There are very few people who truly appreciate what I mean when I tell them I am from the Garden State.

Just now, writing that, I am suddenly feeling very nostalgic for my graphic tee from dELiA*s that bore a cute illustration and caption: "the Garden State: it grows on you!" (have just now returned from an internet rabbit hole of teen fashion research because apparently dELiA*s met an early demise but they have since made a comeback—although they certainly seemed alive and well when I shopped there as a teenager in the twenty-aughts!)

All this to say, I get as many blank stares when I say I grew up amongst forests and farmlands as I dole out when someone replies to my introductory pleasantries with a "New Joy-sey" (for the record: I do not know one! single! soul! who pronounces it such and is actually from the state; the people who say this are always New Yorkers/from Staten Island!!!).

Shocking, I know (particularly when witticisms like this abound in popular culture. Those jokes only apply to Newark)—but I grew up in a truly beautiful part of the state: south Jersey with its greenery and glorious produce. A couple summers ago (2017, to be precise), I was home for a visit to my parents and extended family, and I realized that I had a deep longing to capture the New Jersey I know and love in photographs. During my visit, my mom obliged me with many roadside stops (or in some cases,  simply slow-downs) so I could try and capture these familiar scenes of my upbringing.

Even these photos and this small photo essay do not truly do my homeland justice. To be perfectly honest, my dream is to spend a month in June or July back home, with nothing else to do but drive back roads (which are all of them) and stop at every tiny roadside farm stand, documenting this singular wonderful tradition. The notion of a proper 'farmers market' (booths and stalls and crowds and the like) was unknownst to me until I encountered them in Union Square in NYC and likewise in other big cities; where I grew up, you just stopped at the farm on your way home from wherever you had been coming or going. My family has our tried-and-true favorites (Mood's, Schober's, Grasso Girls), mostly out of convenience of the routes we frequented, but many more whose names and locations I could not possibly recall, because of their glorious plentitude.

Although I've spent nearly all my adulthood in Utah (college + post-college), I will always be a Jersey girl at heart—it is where I was raised and home of the worldview that shaped so much of who I am. A favorite story to illustrate this point: when I planned a week-long camping trip in the Canadian Rockies, I had planned out our menu in advance to simplify our grocery stop for produce before entering the park (having brought the dry goods with us). At a Walmart in Edmonton, Alberta, I asked my friend Laura how many ears of corn she wanted. She gave me a strange look and replied, "one." A few days later, I started a pot of water to boil over our campfire and we shucked the corn cobs. Because I had planned and orchestrated all of this, Laura and our fellow camper and friend Angie looked to me for direction on what other prep they could help with. I explained that the prep was done, as I dropped our four-total ears of corn into the pot to cook. Laura's exclamation and dawning realization still make me laugh to this day: "When you asked me how many ears of corn I wanted, I didn't know that corn was THE ENTREE!" I kid you not that it had honestly never occurred to me that corn wouldn't be the entrée, comprising most of a classic summer meal. When I told my parents this story, we all had a good laugh, and I expressed that my gastronomic-homesickness for Jersey sweet corn will likely never ever dissipate. I usually find all other corn to be insipid, grainy, and altogether disappointing in comparison to the corn of my childhood. It may simply be that I find the produce of my home state altogether superior in every way. I am probably not wrong—we are named for it, after all.

Anecdotes aside, I hope this post makes you smile and gives you a small glimpse into the landscapes and foods that feel like home to me.

fun fact: Hammonton blueberries (of HAMMONTON, NEW JERSEY—BLUEBERRY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD and home to the annual blueberry fest) will always be my favorite blueberries. Some of our dear family friends lived in Hammonton when I was growing up and I was always jealous of/loved their blueberry shirts, with the Top Crop top-hatted-cane-wielding blueberry mascot. 

Every summer, my dad would buy several flats of blueberries, which we'd rinse and then store in our basement chest freezer. All winter long, we'd have fresh-frozen blueberries for our Honey Bunches of Oats with almonds (or other cereal of choice). <3 Dare I say, fresh frozen blueberries are far superior to their freezer-aisle counterparts.

"NO NASTY PEOPLE"—this is so dead-on South Jersey and I love it.

LOPES. need I say more.