Shop locally, eat globally

One of my favorite things about living here is the fact that we have a fabulous greengrocer around the corner. I adore my local fruiterer (yes, they call them fruiterers here, a grammatical construction so bizarre sounding to the American ear that Paul insisted for the first month or so that we lived here that all of the "fruiterer" signs simply must be jokes). I love walking in to a beautiful, colorful display of fresh produce. I love hand selecting a wide range of local and exotic fruits and vegetables for my family to enjoy each week. I love the neighborhood feeling in the shop and the fact that all the guys who work there know me by sight and my kids by name. "The Gala apples were a little mushy last week... can you suggest something better?" I'll say when I come in, and I'll get an answer like "try them again. You haven't been here in about four days, and they're much better now." I love getting this kind of guidance (which is always completely accurate, by the way), and the fact that these guys so clearly knows their produce and their customers endears them to me all the more.

This week, my fruiterer steered me toward the Pink Ladies when the time came for me to purchase apples, and I obligingly purchased several, though I'd never tried them before. As usual, he was right -- they're crisp and delicious and my kids have been gobbling them up. I was slicing up one of the last of them just now, while thinking how grateful I am for this foreign and fabulous fruiterer experience, when I happened to notice the sticker on the piece of fruit.


Oops. Perhaps not so foreign after all, to me anyway. Turns out that the produce I'm loyally purchasing at my local greengrocer was actually grown in my other backyard. Go figure. I guess it would be a real stretch to say I'm supporting local farmers with these kinds of purchases, huh? Oh well. At least I've got easy access to some damn good apples.