Eating Locally

No, I am not referring to eating out at restaurants close to your home (although we do a fair bit of that too), I am referring to canvasing your area for local farm stands and making an effort to purchase and eat food that is grown locally. True, it is not quite as easy as popping into your local Shaws and making one stop for all your grocery needs, but there are so many other benefits:

1. Locally grown produce tastes amazing. Take a farm stand tomato and bite into it, then bite into a tomato from Shaws - no contest. Because the farm-fresh produce tastes so much better, you have to do so little to it when cooking, which means you need less fat and complexity to add flavor.

2. It is "greener." There is an enormous carbon foot-print associated with shipping food across America. Next time you are at your local Shaws, make a point to check out where your food is coming from. Also, typically local farms are small, therefore they are dumping less pesticide and waste back into the environment than someone like Perdue.

3. We are what we eat. If we purchase steaks and chicken that have been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, it makes sense to me that this eventually winds up in our systems. There is researched linked to the onset of puberty starting earlier and earlier because of all the hormones kids ingest today in their dairy products. How the animals are raised also makes a difference in the overall outcome of the meat product. Grass fed beef is leaner, higher in Omega-3's and has fewer calories per ounce than it's grain-fed counterparts. Eggs from pastured hens contain up to 20 times the amount of Omega 3's than their factory hen counterparts. Food for thought, no pun intended.

There are some downsides to this way of thinking - for example, you are limited to what is available at the farm stand...if a recipe calls for butternut squash and they are out you need a change in plans. But I've found my cooking to be so much better trying to stick with this approach. I am really lucky to have found some great local resources, but it took some time and some research, so don't give up too easily.

Here are my local favorites:

Tendercrop Farms: http://www.tendercropfarms.com/
This place is the best. I would go every day if I could. Located in Newbury, they sell their own grass fed beef, free range chicken and eggs, and pork/ham, along with a huge selection of vegetables grown on the premises or sourced from nearby places like New Hampshire or Maine. This weekend I scored their own steak tips, asparagus, fiddlehead ferns, swiss chard, and butter lettuce, and some greenhouse grown vine tomatoes from Maine. All their own veggies had been picked that morning. They also have a nice plant selection and very nice dried floral arrangements. I even bought one of their hams for Easter dinner and it was fabulous.

Cider Hill Farms: http://www.ciderhill.com/
Cider Hill Farms is located right here in Amesbury but has a much smaller selection than Tendercrop and does not raise their own cows, chickens, or pigs. Cider Hill does a better job with fruit when it is in season and has several "pick your own" crops, and they also do a better job with tomatoes in my opinion. The only problem is it is a bit of a tourist destination with tons of people coming in for apple picking, hay rides, goat petting, pumpkin patches, etc. and if you go at the wrong time the produce is really picked over and you'll find not a lot left.

Bob's Lobster: http://boblobster.com//
Bob Lobster is a funky little clam/lobster shack on the way out to Plum Island in Newburyport. We've stopped there for lunch once or twice and they serve your typical selection of every type of fried seafood under the sun (or ocean I suppose) lobster rolls, clam chowder, etc. But more exciting is their shop area. Bob is actually a real dude and a fisherman/lobsterman, so he delivers his catch daily to be used in the restaurant and sold in the store. Doesn't get any fresher or more local than that.

David's Seafood: http://davidsfishmarket.com/index.html
Bigger selection that Bob Lobster but cash-only business, which is a tad shady. The selection changes but they always have at least 4-5 different kinds of fresh fish plus shrimp, clams, and lobster.

Enjoy!