Ode to Summer Fruit-Wish You Were Local

Peaches, cherries, watermelon. How I have missed you. True summer fruits, you never taste the same in other seasons or plucked from the freezer. Nothing seduces me into summer-style cooking like cherries. Suddenly, my interest in the oven wanes. I want to subsist on caprese and fruit for pretty much every meal. Throw in grilling just about anything and everything and I'm good to go.

Since diving head long into summer eating in the last week or so, I've been noting where the fruit is coming from... news flash, eating local is hard.

We didn't get into a CSA for the summer (too much travel to know that the food would always be used), so local farmers markets and stores are my go-to sources. In DC, we have wealth of markets to choose from, so its more about effort and organization to take advantage of them.

Exploration of the markets (new and familiar) is still to come, but for now I'm debating Whole Foods and how "local" they really are. As I searched for peaches yesterday, I noted they had two sources, South Carolina and Mexico, $1.99/lb. and 2.99/lb. respectively. I opted for a blend of both based on my need for really ripe fruit, but wondered if the price difference was a reflection of the longer distance the peaches traveled or something else. Of course, peaches don't grow right around DC, so there's no true "local" source for me. So should I not buy them at all?

But what about cherries? Whole Foods and Trader Joes both are carrying "USA" cherries, but when you inspect the packaging they both come from California. Now, I have nothing against farmers and orchards in CA, but it's not exactly even close to local. Should I skip until Michigan or Pennsylvania cherries arrive?

What about blueberries? They're not from Maine, not even close.

So what am I willing to NOT eat because it comes from too far away? And what's too far? The Mississippi? The Mid-Atlantic? The eastern time zone? I'm torn. What's local to you?