So, our new food hub driver/distributor/marketer Chelsea is on vacation so I’m doing the food hub deliveries this week.  I find that any time that I fill in as the driver, I am treated to heart-warming interactions with our farmers and our buyers.  Here are two situations from this week:

1.We received a last minute email from an owner of a Seattle hot new food truck.  She wanted to order lettuce through the hub from a farm in La Conner but didn’t know how many to order because she didn’t know how large the heads were.  She emailed me at 5 pm and we emailed the farmer who said she’d gladly run out to the field and snap a photo for the customer.  At 8 pm tonight we received a photo of gorgeous gigantic heads of lettuce – two to three times the size found from a typical commercial distributor or in a grocery store, bright green and exquisite.  Here’s what she just sent in an email, “They’re gorgeous! I’ll take 45 heads, we’ll use them for our pork belly wraps too. Yum! Thanks so so much for taking a pic and letting me order past closing for today. Can’t wait to put your name on my menu! I’ll put in an order through 21 acres right now.”

2. We made a very large delivery to a medical institution and on the loading dock one of the hospital workers exclaimed loudly, “What are those?” when he saw the 150 pounds of humongous rhubarb stalks.  He had never seen rhubarb before.  He definitely had seen strawberries before, but when I offered him a taste of one of the delectable, sweet, sweet strawberries he declined to try one as they hadn’t been washed yet. I then went on to make the delivery to the head of the entire food service program and he was thrilled with the abundance of the order.  The first question he asked was, “Have the strawberries been washed?” When I said no, he said, “Great!  I’ll eat one then!” This experience seemed to offer such a juxtaposition and showed the opposite ends of the spectrum in people’s understanding of fresh, locally grown produce.  I was fascinated.

I thought I’d quickly share these stories with the thoughts that others might find them interesting.  Please note, the strawberries were all washed before being served!

Robin