Trader Joe's Squash and Artichoke.

Uggh I've been sick all week and haven't achieved much. But this morning I managed to drag myself out of the apartment and hike up to Trader Joe's. As soon as I walked into the door an artichoke called to me. Only 99 cents! It doesn't matter that I have no idea how to cook an artichoke. It was too good of a deal to pass up. Also the artichoke was in the box from the farm it came from. Ocean Mist farms. And just like that I had my first clue. Upon inspection of their website http://www.oceanmist.com/ I found that Ocean Mist is a farm that specializes in artichokes (they even have a recipe on how to cook an artichoke. Brilliant!) and they are head quartered in Castroville, CA. But in the off-season they also grow throughout California (Castroville, Huron, Oxnard, Coachella and Imperial Valley), in Arizona (Yuma) and in Mexico. This particular artichoke came from one of the California farms because they are currently in season in California. I'm also pretty sure that this particular artichoke is their "Hybrid Annual". It looks much skinnier than their other varieties. It is not an Organic artichoke. But according to their website they "are able to provide products that are free of microbial, chemical and physical contaminants." I think that means they are not GMOs. But I'm not entirely sure. Are farms required to state if their vegetables have GMOs?

Now on to the Butternut Squash! On the label of my squash it states that this squash came from Quality packing and shipping. That doesn't really sound like a farm... I tried to find a website for it. But there doesn't seem to be one and the google maps picture just looks like someones house. So I went on to the Trader Joe's website to see if I could find out a little bit more about my butternut squash. Not much there either. However the Trader Joe's website http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/trader-joes-timeline.pdf does state that they do not use any GMOs in their privately produced products. Also, after talking to one of the employees, I found that Trader Joe's buys straight from the farmer and then all of the produce goes to their warehouse in Monrovia, Ca. Then a truck picks it up and takes it to the warehouse in Everette and then another truck brings it to Seattle. Most of their products come from California and they have a few WA local products. (She said they were working on getting more local products soon) The warehouse is as far back as I can go. I know the squash is probably from CA, they're in season there anyway and the label does say it is a product of the USA, but as for the farm it came from I have no idea. I tried looking up the PLU. But everything just leads me back to the packing company. I guess that kinda says something.

Where did you come from!?

Well since that squash was so disappointing. Let's do another squash.

 

This is a delicata squash which I received in my Full Circle farms box this week. This squash was grown on the Alverez family farm in Yakima Valley, WA. Then it went to Full Circle Farm in Snowqualmie Valley to be put into a box. And then it was brought to my house to be made into squash soup. Hurrah!