Don't put that in your mouth-you don't know where its been!

Here at Castle in the Country, our approach to food has always been focused on using fresh and whole ingredients. This is rooted in a belief that the less processed ingredients are, the better their flavor and nutritional value. The price we pay for the convenience of cooking out of boxes, cans, or the freezer is that our food often tastes bland and artificial, it has had much of the nutrition stripped away, and it is more expensive than the real thing. This has been our thinking since the late 70s, when concerns for global starvation lead me to study overall food distribution and consumption. Frances Moore Lappé and her continuing work in this area is a great influence, see more about this at http://www.smallplanet.org/ .

Well, I have had been re-thinking and refreshing this approach of late, especially in the last couple of weeks. The price of convenience is higher than I had thought, and just because it is fresh and whole, it doesn't mean it is the best thing for us to use. I have been reading about the benefits of eating local foods. I would recommend the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver or go to http://100milediet.org/ . Almost anything on our dinner (or breakfast) plate has at least 1500 miles on it. This also reduces the food value and flavor and increases the costs. For example, the fresh fruit we serve: Shipped in from South America or California.

With this in mind, I will be visiting two local Farmers Markets today, to get some fresh and local ingredients and to meet some local food providers. I am looking for local, in-season, organic ingredients and the good people that provide them. I would like to know where our food ingredients come from in order to assure our guests they are not being fed unknown additives. While the up-front cost of these ingredients may be slightly higher, I am convinced the overall cost is much lower. My hope is that the quality of our food gets even better.

I invite your comments as we begin this mission to be more local and more organic.