Veggie Porn

If you can't grow your own food, the next best thing is to buy locally and frequent restaurants that do. You are not only supporting local growers but also making less of a carbon footprint by having these foods transported across state lines, heck country borders.

This past Sunday I attended one such small Farmer's Market on South Main in the Bernice Garden. Some vendors live within a mile and you can't get more local than that. There was wood work, organic soaps/lotions,a chile roaster,homemade chicken tamales, local entertainment besides the produce. AND the produce was gorgeous. Take a gander at some 'food porn':




The Root restaurant is caddycorner the market and buys from not only from these vendors but many others within the state. Why not plug those that support local economy and serve 'fresh' homemade food.

They not only have a map of their growers posted but also a book that describes their various suppliers. There's a page regarding the Dunbar Community Garden. My daughter atttended the urban Dunbar Middle School but this garden wasn't in existence until '92. It's so important for our next generation to receive environmental education firsthand.

Seated in the market today sits a familiar face, Susan, daughter of one my Little Rock buddies who through the Vista program has the job of working with both middle and elementary students to accomplish the feats of caring for a garden and food producing small animals. There are goats, chickens and a 2 acre parcel of land on the middle school grounds. Susan organizes the kids's labor. 150 prepare the soil, plant and harvest. They even harvest seeds and package them in individually decorated packets.

Hmm this gives me an idea- maybe I need to import some local students to help Natureman and me in the End of the Rainbow Valley...