Alanna Kellogg, author of the blog Veggie Venture, encourages all of us to seek out fresh produce from our hometown farmers markets. She commissioned an icon to help showcase fresh vegetables and fruits and invites fellow bloggers to adopt the icon, too. So you will see the icon here in my posts and in other places that feature fresh produce and other farmers market finds.

That is as soon as I can go to a farmers market.

Ever since reading Barbara Kinsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life, I have been wanting to get closer to the source of the food that we eat. But here in Flala land, that happens on a different schedule from the rest of you. Old habits die slowly and after five decades living in Central New York, the arrival of June meant the arrival of fresh produce. Some years we had vegetable gardens, but always we could go to the regional farmers market and to farmers' stands right on their own land. And, of course, Wegmans filled their spectacular produce department with locally grown fruits and vegetables for all of the growing months. I was spoiled and never knew it.

We do have excellent fresh produce here at Whole Foods and at The Boys' Market. We even have a CSA nearby. ( A CSA is community supported agriculture. Basically that is a farm supported by individual contracts with members of the local community to purchase produce on a pre-established basis for the duration of the growing season.) We do have farmers markets in Delray Beach and in Boca Raton that are close enough for me to shop there.

What we don't have is a growing season that puts produce in the CSA or the farmers markets now. The CSA begins supplying produce in October and the farmers' markets start up again in October. So if you live in Miami or Orlando or Syracuse and can go to the local farmers market, go there and buy the freshest, local produce in season that you can find. Even though most of the fruits and vegetables do not say organic, produce grown on smaller, local farms likely contain fewer pesticides than the ones that have been trucked a few thousand miles to get to you. And then take your treasures home and cook them with the least effort you can manage after you have washed it. Eat it raw, steam it, or quickly boil it. Leave out the butter, cream, and oil and you will be leaving out the cholesterol and fat calories. Serve a plate of them with a fresh loaf of bread and you will have a fat-free vegan meal. And then enjoy it because you are really lucky to have it.

ps If you have a vegetable that you don't know how to prepare, post a comment and I will find at least one recipe for you.