New York City apartment dweller Sarah Thaler shares her experiences with wellness, composting, farmers markets and healthy living in an urban environment.

With the warmer seasons upon us we also have a wider variety of local, fresh produce available to us. As I said in my last blog, I take full advantage of the farmers markets in Manhattan. I find I can get almost everything I am looking for and then supplement it with trips to a regular supermarket or health food store every two weeks or so to get anything I am missing. I go to the farmers market for a many reasons but for me the most important ones are that I want to support small local farms, and it is important to me to eat organic and non GMO produce. I always strive to make my diet full of as many whole foods as possible.

I try to eat foods that haven’t been processed or altered in any way (think fresh fruits, vegetables, free range, organic meat, organic free range eggs). These natural foods haven’t been depleted of their natural nutrients and haven’t had anything added to them to change their nutritional value and integrity. Going to a farmers market makes selecting these foods simple because hardly anything has been processed

I won’t pretend that a lot of processed foods aren’t convenient and tasty, but it is harder to resist them when I’m walking through the grocery store which is why going to a farmers market is great because I don’t even feel the temptation. Going to a farmers market also forces me to be a little creative with what I am eating and cooking. Because I am limited to whats in season, I find myself coming up with new recipe ideas depending on what is available to me. Farmers are also great resources for recipes. They are the experts on their produce and can be a wealth of information.

Each blog post, I will include a recipe with all foods I got at the farmers market that week (with a few exceptions-a few spices and things I bought at a supermarket)

Recipe of the Week: Kale salad

Dressing:

• 1 ripe avocado
• Honey
• Olive Oil
• Sea Salt/Pepper for seasoning

Directions: Get a very ripe avocado that you can mash up into a smooth consistency like guacamole. Add a little bit of honey. Add more if you would like the dressing to be sweeter. Mix in olive oil so the mixture becomes more of a dressing consistency but not too thin. (Kale is a tough green and can take a heavier dressing without being weighed down or wilting.) Add salt and pepper to taste and any other seasonings you might like. I have tried it with lemon and a little garlic too.

Salad:

• Kale
• Celery
• Apples or dried fruit
• Carrots peeled

Directions: Chop the kale into long thin pieces that will be easy to eat in one bite. Cut celery into small chunks and add them into the mix. Add either small pieces of apple or dried fruit such as cherries or golden raisins into the salad. I then use a peeler to cut the carrot into long thin pieces. I think the carrots look prettier that way and are easier to eat than having a larger chunk of carrot in the salad. Put the dressing on the salad up to an hour before eating it, it will help soften the kale.

Extras: For animal protein boost, add, grilled chicken, duck, hard boiled egg, steamed fish or scallops, all of which can be bought from local, organic and humane farmers at the farmers market.