"Oh hey!"
I looked up from my cart and saw, horrifyingly, that it was one of the baristas from my favorite grocery store in the city, Foragers Market. By my reaction, one might have implied that I was caught strolling out of our neighborhood porn shop with a black plastic bag in my hand. My jaw dropped, face flushed.
It's not that she isn't lovely. She is. We chat in the mornings, we comment on each other's hair. "It looks lighter! I like it!"
In any other situation, I would have been delighted to see her. But not here. Not at the mass market grocery store that's right beside Foragers Market.
At home, I disparage this retailer and take every opportunity to avoid it. I hate the fluorescent lighting, the clinical smell, the cheese fridge...so close to the household products aisle that your $10 wedge of Gruyere tastes faintly of Clorox.
Never mind the bloated out-of-season vegetables, straight from GMO farmland. "They don't care about the food Rodney! Please don't shop there!"
And here I was. Busted. With a big old pile of industrial corn.
This was very off-brand. Gene Simmons in a three-piece-suit off-brand.
I love Foragers Market. But when it comes to large volume foods with expensive ingredients, I've been known to wimp out. Under the veil of daybreak, I'll slink next door and toss vats of ricotta and conventional veggies into my cart.
It's a momentary breakdown that happens every few months. I might as well confess my sins before another person spies me in Aisle 3, hunting for tomato paste.
My strong preference is to pay up for quality ingredients, but sometimes, particularly when I'm testing a new recipe for the kids, I can't bear the rejection of a pricey meal. Small-batch ricotta made by hand on an organic dairy farm upstate; the season's most tender baby zucchini, now in the early stages of harvest. "It'll all be cooked within an inch of its death!" the voice rings in my head.
I squeaked out my justification: "I didn't want to make a $30 lasagna for the kids. In case they don't like it. Please ....don't tell anyone that you saw me here."
My friendly barista told me that my secret was safe with her. "I do it too" she said as she nodded at her container of broccoli salad.
And so ended the snobbiest exchange in the history of checkout counter conversations. I can only imagine the eye-rolling that was happening between the cashier and the woman in line behind me.
It's hard to say whether it's a character flaw or impassionedness about a cause that I so thoroughly support. I'm not snooty by nature. Clothes, material goods, they're all secondary.
But food....my soapbox is sturdy enough to have its own eco-friendly kitchen.
What can I say, I slip up sometimes. Those giant zucchini were calling my name...eager for a brush of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and some QT on my indoor grill pan. The corn cobs, half-shucked, covered in plastic, they called out to me too; perhaps a primal yearning for foods are still a month or two out of reach. But, still, I felt guilty.
I redeemed myself *slightly with the addition of carrot top pesto made from last summer's CSA; pulled from the freezer and folded into the ricotta. Not to mention the non-Clorox parm that I showered over the top.
The kids ended up loving it. Two out of three at least.
Which gives me the green light to make it again using the best ingredients that I can find.
I can only imagine how great this will taste in the prime of summer when the corn and zucchini will be straight from the Hudson Valley. When I'll bring the mozzarella home, still warm, from the cheese vendor at our local Farmer's Market.
"Be fussy about your ingredients" coaches April Bloomfield, chef, cookbook author, zen master of all things delicious.
If you'd like to look into ways to add more farm-fresh products into your meals, I recommend signing up for a CSA. Ours starts next month, another adventure with Bialas Farms located in the black dirt region of Orange County, NY. You'll get more fresh vegetables than you'll know how to handle, which is exciting and just a little bit daunting. But it teaches you to be creative and resourceful in the kitchen, and it's of tremendous value to the farmers themselves.
Kasha Bialas, owner of Bialas Farms, and a person whom I now call a friend, was featured last summer on Michael Ruhlman's site where she talked about the benefits of eating locally. It's a well-written post that gives you behind-the-scenes insight into the work that goes into maintaining a farm, and what you can do to support your local farmers.
If you'd like more information about CSAs in your area, I found my CSA on the Local Harvest website, which is thorough and easy to search. And if you need cooking inspiration, you can follow along on the CSA category posts listed on my sidebar, as well as the CSAs, Greenmarkets and Farmstands feed that I edit for the cooking website feed feed. Even better, if you're in the southern NY/northern NJ area, you can sign up for a Bialas farm share and get Kasha's weekly newsletter, which is full of ideas and tips for cooking with her first-rate produce.
By the looks of the Bialas Farms Facebook page, we're shaping up to have another bountiful summer. I can hardly wait...Have a great week everyone.
