Don't panic, it's organic!

This week's adventure was to the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market downtown. I should start by saying that, overall, I was not impressed with the selection. We were on the hunt for fresh veggies and also some local cheese and honey. You see, I read this post on Lauren Conrad's blog (I love love her) about how to combat allergies naturally. We are not huge fans of pumping our bodies with meds, which is a new thing I've developed from working in the Natural Products industry. It's made me uncomfortably hippy-esque in the last two years. Any how, I was interested in the idea of eating local honey for allergy relief. The idea being that local bees pollenate local flowers and by ingesting this stuff, you develop an immunity to the same pollens that are causing your allergies. Makes sense to me, and I like that.

So, we set off to the farmer's market in search of local honey. I'm also keen on cheese, hence the hunt for cheese. And, well, Jeff and I eat a lot of vegetables and we live on the Central Coast, which means, luckily, our local farmers have some of the best produce available.

There were relatively few highlights of the farmer's market. It was pretty small, and you really had to look closely for what I'd consider "good produce". But, almost all of what's available is grown somewhat sustainably, locally, and organically. Jeff and I aren't, in any way, dedicated to eating organic food. However, we are interested in buying goods, produce or otherwise, that are both sustainably and locally made. This often leads to organic foods, so we roll with it.

We took a couple of laps before purchasing anything, to get the lay of the land. I like to know what my options are before committing, and Jeff agrees (engineer brain) that it makes logical sense.

My favorite stop was to chat with Alan Wilson of Alan and Ann Wilson Farm in Panoche, CA. Anyone who knows anything about me know that's chatty, old, adorable men are the people I could spend my whole day talking to, and this guy was also a farmer! It was like striking gold. We chatted with him for a bit, and tasted his Wildflower Honey and ended up purchasing. I was really impressed by how affordable it was. Buying honey in the grocery store (the kind that comes in the little bear) is about $4 for 12 oz. We paid $5 for 12 oz. of delicious, fresh, awesome honey. I couldn't be happier with the purchase. I couldn't find a website for them, or I would provide a link. I think they are old school, which I also love.

Next up, we chatted with the lovely lady from Garden Variety Cheese, which is a local farmstead near Watsonville (cheeses). We sampled several of their varieties and fell in love with (possibly) the best cheese I've ever had in America—a raw goat and cow mix named Trillium.

Welcome, Trillium, to my collection of cheese addictions. I'm already excited to eat a few slices as an afternoon snack today. It's safe to say that we will be back to the Garden Variety Cheese table again soon.

Flanking the cheese table were two set-ups that caught our eyes too. One, Fogline Farm, is a local farm that had some scrumptious looking bacon! Just so happens, we needed some bacon for this kale salad that Stacy makes and I've become addicted to. Jeff has a real affinity for protein, he's a real meat connoisseur if you will. He's very interested in grass-fed this or that, so we took a liking to these folks. Jeff's also quite interested in whole milk; we tested some raw whole milk at the stand next door and walked away with some tasty purchases.

The milk is in a glass bottle, which we paid a deposit for, and I can now see us going back weekly to get a refill. Stay tuned about that.

We poked around all of the produce stands, selecting a thing or two from the goods ones. I was quite impressed when I laid it all out at home:

The haul:

• 4 gigantic artichokes ($8.50)
• 1 enormous leek ($1)
• 1 lb of fresh brussels sprouts, not all pictured ($4)
• 3 bunches of kale ($4.50)
• 2 heads of red & green leaf lettuce, 1 each ($2.75)
• 2 huge pumelos  ($2) 

If you haven't had a pumelo, I would recommend it highly. I was only introduced yesterday. It looks like a really large yellow grapefruit and the inside fruit is juicy, sweet, and pink. You cut it up like you could orange slices and eat it. I can't wait to have it as a snack!

Total produce damage: $22.75

All in all, I think we got great produce for comparable or better prices than in the regular old store, and definitely better than a Whole Foods Market. 

Though we had to really look for the "good stuff" and there wasn't quite the selection that I'd been dreaming of, we will definitely be back to the Santa Cruz Farmers Market!

Wednesday success. Hump daaaaay.

Of course, we can try to be grown ups, live a healthy lifestyle, cook delicious real food,  and chances are we will still end up at El Palomar happy hour after our trip to the Farmers Market for a pitcher of margaritas and burritos. Hey, no matter what we learn about nutrition, we are still us. And we couldn't be happier about that. 

Cheers!