'Linking' the Seasons

While living abroad in Ireland and working at Food & Wine magazine, I learned a huge deal about the importance of cooking and eating locally and seasonally. During my initial interview with my soon-to-be supervisor, Ross Golden-Bannon, he said something that really stuck out. It was along the lines of:

"Seasonal cooking is exploding as a trend, but we've been doing it in Ireland for ages."

After that experience, I paid special attention to how mainstream U.S. media covers emerging food trends. For the average American consumer, seasonal cooking is a relatively novel concept that may initially seem complicated or difficult to understand. Writers are not only faced with the challenge of explaining the seasons in terms of cooking, but helping people understand how they can participate in the local and seasonal food movements.

On December 14, LA Times writer David Karp wrote a very interesting feature titled "Farmers Markets: Yes, there are seasons in Southern California." The strengths of this article, I believe, come from the links the author chose to include that help the reader understand the different seasons available in California.I also think that the author does a good job of referencing different ranches that produce seasonal items such as carrots, grapefruits, nuts and avocados.

The author does a nice job of explaining the "seasonal rhythm" of crops and how certain growers are able to harvest them and lengthen their season. Including the maturity release dates from the California Avocado Commission was a nice touch because it lent an official and authoritative source of knowledge.

Overall, I thought this feature was a great resource for seasonal eating in California. However, I think the author could have taken it a step further and included other multimedia content such as photos of current in season crops and an interactive map of farmer's market locations (or at least a link to a list). Online journalism has the unique opportunity to provide more in-depth and useful information that readers can access with an easy link. Journalists should continue to push the limits and try to use their online articles as a medium for providing as much help and knowledge as possible.