Local Harvest

In my family’s ongoing quest to eat food that is local, sustainable, organic, and humane (when it comes to meats), I am always looking for sources aside from the local farmers’ market.  I came across this great website for an organization called Local Harvest.  It can help you find places to buy all kinds of good stuff and support local farmers.  Just put in your zip code and it will do the rest.  You can also buy food (i.e., grass fed meats) online.

To plug one particular place, I’ve started buying our meat from Homegrown Meats in La Jolla.  They offer grass fed meat from their ranch on Palomar mountain.  We had a flank steak from them for dinner Sunday night and it was simply fantastic.  Rich, buttery flavor and the most tender flank steak I’ve ever had.  I used their ground beef in a dish yesterday and it was phenomenal as well.  Here's their website.  I find that their meats tend to run $2 to $3 more per pound.  It’s worth it to us to know that our meat was raised the way it should be and slaughtered humanely.  We buy only what we need and eat smaller portions of it.

I still haven’t eaten chicken since seeing Food Inc.  For more on that, read here.  I’m eating sustainable seafood, grass fed meat, and organic fruits and veggies and probably too many carbs.  Kind of like my own personal detox.  Oh, except the liquor has still been flowing so maybe not.  Trader Joe’s makes a margarita mix that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it and that’s on rotation in our house now. 

Make a visit to the farmers’ market your plan for the weekend.  You can’t go wrong with either La Jolla or Hillcrest.  Both are on Sunday mornings starting at 9am.  Come hungry as the produce samples are plentiful and the food cooked to order is too good to pass up.

Meridith