the non-committal locavore

it's well documented now just how hard it is to eat local, and if the touted advantages are even advantageous, but the locavore movement continues to garner steam. what started as a grassroots sort of trend has now become mainstream, garnering attention on the likes of twitter, facebook, and other mass market media platforms. in a word, it's hot. in my own experience, it's just hard to do. i look forward to the farmers' market, and buy organic from the grocers, but it's just not all that easy to always do. like the single bachelor who fails at relationships every time the honeymoon is over and commitment comes into play, i just can't go all in. like the bachelor, undoubtedly i'd be breaking hearts, muttering the words, it's not you, it's me.

but we do buy local as best we can. last night alicia made what was really a garden vegetable sandwich, roasting golden beets bought at the wicker park farmers' market and slicing them thin, added with roasted red peppers and sautéed red onion, julienned cucumber, micro arugula, a white cheddar, honey mustard, and labneh on thick sliced san francisco sourdough wheat bread. the labneh we picked up from sultan's which they get from cicero, outside the city, the cucumber from the daley center farmers' market, the micro arugula from the wicker park farmers' market, and the bread from labriola, a local bakery. but the red peppers were jarred and from trader joe's, the cheddar was boar's head and sliced at the deli, and the honey mustard from the german mustard maker inglehoffer. she seasoned the onion, which was organic and from olivia's, with ras al hanout, which we brought with us from formaggio kitchen in cambridge, and salt and pepper, which we buy in bulk and add to our grinders, and is for sure not local. our staples, like the bread and condiments, will almost always not be of the locavore promise, which i'm okay with, because my favorite parts to the sandwich last night were the beets, cucumber, and the micro arugula, all from the local farmers. and i can't wait for later on this summer when we'll be using heirloom tomatoes instead...

and how is that not eating with the seasons? in the meantime, we'll be here saturday morning, continuing the non-committal support to our local foodstuff: