I trace my love of farm fresh ingredients straight back to my great grandmother’s market basket, the one she carried to the Central Market in Lancaster, PA, each week, filling it to the brim with greens, fruits, and farm fresh eggs. When my family moved to Iowa, Nanny’s cherished basket came with us. My parents discovered a love of organic gardening, and I fondly remember spending many hours with them weeding and tending the plants. Even as a picky eater, I savored the fresh beans, corn, and lettuces picked straight from our garden. Nothing tastes better than veggies grown with fresh air and sunshine and cool summer rains. Nanny’s basket became a carryall, tied to my bicycle handlebars so my sister and I could peddle our extra bounty to friends in our neighborhood.

Fast forward to today, and Nanny's basket has been holding cooking magazines and favorite cookbooks in our Concord home. For many years, I’ve been working in advocacy and public health and became deeply involved in the movement to reduce childhood obesity, improving access to healthy food, and promoting community design to encourage walking and biking. While these issues remain important to me, I was ready to give up the extreme travel schedule and make a change. As I looked over at Nanny's basket full of cookbooks, I was reminded of what I truly love Her basket brought me back to my roots – the roots of the veggies that basket so often carried – and Local Baskit began to take shape! It was important to give our state's fabulous farms and food artisans an avenue to tap into the meal kit concept and to give NH residents a more local and eco-friendly way to savor the convenience and great tastes of a New Hampshire made meal kit. In creating Local Baskit, I am finding that same happiness I felt being in the garden outside with my Dad and that I feel every day when we gather as a family around our dinner table.

Beth lives in Concord with her husband Jim, and two teen boys, three cats, and the never-ending desire to add a dog to the family.

My journey to Local Baskit started in my childhood in rural Southeastern Ohio, where I spent humid summer days following my mother around our red clay garden, sampling green beans right off the plants and rubbing crushed tomato leaves onto bee stings. In the '70s my parents were back-to-the-land types, reading the Foxfire books, putting food by, catching sunfish in the farm pond and raising flowers and vegetable to be sold at our local farmers market. I found my mother's discarded Kodak Instamatic in the kitchen cabinet, behind an old cigar box full of postage stamps and pens and soon discovered a love of photography. This camera produced delicious square, slightly yellowed photographs of my brother and me as children, and it required 126 film, which came wrapped in little yellow foil packages that I loved tearing open. Instamatic in hand, I explored our 28 acres in Southeastern Ohio, snapping photos of rocks and trees, flowers in the garden, and many, many pets. When I clicked the shutter and wound the film forward, I knew something magical was happening. This is the feeling I seek every time I use my camera, even after all these years.

Over the years I’ve deepened my love of photography, food, cooking, and creativity, elements of my life that bring me back to my childhood home. Following a meandering career path of journalism, government, and non-profit work, I created my photography business in 2010 in Asheville, NC, my adopted home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. I photograph a wide variety of subjects for many types of clients, but my passion for food photography has been an ever-present undercurrent. As Creative Director of Local Baskit, I have the chance to join together my love of food, local ingredients, cooking, farm-to-table eating, and photography.

Carrie Turner lives in Asheville, NC with her husband, Brian, and their children Isadora and Oscar. View more of her work at www.carrieturnerphotography.com.