With Apologies To The Bunnies

I'm finding that one of the biggest challenges to eating local is that it seems to also mean eating healthy. I've yet to come across any locally grown foods that come in a box and taste like Cheez-Its. Over the past couple of years I have done my best to reassociate into the unhealthy category foods like Doritos, Ruffles, Heluva Good French Onion Dip, and Easy Cheese. Admittedly I once considered them central to not only my diet but my general happiness in life. This is no longer the case. The downside is, I have been unable to find a suitable replacement. You see, I am picky. And let me explain so I can be perfectly clear what I mean when I say I'm picky:

Vegetables fall into two categories, those I hate and those I tolerate. I will eat raw peppers but not cooked. Any food cooked with green peppers in it tends to taste of green peppers, and I cannot eat that. I like onions if they are breaded, crispy and deep fried. I hate tomatoes but like salsa (I dip, I do not scoop). I hate mushrooms in all of their various incarnations and no matter what they've been marinating in. Squash is right out. Sweet potatoes are fine as long as you don't forget the brown sugar. Raw broccoli, green beans, carrots and cauliflower I can eat but please pass the aforementioned Heluva Good French Onion dip. Do not cook or "wilt" my lettuce, ew. I don't mind peas with pearl onions, but I don't eat the pearl onions and I use a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper. Corn is probably my favorite vegetable followed closely by potatoes, but again a generous portion of butter and salt are required, and I've never had a potato that didn't require two dollops of sour cream. Beets taste like dirt. Pickled beets taste like pickled dirt. My in-laws have lately been on a rutabaga kick...good for them. Celery is of the devil and people keep insisting it has no flavor but if that were the case then why, tell me why, do they insist on putting it in otherwise perfectly yummy things like chicken-salad? I could go on.

The point is, when one has such strict limitations on what one can consume without gagging, how am I supposed to adjust to this whole local thing. I know what you're thinking, it wasn't your idea! It was mine. And it's a good idea. I think I may have mentioned that I have three very small children. I want to bring them up with healthy attitudes about food as well as where that food comes from. And just switching to wheat bread (as I made myself do reluctantly after my first son was born) is not going to get me there.

So here I sit, eating raw broccoli generously dipped in Italian Dressing (hey, it's a start) instead of munching on the two BJs sized bags of Doritos in my cupboard. The broccoli isn't local of course, but when spring rolls around and we do start getting in fresh local produce, my hope is that my palate will be ready. Lookout bunnies.