A Week Out West

Greetings from Seattle! Yesterday's full day of travel has landed me in my parents' house outside of the city for the next week. This is exciting in its own right, but the impetus for the visit, particularly for the timing, is actually the Vida Vegan Blogger Conference next Friday! It's hard to imagine that I have been waiting for this event since I found out I was attending back in February. Well here I am, and planning on enjoying a relatively relaxing week lead up to the fun.

This morning, I made a visit to the Redmond Farmers Market. It didn't disappoint - with stall stocked full of tomatoes, eggplants, peaches, and zucchini. There was cauliflower, kohlrabi, green beans, and corn. It looked not too dissimilar from the markets back in DC. Maybe a few less peaches here, a few more broccoli florets there. But when I bit into a peach and popped a blueberry into my mouth, the difference became readily apparent. Where the blueberries (and most other berries this time of year) are phenomenal, the peaches for the most part are underwhelming. Geography - and the associated climate, soil profile, topography, etc - seem to make a huge difference in flavor, and possibly nutrition, of market produce.

If one examines the USDA's maps of producing regions, it quickly becomes apparent that the growing conditions for my two "homes" are very different. While I'm not well-versed beyond simple difference in weather between the district and the state of Washington, you can imagine that the mountainous topography and higher latitude of the Puget Sound Region contrast sharply with the subtropical climes and only mildly hilly terrain of the Nation's Capital.

Ok, enough ranting. I'll be back tomorrow. Six days and counting!!!