Supporting
our Home Grown Artisans
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Jim Magay |
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An artisan (from Italian:
artigiano) is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools.
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As an adjective (spelled
"artisanal"), it has been used as a marketing buzz word to describe or imply an association with the crafting of hand made food products, such as bread, tofu, beverages and cheese.
(source: wikipedia)
This last weekend was an eye-opening artisanal kind of time for me. Home brewed bitters in my La Louisiana drink (a kind of Manhattan that was sooo good), a charcuterie board featuring artisanal sausages and pates from local farms and ditto for a cheese selection - all sourced within 50 miles of the Deep Ellum Café in Allston. Later, a plate of locally grown greens and deviled eggs at Central Kitchen in Cambridge continued the theme. Finally; the next day, local seafood at one of Boston’s 50 best restaurants – the Neptune in the North End, Wellfleet oysters and local lobster in the best lobster roll I can remember.
Everywhere I went this past weekend confirmed what I’ve been hearing for months now. Raising high quality food, and lovingly preparing it in local kitchens, while eschewing ingredients that need to be shipped 1,500 miles or more. Buy Local! Support the little guy, whether you are in support of Occupy Wall Street or any of its offshoots, or if you are more of a Tea Partier – you would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to not hear or see evidence that the Americanus Consumer is slowly starting to shift from the dubious proposition that it is always cheaper (therefore better) to buy from the big box retailers (and shifting from supporting banks and businesses that wish to outsource everything that could lead to an American job).
If 10% of the average family’s purchases were taken from Wal-Mart or Target, (or Lenscrafters or Pearle) and spent at local stores, a far healthier community would result. $1.00 spent locally circulates 7 times in the community compared to 3 or 4 times if spent at a corporate behemoth.
Of course what is even better is to search out locally produced products ourselves and offer them knowledgeably to our clients. Think Golden Gate Eyewear – their Kala line is made in the USA. Shuron and Art Craft are still being produced here; along with a few AO products. (I’m hoping you might add a few more frame sources to this list!)
Also, our lenses – and this is kind of delicate given how consolidated our industry is becoming, we can choose between local and locally owned labs rather than the ever-growing corporate chains that are overwhelming our industry – my feeling is – if we keep the “value-added” here rather than giving it to a corporation that sends our money to Europe or China, aren’t we just a bit better off as a country?
Kind of Artisanal, don’t you think?
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