Mexico?!

A while back I found out about Growing Power, here's an excerpt from their site:

"Growing Power is national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities. Growing Power implements this mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner."

They offer super cheap market baskets weekly and deliver them to various farmer's markets around the city for you to pick them up! Since Garfield Park Conservatory was having their last plant sale of the season, I went ahead and ordered a sustainable basket to be picked up there. Come Saturday morning, I was overcome with excitement for my veggies. We got to the conservatory and picked up a large brown bag with my name written on it. I signed over a check for $28 and was on my merry way. Promises of "approximately 10-12 varieties (18-22 pounds) of certified organic and sustainably grown produce…" filled my head, making me giddy to get home and cook something! Then, I suddenly thought, "man, this bag is pretty light! I was expecting almost 20lbs worth of… wait a minute…" My bag only included 8 varieties and weighed closer to 10lbs ;( After looking through the bag a bit, Andrew took an apple and I decided to pull out the lone cucumber and, sit down for this one guys, IT HAD A PRODUCE STICKER ON IT! *GASP!*

"Product of Mexico"
Seriously the saddest three words of my Saturday. What happened to the locally and sustainably grown promises?! It was a very sad moment for me. I felt like I'd been duped. Simple, gullible Jaimielee… you just paid $28 to have someone go the the grocery store for you. What were my 8 varieties? Corn, asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes, green onions, broccoli, apples, and a Mexican cucumber.

Looking beyond the yield of my bag, I went on to the plant sale and bought lettuce, sweet basil and a pair of (forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong) hostas (probably wrong).

Such cuties!
I wish I had better sun exposure in the apartment or better yet, a yard. I'm tempted to ask my neighbors to let me use a couple square feet of their completely unused, under appreciated, overgrown with weeds, and neglected yard. Can you tell I'm jealous? Then I'll be able to grow some Puerto Rican cucumbers.

Should be packing...

As soon as Andrew woke up he was dying to make breakfast and seriously, it was delicious. We made an omelette with the spinach, shiitake mushrooms and eggs we got at the market yesterday. Added some garlic and onions, cheddar cheese plus apple cider vinegar, AMAAAZING!


For dinner I made another asparagus tart and it was WAY better than the last time I made it. We killed it.


It looks so cute!
We still have more silly apartment showings too and I can't help but get annoyed, but what's the point? By this time next week we'll have moved already :)

Community

I was totally dreading waking up before 7am this morning but I'm so glad I did. The Green City Market was awesome.



Asparagus 2/$7
Spinach $3
Fingerling Potatoes $5
Rocket $3
Mixed Lettuce $5
Avondale Truckle Cheddar $8
Peach Preserves $5
Chipotle Salsa $8
Cremini/Shiitake Mushrooms $17 (won't make this mistake again!)
Honey Oat/Sourdough Bread $10
Eggs $5
Spinach Tart $4
Apples $5

Spent a total of $85 but we really got A LOT and it's all locally grown, organic, sustainable food. If nothing else I feel proud and like a member of the community which I think is lacking in city life, or at least my city life. I also learned that there's a community garden close to our new place! I'm so excited for that.

I told Andrew our goal for today was asparagus and the free starter plant, so we succeeded! I also picked up my tote and membership card which was equally exciting and look at how freakin adorable my baby tomato plant is:

!!!
I really wanted to try some Zeppole di mela (Apple Cider Donuts) from Zullo but we decided to wait and make breakfast at home which was DELICIOUS!!



One farm that really touched me was Growing Home, where we picked up our rocket and mixed lettuce. They have such a great story. I pulled this from their site:

Growing Home was started in 1992 by Les Brown, Director of Policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless... He wrote that “Homeless people are often without roots. They’re not tied down, not connected, not part of their family anymore. Our organic farming program is a way for them to connect with nature – to plant and nurture roots over a period of time. When you get involved in taking responsibility for caring for something, creating an environment that produces growth, then it helps you build self-esteem."