Welcome to Cook Local!
Shopping the farmers markets? Look for the hats and come say hi!
Hi, I’m Patricia and my husband is John. A few years ago, we started going to a local farmers market on Saturdays for fun. They had such good fruits and vegetables that we just couldn’t resist and left with arms laden nearly every week.
Then a strange thing happened. We stopped going to the grocery store twice a week. We tried more and more foods we found at the farmers market. We realized that the kale we were getting at the farmers market in January was better than those green beans we tried from Chile. We stopped buying our weekly pepper during the winter.
People ask us all the time what food rules we live by. So here they are, in a nutshell.
We try to source almost all of our food from a relatively small region. While many locavores limit themselves to 100 or 250 miles, we have chosen to limit ourselves to items found in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Colombia. We make exceptions for a few items we just can’t find locally.
Shopping at Sea Breeze Farm
- Coffee: We do live in Seattle, after all.
- Some liquor: We favor Washington beer and wines, and we buy local liquor when possible. We love buying Washington produced liquor because the local distillery laws require all local distilleries to use at least 50% local ingredients!
- Salt and pepper: We’re growing our own sanshow pepper this year, but until it produces, we have no problem buying non-local pepper. Someday we plan on making and smoking our own salt as well, but that’s a project for 2010.
- Spices: We minimize the use of non-local spices, but occasionally we do purchase some.
- Oil: Local hazelnut oil and grapeseed oil are excellent, but out of our price range for mass purchases.
- Balsamic vinegar: Local apple cider vinegar is plentiful, but there are very few wine vinegars locally and no true balsamic vinegar locally.
- Citrus: We are growing our own Yuzu fruit this year, but the tree won’t produce for at least another 18 months.
- Yeast, baking powder, and baking soda: This year we’re experimenting with capturing yeast from the air. However this isn’t practical all the time, so we will still buy these items as needed.
- Junk Food: The vast majority of our diet is all natural. But sometimes you just need a soda or some candy. We don’t buy it often, but we do buy some. In particular, Mexican Coke and Theo Chocolate (no, Theo Chocolate is in no way junk food).
More market shopping
We’re adventurous cooks and we love trying new things, but we’re not gourmets. While we love things like homemade creme brulee and oysters broiled with pancetta, and we’ve been known to make marshmallows from scratch, we’re just as happy with some fish and chips or even a plain ‘ole burger from one of Seattle’s ethically sourced restaurants.
Sit down, stay a while, and make sure you email us if there’s anything we can do for you. Do you have a suggestion for the site? Are you wondering what to do with a particular ingredient? Do you need help finding a local source for a food item? Let us know! Are you in the Seattle area and have a local food event you’d like to promote? Tell us about it!
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