One of the things I love to do while on the road is finding good ingredients. I search for local stores, produce stands, food co-ops and farmers markets. Farmers Markets are great because often times you can talk to the people who actually grow and raise the food you are purchasing, but you aren’t always in the right place at the right time to catch the markets on the days you have to shop. So, I love to look for those small mom and pop stores, employee owned, or community owned as co-ops function.

It may seem like less of a hassle to just pull over to Safeway when you have seen the big sign right of the highway, but when you search out these smaller local stores your dollars make a bigger impact. They support the community you have decided to call home for a few days. They keep family farms producing diverse crops. Heritage herds producing quality milk from rotational grazing support local cheese makers who produce artisan cheeses making any cheese spread or recipe a million times more flavorful. Oh I digress...

In order to find these options I engage my iPhone map app. I look for stores I am unfamiliar with and go to their websites. This process may seem time consuming at first, but it doesn’t take long to become familiar with the local chains and weed them out fast. There are usually only a few that stand out as one offs. A quick click on their name from your map app and not only do you see their website info, hours of operation, phone number, direction options, useful to know details, but reviews as well. This valuable info typically gets me to where I want to go in just a few short clicks.

Once I have decided where to go I find these stores tend to be smaller on average and less overwhelming than your typical large chain stores and the number of locally sourced items are often much greater. Since there tends to be more local products I get to choose items that might not be accessible at home. This leads to new recipes and exciting meal time.

Here are some of my finds along the way:

Silver City Co-Op

Santa Fe La Mantañita Co-Op

Santa Fe Farmers Market

Steamboat Springs Community Ag Alliance Market

Steamboat Springs Farmers Market

Redmond Heritage Farms Market Stores in Orem, UT

Newport Ave Market Bend, OR

Market of Choice Bend, OR

South Beach Fish Market, Newport OR

Farmer John’s Produce & Nursery McMinnville, OR

Harvest Fresh Grocery & Deli McMinnville, OR

South Bay Wild Fish Market & Restaurant Astoria, OR

The Store in Anacortes

Anacortes Food Co-Op Anacortes, WA

Little Red Hen Bakery Coupeville, WA

Bayleaf Wine, Cheese & Deli Coupeville, WA