I read your eating local post & it really struck a chord with me… I am a passionate locavore & often blog about that topic, but I recently quit a job that I loved (long, sad story) & kissed my paycheck goodbye. Now that I’m in an entrepreneur phase, I am forced to weigh every purchase with great thought as I need to stretch my dollars as far as they can go. Fortunately I am a big fan of all the great multi-cultural groceries in the Seattle/Renton/Kent/Shoreline outskirts & am constantly amazed at how many bags of groceries I can walk out with for so little money.

That being said, I was excited to see the Columbia City Farmer’s Market open this week & carefully made my rounds to determine who had the best prices & what I would actually use. I think one thing I’ve fallen prey to over the years is walking out with heaps of gorgeous produce that slowly wilts & decays in the fridge, bread that goes stale, nubs of cheese that dry into hockey pucks or become foul furry creatures. What I’ve learned is that like an $80 sweater that’s made well & that I will wear for years & years, good quality products go a long way.

So instead of buying three cheeses, I buy one absolutely to-die-for piece & make sure we savor every bite. I freeze any uneaten bread a day or so after buying it, & then I have impromptu sandwich material that I only need to reheat in the oven. I do as many other people do & shop for vegetables that I will use tonight or tomorrow, & then shop fresh later in the week once I know what our schedule is so that beautiful rainbow chard I couldn’t live without has a ghost of a chance.

What did I buy at the farmer’s market this week? A beautiful bunch of curly kale & gorgeously slim baby leeks which we put on the grill. Both were a dollar, both were from Vietnamese farmer’s. Oh yeah, & some yukon gold potatoes for $3 a lb, not cheap, but I’m betting they’ll be creamy & flavorful & worth the splurge. It’s all a balancing act, you know?