Food

One of the frustrations of living in Wichita Falls is finding food. Not to say there isn't food--there are plenty of grocery stores, and we probably have one of the highest number of restaurants per capita anywhere (I don't have the numbers to prove that assertion, but I think it's true.) My issue is a lack of variety, a lack of organics, a lack of locally grown food and a lack of specialty products.

We can use restaurants as an example. As much as I like mexican, BBQ, chicken fried steak and hamburgers, it sure would be nice to have some additional options. Unfortunately, the few restaurants that have started up with different foods haven't been extremely successful. Vegetarian entrees on a menu are few and far between. A good vegetarian restaurant would be a great addition (or just a restaurant that had a good selection of vegetarian foods.) A restaurant featuring locally grown, organic food would be fantastic. However, there are very few organic growers in this area (actually, I'm not aware of any within 100 miles) so that would be difficult to do.

I was reading the September issue of Entrepreneur magazine and noted a neat biz, Foodzie.com, supporting small artisan food producers. Unfortunately, I didn't find any local businesses featured on the website--the closest seem to be in the DFW area and that is only one business. But I like the concept.

I have driven by the International Grocery at Southwest Parkway and Fairway many times and several friends have recommended it for hard-to-find items. I need to go there to check it out as if there are not places to eat out, there is still the option to cook--it's just finding the ingredients.

We'll talk more about cooking later.