My Sources

So we happen to live in an area where we have seemingly endless choices for local food.  There are a million CSA subscriptions to chose from and we have a year-round farmer's market less than five miles away.

But eating local food still takes some planning.  See, the farmers can't always be selling it to you (like a grocery store can always be open) since their primary job is to produce the stuff.  So when I was planning our summer, I made sure to carefully select a CSA that would complement my primary farmer's market.

We generally go to the University District farmer's market every Saturday morning.  It's phenomenal.  They have everything you could ever want, and then some.

And so I knew I wanted a CSA that had a pickup mid-week, to keep my household in fresh, local produce all season long.  After consulting with some fellow crunchy-granola friends I've made out here, I decided to go for a pickup near my house from Oxbow Farms.

Is this place not amazing?  Their mission statement even makes me happy:

"Oxbow’s mission is to EDUCATE people on the importance of environmental stewardship and healthy food, to RECONNECT us to the land and our local sustainable food supply, and to INSPIRE us to take action in our daily lives and in our communities."

Is that not awesome?  So we have a large vegetable produce box for 20 weeks, starting in mid-June, and then the optional extra fruit CSA starting in mid-July.

I can hardly wait.

And yes, the farmer's market is only open for five hours on Saturday, and my CSA pickup is only on Tuesday evenings.  So yes, I have to plan around it.  But honestly, I wouldn't want to live a life that was too busy to make that schedule work.  Nourishing food, slow meals, quality family time?

Sounds like an amazing summer to me.