"Say you're sitting on the sunny patio of a local restaurant during the height of tomato season. So, of course, you order a tomato salad. But what arrives is not so much a plate of tomatoes as ghostly impostors, soulless industrial tomatoes with less flavor than a napkin. You look across the street--a literal tomato's toss away--at a yard full of juicy Brandywines, Yellow Boys and Black Krims and you can't help but wonder, maybe out loud, why it's so damned hard for a restaurant to get local tomatoes in August.
Well, because it's hard to get local food into local restaurants. Despite the sometimes ridiculously short distances between great food and a restaurant's patio, it takes a surprising amount of time, money and passion to put the two together..."
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