Eating local as a spiritual act

One of my most frequently recycled comments is that farmers' markets are my Disneyland.

All those colorful, sweet, juicy fruits and vegetables spread out on picnic tables, in baskets, with their little signs, maybe still damp from being picked early that very morning...it's nearly intoxicating. The first fat blackberries, the funky heirloom tomatoes, the zucchini that seems to grow even after it's harvested. Perfect heads of butter lettuce. Glossy peppers. Shiny sweet onions and dusty fingerling potatoes.

Fresh, raw food is too beautiful for words sometimes.

All of the photos in this post are my own, because I have this habit of filling my market tote (which incidentally has vegetables on it) and then rushing home to dump it all out on the kitchen table and take pictures of it. In the case of the raspberries above, I didn't even wait to get out of the car last week.

Buying local produce isn't just about supporting farmers or the regional economy, or even about being healthy. Knowing what food is in season is a way of staying connected to the earth and its cycles. For me, it's spiritual.

When the PA ground is still cold and crusted with snow, the first arugula and dandelion greens are appearing. You know summer has officially arrived when there are strawberries--but get to market early or they'll be gone! The sweet corn is "knee high by July." Tomatoes starting to taste really good? Must be August.

This is my favorite time of year, and my access to fresh local produce comprises about 95% of that sentiment. I will eat tomatoes--sliced with salt and pepper, chopped with chunks of chewy sourdough and an olive oil drizzle, or by the handful in cherry form--until I'm thoroughly sick of them, which is about two weeks after they stop being readily available. It's fine because grocery store tomatoes in January are just sad in look, feel, and taste.

I can't suffer tomatoes in January. Friends don't let friends eat tomatoes in January. Unless, of course, you canned them while they were sun-warm and August fresh.

Somebody tell me what's prettier than these rattlesnake pole beans that I chopped for a stir fry? I swear, I could meditate on those purple stripes, or design the whole interior of a home around these colors...

This morel from May is as big as my hand, cupped to receive.

In the late fall, when I begin to hunker down with my acorn squash, russet potatoes, and sturdy carrots, I feel full and blessed by what the land offered in the preceding months. When I cover the backyard spinach and kale with crisping leaves to protect them from the first harsh wintery mix, I think not only about the quiche I'm going to make with it and a yummy smoked Gouda, but also of how I could, if I needed to, feed my son entirely through my own efforts and a patch of dirt. When in March I feel like the sight of one more root vegetable might send me over the edge, I know I'm eating right, even as I hunger for salads and cobblers of fresh fruit.

But enough about winter. This weekend, I'm making my favorite corn relish with avocado, cherry tomatoes, sweet pepper, scallion, and mango--my idea of soul food.