A shopper's experiment: Can she really 'eat locally'?

The assignment seemed simple enough: My editor wanted me to "eat locally" for a week. And she didn't mean check out the neighborhood diner or hamburger joint. She was talking about a growing food trend in the United States - increasing numbers of people who are interested in buying and eating food that comes fresh from farmers' fields, as opposed to "fresh" off the grocery store shelf.

If it could be done anywhere, we agreed, southern California was the place. After all, we were talking about a temperate, sun-blessed land with a virtually year-round growing climate.

So it was with great optimism and curiosity that I spent a week trying to eat locally.

In Los Angeles, shopping is the easy part. There are farmers' markets almost every day of the week, scattered all over the city. I stuck with the Hollywood Farmers' Market, which is near my house and which I enjoy for its size and diversity.

I also knew I could count on grocery stores that specialize in natural and organic products, such as Whole Foods, which has locations around the country. I even checked out my neighborhood grocery store, with its more traditional offerings.

And I discovered, not surprisingly, that the Internet was a great resource, yielding information on specific food producers as well as general background on eating locally and how to find local products.

At the Hollywood Farmers' Market during one week in early April, I found organically and locally grown broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, avocados, sugar snap peas, carrots, potatoes, all kinds of greens, spring onions, and a spectacular variety of sprouts from one very funky man with dreadlocks who creates his own special mixes. (I chose a little carton of delicious onion and garlic sprouts, which became the perfect final touch on sandwiches I made for lunch that week.)

I also found eggs, fresh apple and pomegranate juices, a wide variety of freshly made breads, dried fruits and nuts, oranges, grapes, strawberries, and even mountain-grown Fuji apples, which, while out of season, were unbelievably crisp and sweet, thanks to cold storage and the farmer who knows how to keep them that way during the long nonapple-growing months.

Along with all of this I found the first joy of eating locally - the non- edible yet very real pleasure that comes from buying your food from the person who grows it. I got the opportunity to ask about production and flavor - even cooking tips - from the people who have had their hands on the food. I talked about sugar snap peas with one farmer who explained that his wife does the picking because she knows the very moment when the peas are ready, harvesting them just when the pods are plumpest, which means the peas are sweetest.

The woman who sells dried fruits and nuts sorted through bags of pistachios until she found the best bag for me: The nut meats, she told me, should be bright green, with deep red markings from the skin.

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