I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to live in the midwest.  When I first moved here, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to road signs, but as I've been driving to Louisville fairly often lately, they have caught my attention.  Signs to Lexington, Cincinnati, St. Louis.  St. Louis?  Honestly, I have no idea how far away St. Louis is, but where I used to live (Pennsylvania) it was eternally far away.  And these cities are our landmarkers?  I grew up with signs to Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York.   Cincinnati seems like a pithy place compared to Philadelphia.  Midwestern cities are so odd to drive towards as well.  They seem to spring up in the middle of cornfields.  Houses dot the plain and then, boom, there's a city.  But not a city by northeastern standards.  They are not old or stately or even gritty.  I don't know them well enough to explain them adequately, but they are different.  These cities also do not rest on coastlines.  Some form at a meeting place for rivers, but others are even more isolated. 

It is strange to live so far from any ocean.  This changes the way you view your home, land, and those around you.  I think it even effects the way you think of God.  I haven't placed my finger on it yet, but here in the middle, things are different. 

Yet surrounded by all this land, things are isolated.  People are more self-reliant and internalized than back east.  Less social, more familial.  It may be true that no man is an island, but those who live in the middle part of this island have driven themselves far away from the central social zones of a country.

I hope I haven't put this in seemingly negative terms.  I don't mean it like that.  I am just amazed that there is so much and so little that binds us as a country.  The things that bind us, although not completely, these are regional too: name brands, governmental systems, language, social movements, and cultural concepts such as freedom.  So, we can traverse this country and on the surface everything is familiar, but the more time you spend in a place, you realize it's completely different than the last.

One social movement that seems to be sweeping the nation (slowly) is the local food movement.  It appears that this existed here in Indiana long before it was written about in books and magazines.  Just about every back road here begins with a large handwritten sign advertising produce from one of the locals residing in the direction the arrow takes you.  Travel through the maze of roads aimlessly and you will stumble across zucchini, peaches, cantaloupe, tomatoes, maple syrup, eggs and home-made baskets.  The road not taken could keep you from an enviable smorgasborg. I have yet been brave enough to knock at anyone's door to buy something.  Not that this exactly takes bravery, but I do feel shy when thinking about the concept of just visiting a stranger at their home.  Fortunately, our local co-op and farmer's market carries many of these wares--and more.  Our farmer's market keeps growing exponetially; it currently has 65 different vendors, which is truly amazing, since it is held in a town of 5,000 people and a tiny county of 20,000 in the middle of truly nowhere. 

We have therefore been feasting.  I can't get enough of tomatoes.  I could just survive on a diet of fresh salsa alone.  Just the thought of those tomatoes, cilantro, limes, peppers.....my mouth is watering now.  Tonight's dinner consists of local: eggs, French bread, orange and red tomatoes, basil, oregano, thyme, green peppers, garlic, eggplant, zucchini.  It's going to turn out to be vegetable torte (chocolate tortes are MUCH better, I know, but this will do) and buschetta. I was thinking about throwing in a local wine, for good measure, but we also have this Spanish white wine and I don't want to have local overkill, right?

While I am speaking about local food, I must face the facts of this location.  As I mentioned above, we are obviously far from any ocean.  I have a friend moving to Florida and we went on www.localharvest.org to check out what kind of local produce and such she has in her new home.  I shouldn't have looked because I became jealous almost immediately.  My farmer's market is pretty good, but hers is going to sell freshly caught local seafood.  I think I may need to visit!

Last summer we had a drought.  Everything turned to dusty straw.  I drank copious amounts of water to attempt to overcome the heat.  And I thought global warming had doomed us to hell.  The last part still has time to come to fruition (why, oh, why did I choose last summer of all times to watch Al Gore's film--it felt so apocolyptic when everything around mestarted dying).  We had a cool, wet spring this year that everyone but me complained about.  I hate cold and hot, so give me cool or warm any day.  Currently, we are on the brink of August and the weather is still lovely.  We've had the heat and humidity, but we've also had our share of just absolutely perfect days weather-wise.

With the summer comes fruit.  Vegetables come also, but who cares about them when there are peaches around?  I bought lots of extra peaches and blanched them, put them in a honey/water syrup, and froze them in single servings for my morning oatmeal come December.  My friend Abbey gave me a heart-shaped silicon cup-cake pan  as a present that is perfect for freezing things in; said frozen objects slip right out.  Plus, they are super cute, as much as that counts for frozen fruit.  They might even make me smile before having coffee in the dusky, dead of winter mornings.