I'm back from the 28^th annual NOFA winter conference, “Celebrating the Heart of Organic.” The people were numerous, the mood was festive, and the food was delicious! City Market had a table with local food recipes, a raffle of local products, and an information sheet on “local food gaps” – those items we would like to source more of locally, because of a growing demand for them - like local rolled oats.

Nikolas munched on big, orange disks of carrots from Arethusa Farm Thursday night from his first ever school lunch tray. It was a proud parental moment. Later, I used local carrots to make a delicious side dish with roasted local carrots, oranges, and scallions. 

We have beautiful ginger from Biker Dude in the store right now. For those of you who don’t know Biker Dude, he’s an organic farmer in Hawaii who cultivates a somewhat unconventional image, and he supplies us with fresh ginger with funny names during the growing season. Our Produce Buyer, Mary Manghis, even went out and visited his farm two years ago and cemented our connection.