Gloria Ferris

Brooklyn Centre held its first Fresh Stop last Thursday at Art House.  The tomatoes at the West Side Market last week smelled freshpicked and ripe.  Memorial Day is behind us.  Planting flowers and vegetables is always associated with this holiday because I spent hours with my parents and extended family planting an acre of vegetables that fed us all for the summer and beyond with my mother’s canning skills. All of these thoughts brought me back to our conversation with Maurice Small on Meet.The.Bloggers at Gypsy Beans on the first day of spring and his question to all of us “”what did you eat today?”  Many of us answered the question literally but Maurice wanted us to dig much deeper into the question and explore where the food came from, who grew it, how did it get to us, and much more.

One of my favorite summer meals is fresh corn on the cob and tomatoes from the garden.  Not only because it was good food, but my cousins and aunts and uncles seemed to have a imbedded homing device and there were always extra chairs pulled up to the table on those days.  If it was June, we had strawberry shortcake for dessert.  If it was July, we had blackberry shortcake or cobbler.  If it was August, we had peach cobbler.  We as a rule did not have dessert with dinner but my mother always baked a shortcake or cobbler  on the nights we had corn on the cob and tomatoes. I have great memories of those meals since I was the picker of the fruit, corn, and tomatoes from the garden.  I had a connection to food that I miss more in the summer than any other time of year.  Funny, how perception changes over the years.  I have pushed to the back of my memory the hours spent sweating in the hot, hot sun pulling weeds and hoeing between rows deciding instead to remember the fruits of those labors and the fun that we had eating the harvest.

The farther I get from the years at home, the harder it is for me to remember what month means what produce when prices are cheaper and food tastes it best.  So wasn’t I pleasantly suprprised when my Heinen’s Aisles magazine came in the mail with this tidbit placed in its pages:

Approximate starting times for local harvets

June:  Strawberries, lettuces, root veggies, green onions, onions, cabbage

July:  blackberries, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, beans, pickles. eggplant

August:  peaches, honeyrocks, watermelons, pumpkins, apples, pears, cider

Heinen’s buys local produce from many area farmers and also has an organic section, but the best organic grocery store in my book is Mustard Seed Market and Cafe located in Solon and Montrose.  Both of these locally owned businesses that employ our friends and neighbors are worth a look.  Do not buy into the idea that they are more expensive than other stores in the area.  The quality of the food bought certainly outweighs the quantity bought elsewhere.  To eat healthy is not expensive when you buy in season for produce and all stores have sales. And, those of you who do not take advantage of the West Side Market and their prices are missing a golden opportunity.  When my daughter and her husband come home from Knoxville, the first stop on the itinerary is the West Side Market.  They marvel at the abundance, the diversity and the reasonable prices of the food.

Maybe we all need to ask the question that Maurice Small ponders “what did you eat today?”