Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on my last post. One of the things that was suggested was CSA, community supported agriculture. The idea behind CSA is simple:  you buy a share of a local farm's produce, and they deliver fresh vegetables to your door.

Well, until last year there was no CSA in Memphis. Many many google hits on "Why isn't there CSA in Memphis?"

Starting last year, there are two. 

Only one problem - both programs are $250 a month for one box of food per month, only offer food during four months of the year, and what's more they don't deliver.  You have to pick up. Downtown. Which is more than an hour's drive from me, plus $10 parking and leaving my car in the highest-crime area of town. I don't see myself driving downtown to pick up overpriced vegetables.

Which brings me to the second suggestion, the Farmer's Market. There is one. Downtown. On certain Saturday mornings during the summer. I have been told that if you're willing to pay $28 and arrive at 7 am, you can buy the most amazing brown eggs there. The foodies buy all the eggs very quickly;  once the food editor for the local newspaper arrived at 6 only to be told that all the eggs were reserved for a single buyer.

There is a monthly Farmer's Market in Germantown, which is a little closer to me, but only during the late summer. My mother bought some spectacular black-eyed peas there last year - for seven dollars a pound.

Now. About buying things on sale. I have before me the weekly Kroger flyer. It's seven pages long, and one quarter page is devoted to produce. I can pick from:

Apples

Red Grapes

Russet Potatoes

Yellow Onions

Boxed lettuce

Bagged peeled mini carrots.

I also have flyers for Aldi, Piggly Wiggly, Cooper's Neighborhood Supermarket, and Target. Guess what's on sale at those stores?

Apples, red grapes, russet potatoes, and yellow onions. And not much else. One place has oranges on sale.

And the sale prices ain't that great, honestly. $1.89 a pound for yellow onions isn't anything to write home about.

Hoop Junior made a useful suggestion - buy frozen. Yep, that's what you do if you live here and you can't afford to spend a fortune. Certain things, like cauliflower, are fine to buy frozen. Tomatoes?  If you're poor and you live in Memphis, you're eating them out of a can.

Fortunately I'm working for a living right now and can afford to support my fresh food habit. I'm managing. I'm just deeply offended and annoyed that my local grocers are making it quite this difficult to eat well.

Today's grocery shopping:  cabbage, plain old cabbage - almost 2 dollars per POUND, not per head. The kale has disappeared since last week. No fresh fennel and no shitake mushrooms, which meant I had to switch gears and figure out substitutes. As I mentioned previously, I don't buy fresh fish at Kroger, but my husband called me over to point out a package of fresh tuna that was actually grey with slimy stuff on it. And here's the weirdest thing - I was going to try Maria's lovely stew and there was no stew meat. No roast beef, no roasts at all. Picture my husband and me and another couple pretty much exactly like us only ten years older spending twenty minutes hunting up and down the meat section together exchanging comments like, "This is crazy!  They have to have some form of beef that's not a steak! It's got to be here somewhere!" We bonded over the crappiness that is Kroger's meat department. In the end she bought a pork shoulder and I decided fuck it, I'm goin' grass fed and organic, Whole Foods here I come. Meat at Whole Foods is bloody expensive but at least they have some.