Dark Days Challenge Week 14

It was so wonderful to find asparagus at our farmers market on Saturday. At first I wasn't sure that I was seeing right. I looked at the sign over the vendors head...yes, local and, yes, organic.

So our Dark Days Challenge dinner featured the first asparagus of the season (simply steamed) along with barbecued flank steak smothered in homemade barbecue sauce.

Pretty simple meal but that's what being a locavore is all about...simplicity.

Went wine tasting today at a local winery. One of the owners is on the Placer County Ag Commission. We talked a lot about being locavores. This is not a huge winery. Both husband and wife have day jobs.

Met a woman there who didn't know about a local fishmonger who brings salmon, crab, shrimp and scallops fresh from Alaska and Baja. No farm raised fish. I recently heard that a South American fish farm (don't remember where) had some kind of disease. You know things are bad when even the fish are not healthy.

I think of the first asparagus as the harbinger of warm weather. And being a locavore is a harbinger of meeting many new people and sharing information. I'm glad we have year-round farmers markets.