Do you have the song from Sound of Music in your head? “These are a few of my favorite things…” I bet you do now!

I actually just want to highlight one of them right now. Fresh Local Produce!!!

One of the first things that amazed me after I moved here is the selection of fresh local produce. There are weekly farmer’s markets in nearly every town surrounding Seattle and Seattle has one in nearly each of it’s distinct neighborhoods. I have a favorite place, Yakima Fruit & Vegetable Market, I like to visit to purchase all of my produce and fresh flowers. They are family run and even carry local dairy items, assorted local honey, as well as plants and canning supplies. When it shuts down at the end of fall, I order fresh produce from an online farm co-op to have fresh produce delivered to my door through winter until they open again for Spring.

Our office has a weekly delivery of fresh fruit from local farms. It’s all organic and beautiful. We get a varied selection each week and never know what will be delivered but it’s usually some combination of 4 or 5 of these different fruits: apples, berries, pears, dried apricots, grapes, cherry tomatoes, plums, plumcots and today we got our first delivery of Rainier Cherries. I grew up thinking I hated cherries because the only ones I ever saw were chocolate covered in a goopy disgusting cream, or served in a sickeningly sweet bright red gel covering cheesecakes or in a too tart pie of cherry pie filling. These fresh cherries however, are delicious and the perfect balance of sweet and tart. They are almost plum like in texture and they are wonderful and they just came into season. Now I get to enjoy this wonderful treat as my mid-morning snack.