Ten of Tens: Eating Local

The other day, I made a list of ten changes I want to make this year, a month at a time, to see where they take me.

The plan for January: Eat more local (when it's not so easy).

In the summer, it's pretty easy to get a lot of our food from local sources.  We get a share in Community Supported Agriculture, and every week we go to a drop-off location a few blocks away to pick up our weekly allotment.

(Want to join a CSA?  Now's the time to start looking -- at least in our area, they get fully subscribed pretty early in the year.  Here's a web site with more information.)

We supplement with trips to the farmer's market for the berries, plums, and apples we'll use for our year's supply of jam and apple sauce.

In the winter? Not so easy.  The CSA goes dormant, and the farmer's market is far smaller than it is in the summer.  Plus, it's not much fun to shop in the cold.  But I'm going to give it a try.  I don't even know what you can buy at the farmer's market this time of year, so it could be interesting.

If I can get the habit going now, when I'm not spending 15 hours a week commuting, maybe I can keep it up when that starts up again.  (Next week, it turns out.)