Big Onion®

I went shopping for dinner-makings, my motorcycle helmet upturned in my arm, acting as my grocery basket. Grown-upping so hard.

This is a grown-up post for grown-up people who stress out and ask themselves or their partners daily, "What should we have for dinner?" Grown-ups say this at least once a day. Today I didn't say it; I thought it in the most grown-up way. And then I decided, all by my grown-up self: Today is Burrito Day. Homemade burritos, not from a kit.

Off to the store I went, and traipsed ever so gallantly into the produce aisle.

Jalapeños? Grown in Mexico, check! Tomatoes? Grown in Alberta! Ground beef? Also Alberta! Black beans, corn, guacamole, spinach (don't ask), cheese, tortillas, all from Canada. Woot!

Everything I needed with one exception: the onions. Every onion on the shelf that day was grown in the USA.

Now, before you stop reading and put your face in your palm, this isn't an anti-American post. This is a pro-Canadian post. It is also a confused one. Why can't I find a Canadian onion in Canada? Weird, right?

I assumed the answer was seasonal. Short growing season, nothing to be done, eat your Idaho onion and be quiet. It isn't that. Ontario and Quebec grow onions by the truckload, harvest runs August through October, and a properly stored onion keeps for something like ten months. It is, as I write this, the last week of August. The Canadian crop is coming in right now.

So it isn't the weather. It's a decision. Somebody's spreadsheet, some contract signed months ago, some volume price that penciled out better south of the border. I'm sure it isn't BIG ONION®. I'm equally sure I don't get a vote in it.

There's a Safeway across the street, so I thought I would try my luck there. Every single Safeway onion was American too. Undaunted, I started looking at the bags of onions, because, I mean, who doesn't need a dozen onions? And I found a bag of organic Canadian onions. From Alberta, even. From a cool farm called Keho Lake Farms. Nice.

My dinner is now 98% Canadian and 2% Mexican, and I am choosing not to think too hard about where the avocados in the guacamole came from.

On my way to the till I nearly walked into a huge display of B.C. blueberries. No, they will not end up in tonight's burrito, but I did snag two large containers for my Canadian cereal and Canadian soy milk. Very grown-up of me.

Which brings me back to that vote I don't get. More and more, I realize I need to step up the pace on getting my acreage on Vancouver Island. Forty feet is a supply chain I can audit myself.