It's Finally Happened.....

I've become a food elitist. And ya wanna know something? I LIKE IT! Throughout the summer, I've been really fortunate to have wonderful neighbors who are blessed with the gardening gene and they are more than happy to share their bounty with me. I've made fresh tomato sauce twice so far and I can not even describe how amazing it tastes. So simple: just garlic, onions, tomatoes and fresh basil, with a bit of seasonings to your liking. How easy is that? The first batch I peeled, seeded and chopped. Too much work, so the second batch I peeled the skin then broke the whole tomatoes up with my hands. A quick blend with the immersion blender to break up the bigger chunks and it was perfect. So in an effort to really eat local this year, I am saddened that as we harvest the last of their tomatoes, I will have to wait nine months to begin enjoying fresh ones again. Needless to say, this weekend I will be cooking more sauce and freezing it to enjoy sparingly in the winter.

So the other day, I went to my local Fred Meyer to pick up something completely non-food related. (I think it was Ziploc bags or something.) And while I was there, I thought that maybe I should pick up some extra tomatoes to supplement the fresh stuff. I picked up a bright, shiny Roma and I almost gagged. It was so waxy, the thought of eating it literally almost made me gag. I'm pretty sure my lip moved to a snarl as I was standing there. I mean, where the hell did the wax come from? THIS is what I have been eating all these years? GROSS! And then it hit me.....I've become a food elitist. I will never again be able to walk into a regular grocery store and just mindlessly buy off the shelf. Then I started to giggle, and smile really wide, and I realized this is not a bad place to be. If being a food elitist means knowing only the freshest, organic produce and humanely raised, free-range, grass-fed meats are nourishing my body, then bring it on!