Flaviana in the 'Sota: An Afternoon at the Market

After a week or so of radio silence, I'm back to give you a report of my comings and goings in Minnesota. Today, join me as I tell you about my day at the weekly Farmer's Market on Minneapolis' Nicollet Mall.

As many of you know, I have a bit of a self righteous streak. Most of the time I try to limit my self righteous tirades to topics that I know, like immigration law or the plight of refugees. However, like any "elitist", I've also been known to go on a few rants about topics I don't know so well, say, the state of American food... Unfortunately for you, today is a day where I will go on my pulpit to discuss what's wrong with food in the U.S. of A.

In a nutshell, a few months ago, I read a few articles about hormones and pesticides in our food that scared the ba-geesus out of me. Since reading said articles, I've become terrified about the added hormones in milk and meat giving me cancer, pesticides in produce contaminating cells in my body and additives in processed food causing birth defects in my unborn children. Also, even though I can be a bit of a hypocrite on this front, I think that using non-local, out of season ingredients is bad for the environment (i.e. using unnecessary gas to transport said ingredients to your area is bad) and should be avoided when possible. The result of these opinions is that I've gone on an organic/local produce kick. Since I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, I can't tell you what the exact effects of eating non-organic food. What I will say, is that organic milk tastes better than regular milk, and also there's nothing better than fresh berries or apples straight from the farm to my mouth. Basically, the point I'm trying to make is, organic food with no added chemicals tastes better and is probably better for you. There, I will now get off my high horse.

So where were we again? Ah yes. The Nicollet Mall Farmer's Market. A few weeks after I moved back to the M-P-L-S, I discovered this wonderful little local gem of tasty fresh produce. We'll, maybe "little" isn't the best word to describe this Farmer's Market. We're talking blocks upon blocks of goodies that definitely puts the Jersey City market to shame. After learning about this local market, Lucy and I strolled on over to Nicollet Mall to see what all the fuss was about.

When we arrived at the Mall, we saw lots of pretty flowers.