A few nice where to buy organic food images I found:
round the corner versus round the world
Image by The hills are alive*
I am currently reading a wonderful book by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s about how her family decided to become self sufficient – growing all their own vegetables, and rearing chickens and turkeys. Along the way she also discusses the importance of buying food locally, and supporting local farmers where possible, the hidden costs of buying food world-wide, and the merits of small farms, free range animals and organic food. There are things she talks about that I can’t do, but other things she discusses that I can do. Most of all she is a great writer – a poet and novelist as well as campaigner – and the book is a joyous read – a real celebration of community, kitchen and countryside.
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Texture layer from darkwood67, used with many thanks.
www.flickr.com/photos/hills_alive/5760541779/in/set-72157…
wild strawberries
Image by postbear
the last two weekends i rode out to the leslie street spit and picked wild strawberries. i initially forgot to bring a decent sized container, since i was there mostly for the ride and to take photographs, so i ate everything i picked, which was no penalty at all. this past sunday i took two large yoghurt containers (750 grams, about 3.5 cups) and filled them, along with stuffing my face. here are a few strawberries on the stem.
these taste like strawberries, by the way, not like supermarket horrorshows which taste like water and futility. these are also tiny – the biggest of them is about the size of your smallest fingernail, a fair-sized pea or a disclaimer made on a suspect product advertisement (let’s say 1.5 cm across).
it took me over three hours to pick them, with the odd break to move my bike along with me and ward off curious humans. while picking i thought about how much i’d have to be paid if i were to sell them, and i couldn’t come up with an answer. obviously the usual absurd figures would be acceptable (millions of dollars for my berries? sure!), but as the figures crept toward the possible, i knew i’d refuse all offers. there would be no point in doing this hard work (and while fruit picking is generally difficult, wild strawberries are just a giant pain in the ass) – the heat, bug attacks and back and knee pain would make me charge a stranger many hundreds of dollars, and if said stranger had that kind of money to toss around, i’d certainly veer straight into highway robbery just out of spite and robin hood tendencies. wild strawberries are often (i’d guess almost always) guarded by hills of grumpy little ants with big jaws, and despite my insect repellent (sprayed on shoes and socks, too), i was bitten many, many times. the mosquitoes also got me, as did a whole host of flies – i would have paid for some rain, to be honest.
i’ll shoot the pickings later, i’ve hulled, cleaned and eaten some, but had no time to shoot. last night a friend told me he’d bought some wild strawberries (or a small, wild-ish cultivar) at his local farmer’s market here in town and only paid four dollars for a good-sized basket. good deal, especially since the adjacent stall was selling the big waterbomb ones for a dollar more per basket. i will settle for a million per container, so if you are rich and foolish, get in touch.
oh, and if you want to pick your own, you’ll have to wait for next year. these were pretty much done when i was there on sunday. i’m not telling exactly where my field is on the spit, but they jump around at times – one prime location three years ago has nothing in it this year, and a couple of other spots varied in their fruit production.
final teaser: i’m eating some now, all on their own and warm from the sun.