by Stacey Forbes

I know you don’t know me yet, as this is only the first issue of my column, however, can you do me a favour? Will you stop buying lettuce greens from California? At least until November, when I will again ask you not to, but give you a new reason. After all, you can grow your own lettuces easily in our climate, or buy them at the Open Air Market from a local producer, or from a BC grower at the supermarket... maybe.
When I picture, in my minds’ eye, a clear plastic box of organic, Californian, “spring greens” taking up space in a fossil-fueled “boxcar” on wheels, spewing greenhouse gases, unsafely passing its way up Interstate 5, I cannot help but wonder if this is logical. Do we really want to buy “easy” greens from a thousand busy highway miles away?

I’m not going to ask for anything else this month—this is a great start, and an easy one, especially at this time of year. For now, until I can figure out how to grow them here, I still buy a few lemons, and more than a few avocados, with the idea that I will allow myself to buy the things that cannot grow here, the awaited treasures of the season. All I can really ask of you, of course, is that you give my ranting some quick thought. And provide you with this caveat emptor: don’t expect to pay less for your local greens than ones from far away. Local farmers work hard, and they need to make a living. The grand scale of the lettuce imports make them relatively cheap, but their grand march lessens their original value.

Stacey Forbes is a graduate of the Dubrulle Culinary Institute in Vancouver