I had mentioned to a few of you that I was planning on going to Port Townsend this weekend to check out their stores. Well, I’ve had to push that back a bit to Saturday, Jan 26 as my next available weekend day to goof off and hit the road. I’m looking at this as a way of educating myself, as I am pretty unfamiliar with the local co-ops. If anyone else wanted to come along, it would sure be a nice way to explore them together, and give us some common ground to begin talking about OUR co-op, how we think it might be similar or different to the ones locally.

I’m thinking of meeting up around 10:00 or so, and trying to reach PT by noon so we could lunch at the co-op there. What do you say? Email me if you are interested: info@kitsapfoodcoop.org.

Also, I just found out about three brand new co-ops that are working hard to start up -- there’s new ones in Yelm and Eatonville, and even one in Tacoma that is fairly far along in the planning process. I spoke to a very nice woman (when I was buying Michael Pollan tickets, coincidentally) named Sarah who is willing to put us in touch with her group. Hopefully, we can get them to come talk to us and share the bumps along the road they’ve encountered so far. They also face the opening of a Whole Foods right around the time they are scheduled to open their doors. Yikes! But they are confident they’ll find their market in Tacoma. Hopefully many people down there have read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” and know the truth about the “industrial organic” food that Whole Foods and other large health food stores are forced to sell.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you MUST read “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” (Have I mentioned that enough times yet?)