Middle Aged and Living Well

I have been shopping at the local Farmer’s Market for almost a year now, enjoying the fresh seasonal produce as I cook for my family.  Initially it was me by myself looking over the selections, but over time, my wife joined me, and now its our usual Saturday morning ritual.  My wife decided to lose a couple of extra pounds, so we started buying more lettuce, so she could make salads to take to work.  She loves the heartier types such as romaine and iceberg, but we would also buy some soft varieties such as ruby and butter.

I asked her if she had noticed any difference in flavor from the lettuce we bought at the grocery store.  Both my wife and daughter shrugged their shoulders and stated other than the lettuce keeps a little longer, no taste difference.  That was until we ran out of lettuce and I needed to run to the grocery store to buy a head or two, to tide us over until the Farmer’s market on Saturday.    With the first salad made from the grocery heads, I heard the complaints.  This lettuce is old.  This lettuce has no flavor.  This lettuce is not crisp.

It was amazing that it was hard to determine the benefits of going from grocery to Farmer’s Market lettuce, but after developing a taste for fresh, quality lettuce, it was much easier to tell the quality Farmer’s Market lettuce from the poor, bland grocery store varieties.  Now my wife scours the Farmer’s Market in search of the quality lettuce leaves that will grace our dinner table and her lunch box.  We even grow some our own lettuce, which is a first choice for salads for lunch and dinner.

Do yourself a favor and shop for some produce at a local Farmer’s Market and keep it up for a few weeks or months, then make that trip to the grocery store to reinforce to your self that the freshness and taste of locally grown produce is the tastiest way to go.

My wife is now a lettuce snob, and I love her for it.