Local food finds (kinda lengthy)

I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend. We've had two days of glorious weather here. Today is a bit cloudy, but I'll take 2 out of 3 anytime.
I paid tribute to the holiday and made a red, white & blue multi-grain pancake breakfast.

Bear and I were planning to go camping this weekend, but it didn't quite pan out - bummer. Instead, we went bike riding and also checked out a farmers market in Seattle's University district.


I've got another blog post coming up about this, but I'm trying to educate myself more about the food I put into my body and where that food comes from. I've also been doing some reading, and I'm shocked to find what I'm learning. It's one thing being naively unaware of issues; it's another to completely ignore them after you are conscious of what really goes on in the background. So there's no going back for us now. Bear and I decided to establish a good balance of incorporating changes to what we consume and one of them is to support local business and try to shop for foods locally as much as possible. So, back to the farmers market. The veggies all looked delicious and since I was overwhelmed by the choices, I only walked home with a bunch of spinach.

There was a line here for this stand where they sold locally grown chicken as well as fresh dairy products.

These pies below from Pies by Jenny were absolutely HUGE! You can see how big they are to scale with someone's arm on the left in the photo. They support sustainable agriculture and use ingredients from local farms. They had some pretty unusual fillings. One of their savory pies was a green chili pork pie.

I can't pass up a good loaf of bread and this stand was calling my name.

According to the brochure I got from the bakery stand, they started up their business by selling at farmers markets and CSA (community supported agriculture) programs and 8 years ago they established a retail location in Ballard, where they sell their certified organic breads.

I came home with a hearty-looking honey and whole wheat boule (sorry for the blurry pic).

Bear made a beeline for the Skagit River Ranch stand and waited diligently in line for some sweet italian sausage. I love italian sausage (my fave is turkey italian sausage) and we use it quite often in pasta dishes we make at home. I can't wait to try it.

Yet another blurry photo below, but I've been on a yogurt kick lately and fell upon Port Madison farm's stand where they sold some delicious looking chevre and goatsmilk yogurt. We bought 2 containers to take home to enjoy later.

It was a really sunny day and it was getting rather warm, when I saw this bucket of a cold beverage that looked like it would quench my thirst.

I had to try a bottle of this lemonade as I liked the ingredients and was curious as to how it tasted. It was so that I'm going to try to make a similar lemonade at home this summer.

They also made all kinds of preserves and jelly and had spoons available to try every kind available. I came home with two jars: one jar of lavender jelly (which was incredible - they'd be great on scones) and a jar of tayberry jam.

Bear is a big salmon freak (heh, what bear isn't??) and he found a stand that sold salmon jerky. This was pretty damn good jerky - let's just say it didn't last long :)

And the one thing I was reaaallly looking forward to buying were some eggs. I found some at Rickman Gulch Farm.
We also found some cheese to snack on at Samish Bay Cheese.

We got some cheese that was mixed with cumin, nettles, chipotle, chili/chives... they all sound so yum!

And last but not least, I bought some emmer grain pancake mix from Bluebird Grain Farms.
They have a CSA subscription program which I might sign up for too, but I thought this was a great way to sample some of their products before I commit to it.

We spent quite a bit at the farmer's market, but I felt good as far as where my money went. We'll eat better, eat fresher and support sustainable agriculture as much as we can. I feel fortunate to have all of these farms and businesses relatively close to where I live (or are at least within the state).