Weekend Letdown

So no one called me today. That's OK, it's Friday night! Too bad I'm too broke to go out and do anything typical of a Friday night. There are plenty of bars, restaurants, and movie theaters calling me but I'll just have to ignore them tonight. Besides, after a very exciting trip to the Stop N Shop in Highland Park, NJ, I have so many new lovely tools to work with.

It's been a compromising situation purchasing groceries here. Since I've come from the slow, seasonal, organic, local mecca known otherwise as the Bay Area, it's hard to know what to do. Do I go for price or quality? Both? The sweet little co-op on George Street has a disappointing array of slightly withered and very costly vegetables that no doubt come from far and wide. But at least they're organic, or are they? Perhaps they're just local and are withering with the autumn glow.

I'm reading Marion Nestle's fascinating look at the american supermarket titled "What to Eat". Her section on vegetables lists her highly educated and thoroughly researched findings on the conundrum of produce hierarchy: "Whenever I have the choice, here are my priorities in that [produce] section: (1) organic and locally grown, (2) organic, (3) conventional and locally grown, (4) conventional." (pg 66). I myself have always tried to stick with guidelines akin to that, but times have changed. With the economy spiraling ever downward and the difficulty of finding gainful employment, one has to make adjustments. This greatly saddens me, as if I am already electing to choose variety over quality, what of the ordinary citizen who ignores issues of quality and safety and automatically goes for the lowest price, regardless of origin and growth conditions? There is something very wrong about the globalized food system, and it won't change without citizen action. That action has to start with ordinary, pedantic, yet informed persons such as myself who are willing to go the extra mile (and the extra few bucks) to vote with our forks.

Although perhaps I'll wait til I have a steady paycheck coming in. The revolution can wait for a few weeks, right?