Today I was reflecting on how much "grocery shopping" has changed in the past year. It used to be that we would run to Whole Foods, get everything on the list, and return home. Period. End of story.
Now, things look quite different.
Where we once easily tootled up and down a few aisles grabbing "organic" boxes of macaroni and cheese, bags of salad, quarts of yogurt, and then were done with it, we now find ourselves participating in much more elaborate food-gathering endeavors.
We wait in line in alleys and parking lots to meet farmers who deliver milk, meat, and veggies fresh from their farms. We pop into a warehouse at the back of a junk yard lot to pick up goods shared by other "Trad Foodies". We join casual buying clubs with people we only know through a local email list (which always involves driving across town to pick something up from some stranger's home). We dig dirt, haul water, and pull weeds in order to grow much of our own food.
And while it seems like the acquisition of food has gotten much more difficult the way we do things now, in many ways, this kind of living actually makes everything so much simpler.
And we can't imagine doing it any other way.
