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The other day, I was reminded of an unfortunately reality of living in North Idaho. For reasons no one seems to understand, the produce in the grocery stores here is expensive and bad.
Last weekend, for example, we picked up some okay-looking red tomatoes on our grocery store run. Yeah, they were expensive, but they are always expensive in the winter. Yesterday, James used a slice of one of the tomatoes in our sandwiches at lunch. It was like having a piece of cardboard in there. I mean a tasteless tomato is not a surprise in December, but one that actually ruins your sandwich is just plain sad.
As most people know, we moved here from California. Not surprisingly, the produce there is great. Lots of it is grown there, so it's no wonder it's good. But we've lived in a number of different places and traveled throughout the West and even into Canada. Yet nowhere we've been seems to have as big a problem with bad produce as Idaho. We went for 7 years without finding an edible avocado in the grocery store here. (A California-based client of mine who owns an avocado ranch took pity on me one year and sent us 12 avocados; they were amazing.)
Hawaii is the only place we've found that has more expensive produce than here. Given that you're on an island, obviously transportation costs are a bit high. But for the most part, produce in Hawaii is incredibly good, so at least you get some fine food for all that cash you're shelling out.
We've heard that as in Hawaii, "transportation costs" are to blame for the high prices of food here. Someone else told us that all produce is shipped through Boise. Getting food from Boise seems stupid, when Seattle is actually closer. (And speaking of a place with fine food, there's one!) Anyway, as with our ridiculously high gasoline prices, it really doesn't compute, since frankly, we're not that far away from some major metropolitan areas.
In any case, there's a reason so many people have gardens and the local CSAs and Farmer's Market are so popular. Summer is your big chance to get edible produce. During the winter, you're completely out of luck
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