This past weekend I finally made it to the West Side Market. It was great, and reminded me of all the big markets in other large cities. There are some advantages to living in a large urban area. If anyone is visiting Cleveland, I recommend going. You get a great sample of local foods, and the price is great.

But my quest for local produce continues. While the market had a great variety of produce, most of it was shipped in from California and Mexico. Now, the meat and dairy on the other hand was a plethora of local. I feel like you have to work hard to eat non-local meat and dairy in Cleveland.

So for now I'm still eating organic, but non-local produce. I can't seem to find any local produce on Cleveland's west side right now. At least that is available other than on a Saturday morning. I haven't been here on a Saturday morning in a few weeks, and that won't be changing anytime soon. I guess sometimes eating local means shopping on a local time schedule.

On a side note, lots of herbs and edibles are sprouting up in my yard. They're all over the place. We could make a salad out of the lawn clippings if the mower was food-grade (We use a reel mower). We have dandelion, violets, sorrel, and mint that I've found already, and I'm finding more hidden gems as I slowly make my way around the yard weeding. Not much grass in the back lawn, but I'm not sure that's a problem :-). Our yard hasn't seen any maintenance since the previous owners moved out last June, and our front lawn is all grass and passes local zoning regulations. We're starting to daydream about how to make the backyard usable and edible. It might work.