Sicilian Olive Oil at the Local Market

On Saturday I arrived at the Magnolia Farmers Market and discovered that I'd forgotten to bring cooking oil. I frantically looked around and discovered that the folks from Mondella Ristorante were selling olive oil. This seemed strange, because the market is restricted to local products, but I was so glad to see something that would work for my purposes that I bought first, and asked questions later.

The oil smelled exquisite, too good, really to be using on the grill. You're not supposed to use olive oil when you're cooking on high heat, so I used it sparingly and tried to keep the burners on a lower setting than usual.

At the end of the day I went up to the folks who were selling it and asked what the story was. They said they imported it directly from a friend of the family in Sicily. They must have gotten some kind of special dispensation from the market administrators, in fact, I'm surprised they're letting them sell it there at all because they're usually so strict about only allowing items that have been locally produced, but I'm thrilled that it's available to me there, with such a short supply chain.

I brought the rest of the bottle home. It has that wonderful bite in the back of your throat that you get with truly well-made olive oils.

Seattle Global Justice Dinner

Last night I attended a fundraising dinner for the Community Alliance for Global Justice. The event paired local food producers like Taylor Shellfish Farms and Mt. Townshend Creamery with local chefs such as Julie Andres of La Medusa and Seth Caswell of Stumbling Goat Bistro. The evening was very, very hot but the food was wonderful and the cause felt urgent and relevant.

The organizers did a great job of making the connection between strong local economies and equitable global food systems. The consolidation of the food production infrastructure in the United States has parallels all over the world, but we're most closely linked with Mexico, whose displaced small-scale farmers often migrate here looking for work.

There's a lot of talk in the local food movement about what it would take to eat an exclusively local diet, and whether this objective is even feasible. Personally, I have no problem eating something produced far from home, as long as there's no reasonable local alternative, and it's been produced by a small-scale operation rather than a globalized behemoth.

Black Beans from Alvarez

This week we were able to begin using black beans from Alvarez Farms in our tamales. They're organic, locally grown, and we can buy them directly from the folks who grow them. This thrills me.

Most of the local, organic beans I've seen at markets retail for about $6 a pound. These retail for about $2 a pound. The Alvarez guys harvest them in the fall, and sell them mainly in the winter and spring, before the chiles and tomatoes really get going.

One of the reasons I don't use more organic ingredients is because I have to either buy them retail, in small quantities, or go through a distributor where I have to place a minimum order. I don't like working with distributors. For me the most important purchasing criteria is buying an item directly from the producer. As a small-scale producer, I want to work with small-scale producers. That's much more important to me than whether an item is organically grown.

On some level I feel that if I'm buying something from a huge natural foods distributor, I may as well buy it from the wholesale foodservice grocery right down the street, and not have to drive thirty miles and pad my order with all kinds of things that I wouldn't otherwise buy in quantity.

So it was very exciting to me to make this connection and start using these beans. I'm going to start using their garbanzoes as well, in my felafel.

Pike Place Conundrum

According to an Seattle Times article earlier this week, some local farmers are giving up their stalls at the Pike Place Market because of slow sales. They're finding it more profitable to vend at neighborhood farmers' markets, in fact, one of the reasons that Pike Place Market sales have been suffering seems to be the proliferation of neighborhood markets: shoppers now have more convenient opportunities to buy fresh produce directly from the farmers who grow it.

The Pike Place Market started in 1907 as a venue for consumers and producers to circumvent predatory wholesalers. The market has become a model for similar ventures in other parts of the country, and was a forerunner of the very farmers' market movement which is now competing for its customers.

In the meantime, Pike Place Market has grown into a prime destination spot for tourists. Farms like Tiny's Organics, who have been able to adapt their offerings and feature items like small packets of dried fruit, which tourists can easily carry home with them, are more inclined to continue selling there.

Pike Place Market may no longer be the local shopping destination that it once was, but there's still plenty of room there for producers who can tailor their offerings to suit the new clientele. In the meantime, there are now plenty of other places for farmers to sell directly to the public, if they're not happy with what's going on downtown.

Local Ice

This is ice from Portland, in the freezer at the wholesale foodservice grocery in Seattle. A while back the price increased, and the employees were apologizing, saying that they had to charge more to cover the gas.

I asked why they didn't buy ice from the ice maker in Seattle, and they answered that their customers liked the shape of the Portland ice better.

Then one day I went in there and found both Seattle ice and Portland ice for the same price. I asked why they were charging more for the Seattle ice when the price increase was supposed to pay for the gas to ship the ice from Portland. They just looked confused.

These days, whenever I can, I just go to the ice maker in Ballard, and buy my ice directly from them.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

I love this kind of marketing: turning a weakness into a strength. You can't get the variety at the farmers' market that you find at the supermarket, but that's actually a good thing because most of those supermarket items are picked too early, stored too long, and shipped too far.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the issue of food miles, or the distance our food travels to get to our tables. But that's not the only reason it's important to eat locally. Locally grown food is more likely to be produced by independent growers rather than monster corporations.

People who live and work independently tend to also think independently. It's no accident that the earliest successful democracy--ancient Greece--was an agricultural society built on a system of small, independently owned farms.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the "banana republic," which calls to mind everything from petty tyrants to frequent revolutions to an impoverished population growing a single variety of food to enrich shareholders of foreign corporations.

Yes, we have no bananas...