Eating Local

One of our favorite things to do is support our local businesses, farms, and ranches as much as we can. Not only do we know where our food comes from, but it also helps support their livelihood.

When eating at restaurants, we try to eat mostly from family-owned businesses. It doesn’t always work out (we like Chili’s sometimes), but most of the time it does. That’s easy to do in Rocksprings because the only restaurants there are family owned. There are also SO many in Kerrville. Some of my favorites are Yeo Bo’s (Korean), Thai Ocha (Thai), Southern Sky Music Cafe (amazing food + music), Carrot Patch Cafe (all healthy lunch-type food), Liberty kitchen (burgers), Taqueria Jalisco (Mexican food), and Pint & Plow (locally produced foods + music). Oh and I can’t forget PAX for coffee!

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I do my “big” grocery shopping at HEB. I supplement a lot of that with a few farms and ranches: Bridget’s Basket (we get a CSA box a few times a month), Heritage Beef (we try to buy a half of a cow but haven’t in a while… we buy from her at the Farmer’s Market and from her house), Zanzenberg Farms (pork), and Mikey’s Garden (lettuce and herbs). When Hat and Heart Farm (produce and canned goods) is at the Farmer’s Market, we buy from them as well (they aren’t there as often). I don’t buy much meat from the grocery store, and I have cut down a lot on produce by buying from local farms. I buy kombucha from Wild & Well (though I try to limit this). I sometimes buy coffee from Springtown Roasters (out of San Marcos). We also love Ruta Maya coffee which is from Austin. I like to buy some fermented stuff like sauerkraut and ginger beer from Happy Gut Foods. I haven’t done this in a while but I appreciate it when I can get it.

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I also shop at our health food stores: Kerrville Health Foods and Next Generation Health Foods & Juice Bar. At KHF I buy kombucha, some pantry items such as beans and grains, fermented foods, and some frozen foods. At Next Gen I mostly pick through their large amount of clearance items and when I was completely dairy free, I would buy a lot from there. They have a large selection of DF foods. I buy supplements from both, but not often. These two businesses are family owned as well, and I’m friends with the owner of KHF. Covid hit these businesses hard so I try to support them when I can.

I also love having food in my backyard! We have 8 chickens (6 currently laying, 4-5 eggs per day) and a small garden. Right now we are still getting golden cherry tomatoes and another variety of tomato that I can’t remember the name of from the SPRING. They are producing tons. I’m actually getting kind of tired of them so we have been sharing. We have also still gotten a few bell peppers. Last month I planted green beans, zucchini (I got SO much of these during the summer), yellow squash, beets, okra, more tomatoes (for some reason), and colorful carrots. We also have shishito pepper plants on our porch in pots. I don’t know if it’ll work out because I planted kind of late into the season, but since we are in Texas, I have a little bit of time left.

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Last but not least, Robert tries to shoot a few axis deer each year. He’s not a huge fan of hunting (not all men love it!), but he DOES like to have meat in the freezer.

I DO shop at places like Walmart for some things and Costco online (we live over two hours from the nearest one so shopping online is second best). I sometimes order from Grove Collaborative. I don’t always eat perfectly despite having all of this healthy food in my house. Convenience sometimes trumps healthy food, especially if I don’t have time to prep on the weekends. I try to do a BIG prep every other week and do a little bit of prep on the other weeks. Sometimes I just don’t have time. We have been going to church most Sundays so it’s tough to fit everything into the weekend.