a little closer to home: buying locally, eating with the seasons

[kettunainen]

My wife gets the Toronto Star headlines sent to her via email so as to cut down on paper waste. Recently, she saw this headline: The hopeless blight on our strawberries. It's not about bad weather affecting Ontario strawberries. Not at all. Rather, it's about the farmers no longer having a market in which to sell their produce. Why don't they have

Comments

[corbet]

I've been struggling with this myself, as I'm trying to eat local and/or organic produce. I've found I can get a decent selection of Ontario veggies from the downtown Dominion. The Sobey's back in KW made me throw my hands up in despair -- it carried US produce almost exclusively. The smaller places in Kensington market proved great for local stuff, though I forgot to pick up fruit, and as a result haven't eaten any in a week -- none of the local grocery stores have any Ontario fruit!!!

This might help for figuring out availability.

[kettunainen]

That link is awesome! Thank you!

I really hope that we'll be able to start buying Ontario produce. I think, for the time being, that we're going to modify our buying habits so that we only buy what's in season HERE. Next step will be to actually buy from local growers. We're on a tight budget for food, so we can only really afford to shop at No Frills and buy the bare necessities that I can't get there from the health food store.

[kettunainen]

cool. the link that corbet provided (http://www.foodland.gov.on.ca/availability.htm) is also really handy. :-)

[eumelosdrizzle]

OMG this post is long...

I'm going to the Farmers Market at City Hall today (its every Wednesday); I'll let you know if they have local strawberries etc - they did last year.

[eumelosdrizzle]

So I went the the market and they do have Ontario strawberries there, they are super fresh and decently priced - I think a quart cost me like 4.50$

[kettunainen]

yum!!

[eumelosdrizzle]

Sorry for double posting - we are doing the Good Food Box (we'll be getting our second shipment soon); its pretty good stuff actually, I was impressed.

[kettunainen]

I really hope we're able to do that, too. It probably won't be for a few months, though.

[eumelosdrizzle]

We had blueberries and raspberry fruit salad today. It was yummie!

[secretsoflife]

you've inspired me to go get a truckload of strawberries tomorrow at the trinity bellwoods farmer's market and make some (lots of) jam :)

also, the good food box rocks. i had it for years; i've been meaning to get signed up for it again.

-leigh

[kettunainen]

jam? want! yay!

[secretsoflife]

i have all the supplies to make an absolute ton, but no berries. i will go hunt tomorrow!