What My Freezer Told Me

In the winter, I usually carve out time on Sunday mornings to head to the Columbia Pike Farmer’s Market, about a mile from my house. The market is tiny compared to some of the other year-round markets around here (Dupont Circle is legendary), but I can still get my fill of delicious local foods—rosemary lamb sausages, free-range eggs, full-fat yogurt from grass-fed cows, aged cheddar, sour pickles, apples, cider. Yum, yum, yum.

But since we had Snowmageddon this past weekend (near record-breaking snowfalls shut this place down), the market was closed and I had to do without my weekly staples (I am rationing the yogurt and the cheese is almost down to the rind—but that mold is mouthwatering). By the time I walked down to the grocery store, the lines were long and the produce had been wiped out. I did find some apples behind a “Locally Grown” sign, but there was no information saying exactly where they came from. Around here, Pennsylvania is local. Even New York state could be local by Whole Foods standards. So much for 150 miles!

I realize that I’ve developed a bias against grocery stores in the last few years. At least their produce sections. And their meat counters. And probably also their dairy cases. (Somehow the uber-processed snack food aisle has escaped my scrutiny. My favorite chips, crackers, and pretzels also fail the wasteful packaging test. Doh!) Because I don’t know the sources of grocery store products, and because I’m lucky enough to have access to a wide range of locally-grown food, it’s come to the point where if I can’t get certain foods at a farmer’s market (or the garden where I worked or from friends), I won’t buy it.

But winter makes that tough. Although some farmers continue to sell veggies grown in greenhouses, the vendors at my little market aren’t bringing much fresh produce. The main vegetable in my diet the past two and a half months has been winter squash. I had stashed about eight of them from our harvest at the Local Food Project garden and now I only have one left. Just the sight of it sends me into a funk. I’ve done winter squash so many ways I’m seriously doubting my ability to come up with another creative use for it. (Confession: the winter blues and the fear of scurvy finally got to me a few weeks ago. I bought a bunch of fresh organic California spinach from Whole Foods. Totally not local. But it was so good.)

How to keep the non-green winter months from dragging? My freezer had a few suggestions. Wanting to jazz up some spaghetti sauce one night, I remembered my little hoard—a bag each of chopped green peppers and green beans, prepped and stashed in the freezer back in October. Our bean vines and pepper plants at the garden had both been in danger of being wiped out by frost and my co-gardener Ruth had insisted that I take home a huge mound of each and freeze them. At the time, I felt like I’d never run out of fresh food. Even as the season drew to a close, many crops were thriving. Why did I need to put away extras?


Now, in dark, cold February, the bright bursts of green in my spaghetti sauce take me back to vibrant summer. I’m thankful that I took the time back when fresh food was abundant to squirrel away this treasure trove. Even though I used crushed tomatoes from a can, I got a little taste of local food thanks to the beans, peppers, some dried sage and rosemary from the Local Food Project herb patch, and a jalapeno dried by the chef.

What is my freezer telling me? Don’t fiddle away the summer and forget to store something away for winter. Take eating locally to the next level and don’t just do it when it’s easy. Think seasonal, but also think ahead. Find a class on canning. Ask my dad about the raspberry jam he made that one year. Learn how to make my own sour pickles. Summer in a hot kitchen, sweating over jars and boiling water and cans of tomatoes and greens and berries? I’ll take it.