Monday, March 17, 2008

Locavorism: The Clock is Ticking


I'm not one to toot my own horn, but . . . well, who am I kidding? I gotta say that those predictions of mine are already coming true. If my Google Analytics stats are to be believed, there's no way I can take credit for helping to reverse the trend, but it's starting to reverse nonetheless.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, once an oasis of local produce for Southern Californians, is turning into a "boutique wholesale operation", with much of the produce being snatched up by commercial distributors and shipped by air to restaurants as far away as New York. And the L.A. chefs who frequent the market are starting to resent it . . .

Over time, I've figured out when to know a trend is living on borrowed time. When the moron sales guys I worked with around 2000 monopolized lunch conversation with how much Cisco stock they just bought . . . it was a good time to get out of the tech stock market (not that I had any stock to sell at that point in my life). When I went to my kid's soccer games and heard non-stop chatter from fellow parents about ARMs and balloon payments and how much their houses had appreciated in 6 months and how they were quitting their jobs as chiropractors to take up real estate (yes, one dad actually did that), I knew the real estate bubble was about to pop.

"Locavorism" (what an annoying word!) has jumped the shark. It just doesn't know it yet.

So what will all those high-status chefs do once Meyer lemons and fingerling potatoes start showing up on Applebee's menus? I smell Crab Louis and Steak Dianne!

3 comments:

meathenge said...

Yeah, and I'm living in the birthplace of the damned thing. How do you think I feel about it !?!

I think it's time to have a cheeseburger for dinner, at Pup Hut (it's local).

I want that watch.

Biggles

meathenge said...

Oh, and is you don't need more proof. We've got radio commercials giving us the scoop about a certain percentage of our milk is being trucked in from other states. We need to check the label to make sure it's California Milk produced by our milk producing families.

Ugh. They just had to toss in the family bit.

Biggles

Robert said...

I with you, Biggles. I know nothing about the Pup Hut other than it's name, but I can tell it's gotta be good.

Family schamily.

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