Local veggies

Last weekend my best friend Rikki came down with her darling little chunk of a man, Colton, who will be a whole year old next month. Upon arrival, he immediately got to work trying to consume all of Zoey's fake plastic food, while Zoey hovered nearby nervously. Rikki unloaded the contents of her car, which included goodies for me like a fresh chicken from her farm (freezer-ready, thankfully), peaches and nectarines from her recent trip to Wenatchee, and a huge bowl of snap peas from her garden.

Zoey and I made quick work of the peas throughout the week, and I promised her we would hit up the farmer's market on Saturday to re-stock.

I've been meaning to start buying all my produce from the farmer's market for, well, quite some time. You always hear how much better it tastes, how supporting local farmers is a Good Thing, etc. All concepts I am completely on board with. My satisfaction with Winco's produce has been on the downhill slide for several weeks now and finally, after this week throwing out half a head of brown lettuce and a smooshy cucumber we never even got to despite the fact we had bought it five days earlier, I knew it was time to start shopping local.

I'll admit, cost has been a factor in buying all things produce from the grocery store as opposed to the farmer's market. We bought apples at the market last month and I believe I paid something outrageous like $4 for only three of them. But this week I was committed, primarily because Zoey kept requesting peas long after we had polished off the bowl, and I set aside $20 of my weekly budget just for the farmer's market on Saturday.

I was pleasantly surprised at what $20 will get you from the local produce stands. Not to mention it was fun just wandering through the booths, comparing prices on tomatoes and corn. For only a whopping $12, I collected a large bag of green beans (Zoey chose these over snap peas), two ears of corn, a gorgeous bright red tomato, two green peppers, four apples, a head of lettuce, a cucumber, and a homemade soft German pretzel stick that was, seriously, to die for. Since we had money left over, Zoey and her cousin Finley even got a turn on the bounce house. ($2 per child for five minutes. Clearly I have gone in to the wrong field, and need to start hawking plastic inflatable devices for insane prices.)

I couldn't bring myself to pay $2 for an onion, though. Don't ask me why. It's just...really? For an onion? It was the one bin I couldn't stop myself from thinking 'I could get a bag of these for less than $2 at Winco'.

You can take the girl out of Winco, but tragically, you can't remove all the Winco from the girl.

Zoey and I are excited to head back to the farmer's market next Saturday. I am hoping we can milk this buying-local-produce for at least another four to six weeks before the weather turns horrid and all the produce stands dry up for the year. And those apples? They're expensive, but damn, they're good.