An old lover has returned

I know, I know. You're here for the brownie report. While I'm slaving away, baking in the name of science, please go ahead and read this post and let me know your position on the local/slow/hippie food movement. Brownies tomorrow, I super swear.

I received an email the other day with the subject line "time for a new beginning." Apparently, Full Circle Farm found out about my new and passionate affair with Amazon Fresh, and they want me back.

Full Circle Farm is a Seattle area CSA program that we participated in for well over a year. I decided to suspend my subscription early in my pregnancy, when the idea of trying to figure out what to do with a box full of produce every week was way too overwhelming for me to handle (this would be the chicken fingers era). Plus, it seemed like a good way to shave $30 off my weekly food bill. The variety was nice - but when I could get by on a basic produce selection from the store, without having to figure out what to do with dandelion greens for the third week in a row, it seemed like the right choice.

Since leaving FCF, I have regained some (but not all) of my kitchen enthusiasm. But I stick to the basic salad and side veggies that we usually eat without venturing out. I order them from Amazon Fresh, and they come with the rest of my groceries. They may or may not be grown 45 minutes from my house, but they ARE organic and reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, all the 'food morality' stuff out there has really gotten to me. Long gone are the carefree days of the past where I could buy whatever was cheap and tasty with a total lack of regard for where it came from. Now I have to think about it, and shop according to my conscience. And what my conscience tells me is that I should be spending my food dollar as locally and as small as possible - meaning I SHOULD be buying my food from the little farm co-op down the road, not the corporate goliath. It's strange that it's taken me as long as it has to come to this conclusion. My parents spent half their lives building up their own business; so how could it not occur to me to support other people in similar endeavors?

So according to my own values, I should be buying my produce from the CSA program, my dairy from the milkman, and my meat from a butcher. I should be willing to spend a little extra money to support small business and local food. I should quit telling myself that Amazon Fresh counts because it is a local company, technically.

But will I? Only time will tell. Full Circle Farm does not deliver ice cream OR oreos. That's a big dealbreaker in my book.

Madness, I tell you

Take a look at all this food, would you? Can you believe it was ours for just $16.90?

Husband and I decided to hit up our favorite neighborhood teriyaki joint for lunch today. I love it so because you get eight pounds of food for eight dollars, and that includes my upgrade to brown rice and all-white meat. And don't forget the refreshing cucumber salad, the health benefits of which are extolled all over the walls of the restaurant (just don't ask me exactly what they are, I'm not quite sure).

This is my plate. You can observe that it is respectably full, lunch appropriate portion.


This is the take-out container after my serving was removed. You can see that the dent made was pitiful. These leftovers filled a 4 cup tupperware to the brim.


Here is Husband's "It's not THAT spicy" Spicy Teriyaki that I found to be plenty spicy, thank you. You see that you get even MORE meat if you are not a chicken hooter snob like myself. He decided to eat an inverse proportion to my own, and saved about a plate's worth.

Now I know, 17 bucks for lunch isn't *technically* anything to write home about. But considering I am going to get three meals out of my $8.45 investment, I'm pretty happy. Plus, it is a much healthier option than your typical fast food treat - we could have spent that $16.90 at Taco Bell instead, after all.