It’s the end of our local summer, and our entire apartment is up in boxes, waiting for tomorrow’s move. Our garden is mostly gone, just waiting for a clear path out of the apartment so that the dirt can be dumped and the boxes and pots packed up. I transplanted the herbs yesterday, and dug up our one and only onion – it’s about the size of a large pea. The tomatoes are mostly dead, but whatever’s left will be going home with friends tomorrow. It’s been a good summer.
At this point, our meals are mostly local, and the non-local stuff feels alternately decadent and weird. Last week we had macaroni and cheese and frozen vegetables, and it was kind of magical. We also had homemade meatloaf made from local bison and really lovely roasted vegetables from the market (see my paean to vegetables to understand the depth of my vegetable love). This morning we made breakfast sandwiches with fried eggs, rye toast, and aged cheddar, all from the market.
I could wax poetic about how eating locally has changed our lives, but enough people have done that already. I think I can speak for both of us that we’re both cooking and eating better now – and that’s an awfully good thing.