Don't get me wrong, I love cooking. It's coming up with what to make that's the chore. I even usually enjoy the time I spend at the grocers picking out produce and meats and mostly people watching. There's never an end to the interesting people you can see at the store.
It's interesting to me to think about all the people in the chain of food process. First we start with the farmers. Ideally, it would be nice to get produce and meats directly from them, but that's not always an easy thing to do. Sure I could buy a cattle and have it butchered, but without a big chest freezer that's impractical and I don't exactly have such a large chunk of change to spend. Produce is easier if there's a farmer's market in the neighborhood, but even that is once a week and can be a little impractical in timing.
The next step-one that I wish was easier to come by-is the butcher and green grocer. I'm not talking about a butcher in a grocery store or the produce section of the store, but rather a store that buys the meats and produce much closer to the source and locally. Fresher product is a fresher dinner. That and you can at least be sure that the money you're spending is at least taking another round in your local economy before getting shipped off to Arkansas. There are other social benefits to this. Getting to know the butcher and green grocer you'll start to know what's freshest, what the nicest cuts are, the freshest fruits and veggies. You'll also get to participate in community building. You may not meet the farmers, but you may know the guy who does.
Maybe it's just something that I like, but knowing who and where my food comes from is nice. I'm not a huge fan of large corporations even while I use them for goods and services. I think I'd need to be an actually economist to know whether or not there is a net negative impact. It's part of society though, so I may take a more thought out go at it eventually, but not today. Today I get to keep paging through cookbooks trying to figure out what to make this week. And until there's a better solution I'll at least buy my groceries at my locally owned grocers. They have the best produce in the area anyway.
