Wow - between vacation and prepping for my upcoming Yoga Teacher Training, I've fallen behind on my blogging.
Hopefully I'll have some more tasty recipes and random stray thoughts coming soon, but in the meantime I wanted to let you know about a wonderful interview I heard on NPR today with Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA.
Alice Waters was at the vanguard of the "local, sustainable" food movement. Over the past 40 years she has cultivated partnerships with local farmers, ranchers and other providers who are all passionate about fresh, seasonal, organic food. She has also started a foundation to bring healthful, local food to schoolchildren with a program called "Edible Schoolyards."
While I do enjoy the convenience and cost-effectiveness of shopping at large supermarkets, I do try to support local growers at farmer's markets and other shops that source locally. Honestly, I could really do more along those lines - convenience usually wins out - but I want to make an effort to do better in that area. One thing I do, though, is do most of my shopping around the perimeter of the store, and only get 20-30% of my groceries from the aisles. Even then, I try to focus on ingredients rather than prepared foods. The perimeter of the store is where the fresh produce, meats, cheeses, dairy and even baked goods are usually kept. I focus on the aisles where you find rice, beans, canned tomatoes, pasta, etc. Things that you use to MAKE delicious dishes. I would say that only about 5% of my grocery cart is filled with prepared foods, and usually "snack" or "dessert" things like ice cream, chips or sometimes a particularly yummy looking cake.
There's a difference in the way you relate to food when you take the time to gather it thoughtfully and with intention, even if "gathering" it means taking your time to choose the freshest, juiciest apple from the entire bin of apples in front of you. The food stops being a disposable commodity designed to fill your belly, and takes on the quality of being something that nourishes you or your loved ones. When you actually meet and chat with the person who grew the apple at your local market, though, you develop a reverence and respect for the food, and take time to lovingly prepare it.
I hope you take the time to listen to the interview linked above - it may change the way you think about food forever.
