When customers stop in for a gourmet meal at Palmer’s Restaurant in La Conner, they’re likely to be taking in more than just the flavor of their meal.

The spinach in the salad or the basil used to flavor the stew is likely from Hedlin Family Farms just a few miles away, the raspberries in the dessert from Swanson Family Farms just outside of La Conner.

Why order food that has to be trucked hundreds or even thousands of miles across the country when you’ve got it practically sitting fresh in your backyard, mused Thomas Palmer, co-owner of Palmer’s Restaurant on La Conner’s waterfront.

Besides, customers these days are demanding to know where the ingredients in their meals come from, Palmer said.

And, well, food that hasn’t been sitting in a refrigerated truck for three or four days while being driven across country just tastes so much better, he said.

“I think diners are much more informed today,” Palmer said. “They want to know what they’re eating, and that it’s not just grocery store food.”

Palmer’s Restaurant is one of an increasing number of businesses reaping the benefits of the Slow Food and eat-local movements gaining traction across the country.

To show support for locally produced food, Palmer’s is one of the businesses that will participate in the Skagit Valley Eat Local Week on Sept. 14-20 at locations across the county.

Sponsored by Slow Food Skagit and Skagit Valley Food Co-op, the event is a great way to educate people about the diversity of products that can be bought and eaten locally, said Terry Burkhardt, leader of the local Slow Food “convivium” or chapter.

It’s a concept that’s been going on with Slow Food chapters in New England for years, Burkhardt said.

With the Eat Local Week event, “our idea was not necessarily to increase anybody’s business, but to get people talking about the concept of eating locally,” Burkhardt said.

All week, restaurants, taverns, some grocery stores, farmers markets, coffee shops and businesses plan to highlight local products on their menus and signs in their stores.

The event will culminate in community potlucks from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20, at locations in Anacortes, Conway, Edison, La Conner and Mount Vernon. Organizers are encouraging people to meet the local food producers and farmers and bring a dish to share made from local ingredients.

Riding Slow Food wave

Organizers say they’re riding the recent tide that has put the spotlight on local food sources. Even first lady Michelle Obama has managed to cultivate an organic vegetable garden on the White House grounds.

Why so much interest in growing your own, cooking from scratch and buying from the farmer down the road?

The recent string of food contamination in tomatoes, peanuts, spinach and beef that sickened thousands and killed hundreds across the U.S. has people worried that what they buy at the supermarket might not be safe, said Lucy Norris, regional food developer for the Puget Sound Food Network and a co-leader of Slow Food Seattle.

The Puget Sound Food Network was created by the Northwest Agriculture Business Center to deliver safe, fresh and nutritious foods across the region and help increase the production, distribution and consumption of locally grown food.

And an increasing number of people are concerned about the environmental impact of big agriculture and a food distribution system that relies on trucking and the burning of millions of gallons of fossil fuels a year, Norris said.

Buying and eating food from the farmer down the road also bolsters the local economy, providing valuable jobs, tax revenue and better community health, advocates say.

“It only makes sense,” said Karin Springer, owner of the Trumpeter Public House in downtown Mount Vernon, another participant in the Eat Local Week. “We need to support our customers who support us, and we need to support our economy here and not somewhere in South America — that’s crazy.”

Springer said she tries to buy as much local produce and food ingredients for her restaurant’s menu as she can. It’s not always more expensive, as some people think.

Sue Cole, spokesperson for The Market at Anacortes, said selling local products is a great way to keep money in the community.

For Eat Local Week, Cole said The Market plans to make sure local products are clearly highlighted as such and will come up with a grocery list of local products that the store sells.

“We’ve been doing this all along because our customers like to know where their food is from,” she said.

As a regional grocery chain, The Market has been able to buy more local than large national chains that must buy much larger volumes of food to sell.

“It’s a little more work, but part of our philosophy is that as a supermarket, we love food, everybody can enjoy food that’s very flavorful,” Cole said. “It’s a partnership (with farmers) that we place a lot of value on.”

Skagit a natural

In Skagit County, promoting local food is a natural, Slow Food advocates say. After all, Skagit Valley has a long agricultural heritage that continues today. A variety of crops — more than 80 of commercial significance — are grown, including berries, spinach, cabbage, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, pumpkins, squash and onion.

So, it’s not a surprise to anyone that the local chapter of the international Slow Food movement has flourished since it was officially founded in 2005. The convivium boasts about 60 members and includes 500 people on its opt-in e-mail list.

Many people don’t know much about the Slow Food movement, Burkhardt said.

Slow Food is aimed at supporting sustainable agriculture, local food production, healthy heritage foods and the enjoyment of eating — yes, that means at a table and not grabbed through a drive-thru window.

The international organization began in 1989 in Italy after locals balked at the building of a McDonald’s on the Spanish Steps in Rome.

During the past 20 years, Slow Food chapters, or “conviviums,” have become important players in food policy and supporters of local food producers. They often combine forces with local environmental, conservation and farming groups.

In Skagit County, Slow Food supporters teamed up with the Northwest Agriculture Business Center and local health leaders to include fresh, locally grown food in several local school districts’ lunch menus.

The La Conner School District has been buying produce from local farmers for five years, said Georgia Johnson, food services manager and culinary arts teacher at La Conner High School.

Luckily, the district is small enough to have overcome most food distribution challenges that might keep larger urban districts from buying local, she said.

“We quite often go out and pick up the produce (from the farmers),” Johnson said.

The district makes an effort to ensure that the potatoes it buys all come from Skagit farms, she added.

Still, the amount of local produce the district purchases makes up less than an estimated 10 percent of the food served, Johnson said. But that amount is expected to increase, which is a boon for local farmers.

A boon for farmers

Farmers also are riding the wave of the Slow Food movement, benefiting from the awareness it raises of locally grown food.

During the past decade, many local farmers have found ways to market directly to customers, said Dave Hedlin, owner of Hedlin Family Farms, by building their own fruit and vegetable stands on their farms; packaging, shipping and distributing their food themselves; bringing produce to farmers markets; and creating Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) arrangements.

“It’s been a gradual thing, a gradual resurgence, and we’ve been gradually expanding our fresh market and fruit and veggie presence locally over the past 20 years,” Hedlin said.

He added with a laugh, “We had a slogan at the stand last year: ‘Hedlin Farm veggies all in a row; grown while you watch by people you know.’”

Hedlin farms 400 acres, of which 200 or so is certified organic. About 35 to 40 acres of that is devoted exclusively to growing vegetables for farmers markets and his vegetable stand. His farm sells produce to 12 restaurants, most of them local, and provides food for close to 200 CSA members.

Selling directly to customers means less money to pay a middle-man and more profits in the farmers’ pockets, said Allen Rozema, executive director of Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland.

“Anecdotally, you see more farmers getting into selling directly,” Rozema said, noting that local farmers are putting more money than ever into their own fruit and vegetable stands, and taking their products to farmers markets.

That’s especially true for the crop of younger farmers with smaller farms just starting out, Rozema said. They don’t have the size or capacity to sell to grocery stores or big restaurants. But they can make some money at the local farmers market.

And if farmers can make a living, they can continue to farm and what’s left of Skagit County’s precious farmland will likely remain agricultural, Rozema said.

“Really, it supports farmland and its preservation,” Rozema said.

Beverly Crichfield can be reached at 360-416-2135 or .