Right about now, the new Buy Fresh Buy Local guide is probably showing up in your mailbox, since the Piedmont Environmental Council mails them to every durn person in Albemarle, Charlottesville and Greene. The 2009 version hit the mail system on Tuesday.
Last year’s guide: useful enough to have saved for a whole year.
It would be very, very easy to mount criticism of a mass-mailing project that, obviously, uses a lot of paper. (Which is recycled and from FSC-certified forests.) But you won’t find me doing that, because the BFBL project has, I think, gambled very successfully that all that paper would be worth it. I don’t know what the magic ingredients are for getting people to pay attention to your message, but the PEC team nailed them. Local food (along with green building) has been the issue getting the most widespread, enthusiastic attention from the public during the green awakening of the last few years. And the BFBL guides have certainly been a driving force in that change. What do you think? Worth the paper?
I guess it really doesn’t hurt your cause when the message is "Eat stuff that tastes good."
Anyway, look for your copy and get thee to a farmer’s market. Since the Nelson County market opened last Saturday, we’ve been feasting on asparagus, goat cheese, scallions, broccoli, bread, eggs and oyster mushrooms, all grown by friends and neighbors. I freaking love that.
What are you folks eating that’s local, and how are you cooking it?