Dave Faries here, welcoming one and all to the last but biggest run of the holiday season.
I try to shop local, which by a food writer’s definition means goods from Monterey County. I have a cellar full of local wine, both Central Coast AVAs and labels from my previous stint in Lake County. I prefer The Meatery in Seaside to chain grocery counters. If I spy a jar of jam or a bottle of olive oil from an area producer, it goes into my cart. The beer in my fridge is currently from Alvarado Street.
So the original idea for my part in this week’s cover stories on shopping small was to highlight some of the many products available. Carmel Honey Company is well known, but there are other honeys on the market, for example. There are Monterey County labels for everything from cider to spirits to tea and coffee, bacon and cheese, jams and jellies—there is a lot on offer. I’ve never been able to compile a complete list of olive oils, for example.
And that’s the one downside. The marketing presence of some cottage kitchens is so tiny that it’s as if they don’t exist until you stumble on them, perhaps at a place like Windmill Market in Salinas or Elroy’s Fine Foods in Monterey, or maybe by chance at a farmers market.
Fortunately, there are neighborhood markets that will make space available for small local producers. So the story became how the folks at Nielsen Brothers, Grove Market, Jerome’s, Star Market, Bruno’s and the like locate these items and get them to the shelves. You can find out in this week’s edition of the Weekly or online.
Not everyone has the time to pick through farmers markets, especially on a weekday. It’s good that grocers are reaching out to help us help the small producers of Monterey County.