The Harvest

Yesterday we drove up (er, west, technically) to Chester, NJ to visit one of my favorite farms. I admit, it's very commercialized -- it's as much a tourist destination as it is a working farm. But that seems to be the norm with a lot of NJ farms. I guess we're lucky it's that way -- I don't know any farmers personally, so I doubt I'd get the chance to visit a farm any other way.

We picked a bunch of apples, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and raspberries. We grabbed some other produce, cider, pumpkin pie, pumpkin butter, and fresh eggs at their little farmer's market. I love supporting local farms. There's something comforting about food that wasn't trucked half way across the country.

Afterwards, we ended up at our usual supermarket to pick up some stuff we couldn't get at the farm. While browsing, I noticed that the raspberries they were selling came from Guatemala! It's kind of scary to think about how far our food travels. And isn't it weird that we're eating the produce of places we've never even visited? It always bothered me that all my clothes and, well, almost everything I own was made far away, in places I've never seen. But my food, too? Something that only stays in my fridge a week or two, has seen more travel than my 23-year-old body.

The only solution is to take advantage of more locally-grown foods (and anything else, for that matter), and to travel more. I need to see more of the world than my raspberries have!