond those two.  It seems odd that almost half of the store is dedicated to kitchen items and that kitchen isn’t in the store’s name but then we didn’t name that store so what do we know?  In that main aisle we stopped to peruse one of the several clearance shelves.  It is quite thoughtful that the store tags its clearance items with the reason for the item being on clearance.  ‘Last one,’ ‘demo,’ ‘returned,’ ‘only 1 of a pair.’  All very helpful.  But one of their reasons was “broken.”  It was there that we noticed that many of the items on the shelf were tagged with that very reason.  A clock was broken.  A storage box was broken.  A lamp was broken.  It would seem that if an item is broken, that to sell it means the store doesn’t place much value on its customers’ intelligence.  It’s almost as it they are saying, “If you make it cheap enough, people will buy anything.”  And from the picked over look that the clearance section had, it seemed that many people had at least semi-seriously considered many of those items before deciding to move along, with or without encouragement.

So we’ve noticed that not only are the customers getting a little batty but so are the shopkeepers.  Actually we don’t mind a little insanity in the shopping place.  It makes for some lively dinner conversation and provides us with a bit of caution to not be too batty out there ourselves.  But then, as long as you don’t dally and keep moving along, not many will notice.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?