Plow to Porch to My Belly

I buy a lot of Groupons. I like to think that I only buy Groupons when I would have purchased the product/experience anyway, but it's pretty easy to convince myself in the moment: "I'll probably end up treating myself to a fancy massage anyway. Why not pay half price for it?" or "Of course my dad needs a joy ride in a Lamborghini. And it's only $60?!"

Yesterday I remembered that the world was going to end today. My first instinct was to use up all my Groupons. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for that, so I had to prioritize food. You know, for post-rapture rations.

Luckily, I had a Groupon to Plow to Porch on upper State Street, so I headed down there to check it out.

This little shop made my (potentially last) day (on Earth). Their main business is delivering organic produce from local farms to people's homes throughout Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, and Montecito. It didn't make sense for me to put my Groupon toward that service, since my roommates and I are already members of a Community Share Agriculture program at Fairview Farms.

The woman who was working there, Joanna, was incredibly friendly and helpful. I told her I was a vegan and she showed me around the market, pointing out the vegan products I might like. They also have all kinds of fresh cuts of meat, eggs, tea, coffee, and an entire corner of honey and honey-based products from San Marcos Farms.

For my $20 Groupon, I got two naval oranges, a basket of strawberries, two avocados, a bar of chocolate, and a bottle of OM Sweet Mama salad dressing.

OM Sweet Mama makes a few different salad dressing varieties right here in Santa Barbara, at 1535 Santa Barbara Street. I got the Carrot Ginger Miso one, which is made of olive oil, water, safflower oil, carrots, rice wine vinegar, miso, Bragg Liquid Aminos, raw agave, sesame oil, garlic, tahini, shallot, citric acid, and - believe it or not - xanthan gum. Now that I have xanthan gum in my cabinet, I might try to concoct this delicious stuff myself when I run out. Lord knows what else I'd do with it.

I'm more excited about the chocolate bar, though. Joanna pointed out to me that Twenty-four Blackbirds hand-made artisan chocolate only uses two ingredients: cocoa beans and sugar. It's made locally in Santa Barbara without the use of emulsifiers or additives. Yum.

I wish there were more markets like Plow to Porch. In my ideal world, supermarkets would follow Plow to Porch's lead and start carrying only local, organic products. Until then, I'll just have to keep going back and stocking up on delicious organic food.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go use up another Groupon before the world ends. I forget exactly what it is for, but it has to do with wine.