We’re not subscribers to the Sunday Seattle Times, so I missed the fact that this week’s edition of their Sunday magazine included a feature on local farmers and eating locally. Thanks to JC Costello’s post on the Ethicurean yesterday I’ve now been alerted and had a chance to read it in it’s entirety.

Wow! After the let down of the Seattle Met article I was prepared for another story about local sources that just touched the surface. I was wrong. This is a solid piece discussing the rise and spread of the local food movement, both in Seattle and across the region. It features the Seattle farmer’s markets and their founder Fred Berman and talks about the issues facing local farmers today.

The only sour note that struck me, and JC as well, were the comments from Full Circle’s Leslie Dietz.

Leslie Dietz, the CSA production manager for Full Circle Farms, is responsible for filling food boxes for 2,500 year-round subscribers each week, nearly half of them in Alaska (”we’re as local as it gets for them”). Dietz has seen how important local food is to people.

“People complain about getting fruit from Argentina in the winter, but you would not get the full variety that people want year-round if we were all local,” she says. “And not all local farms are organic, but everything we sell is.

“All-local is an interesting concept, but who’s going to do it en masse?” she wonders. “Are people going to learn how to dry food to have in the winter?”

First of all, I’m sure that Alaskan’s have access to food sources that are more local than Puget Sound. And I know this because at least one Alaskanite (?) is participating in the One Local Summer Challenge: Amy at Amystery and as far as I can tell, she’s not starving.

Second of all, just how misguided is it to include a quote from a CSA that isn’t committed to local foods when there are so many here that are?

And finally, people don’t have to learn to dry or can their own food. That would be the beauty of critical mass. If there are enough of us committed to eating locally, you can bet your ass that someone will decide to open a business processing local veggies and fruits for us to eat in the off seasons. In fact, several already have, including Eat Local where you can buy frozen prepared meals from all local ingredients.

People might want a full variety year round, but being able to have it is a recent phenomenon, dating back only until the years just after WWII. And it’s not something that can continue indefinitely. When gas is $7 per gallon, you can bet that we won’t all still be eating pears from Argentina in the winter.

Anyway, I thought the article was better overall than the one in Seattle Metropolitan, but still not as well thought out as it could have been.

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And for dinner here tonight, a simple tomato soup made from all local ingredients (except the splash of olive oil) with toast cheese bread on the side (Tillamook cheddar so a bit farther than 200 miles). It was sooooo good. I think it’s my new favorite recipe. Of course it took 5 lbs of tomatoes and only made four servings. So we we’ll have to make it again soon as I can’t afford that many tomatoes in January…