Now that Hayden is really chowing down — three ounces per meal, and counting, at two meals a day — I've had to step up with the baby food production again. The only problem is that we're smack in the middle of winter now, and so aside from crateloads of apples, pears, and yet more apples and pears, there's just isn't any seasonal fruit available at the farmer's market. My stash is starting to dwindle.

To make the larder last longer, I've had to get pretty creative. This means making a lot of what Hayden's Dada calls "baby smoothies": An apple cube here, an apricot cube there, and 1/3 of an organic banana makes one meal. One peach cube with three ounces of soy yogurt — better known as baby crack in our household — makes another. Two pear cubes plus two tablespoons of quinoa, oats, and/or flaxseed meal makes yet another. My life, these days, feels like an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

I had my heart set on feeding Hayden locally-produced, seasonal produce for a few reasons. Local is sustainable, and when something's in season, you can get perfectly ripe fruit that's literally just been harvested. That means more flavor and more nutrients. Imported fruit has been picked before it's ripe so it can survive the trip to your supermarket and however long it languishes there. The longer it sits around, both in the market and in your fridge, the less it has to offer. So while organic's great, local and seasonal is even better.

For better or worse, I've had to face the fact that Hayden will just have to eat some out-of-season fruit this winter. Seven dollars for two organic mangoes netted me just 9 one-ounce cubes, and six bucks brought me two rotten avocadoes and zero meals. Reconstituting organic dried fruit (cherries, apricots, blueberries) might just be the better way to go, since it's less expensive and more reliable. But I'm starting to count the weeks until Hayden's ready for finger foods. Tofu never looked so exciting.

Resources

• Is Organic Food Always Better?
  
• Sustaining the Future
• Chefs Collaborative