Last Thursday Jeff and I got our first box of vegetables from our organic CSA, Eatwell Farm (check out their farm news blog too). It's great so far, and I'm hoping this will work out well for us in the long run. You see, I don't like vegetables very much.
You might be forgiven for saying huh
at this juncture. If I don't like veggies, why is more of them a good thing? Well, the fact of the matter is that I like them okay; I just don't tend to buy them. I'll go to the grocery store and kind of hem and haw and end up buying some salad greens that we sometimes don't even finish before they wilt. In terms of variety of diet, this is not a good thing.
The way the CSA works is pretty simple. I pre-pay for a certain number of boxes. On about Tuesday they pick what's ripe that week, and on Thursday I pick up my box of veggies at a pickup location on my way home from work. The farmer gets a steady source of income, and I get very fresh veggies.
Also, my vegetables are pre-selected for me, which for me is a positive feature. There are a lot of vegetables that I'll actually eat if they're presented to me but that I wouldn't usually choose on my own. Also, I tend to spend a lot of mental energy on figuring out what I'm going to cook for the next week. The CSA limits my decision space to finding ways to use what's in my box, so the decision is much simpler.
The first thing to go from last Thursday's box was the strawberries, perfectly red, ripe, and luscious. The zucchini was steamed that night and tossed with chiocciole (funny sort of macaroni-ish pasta) and pesto. Three carrots and half the spinach went into minestrone last night; the rest of the spinach, the arugula, and all of the lettuce (which is just slightly bitter) will be salad. The garlic is hanging up for storage, and the parsley is in the freezer.
So far, the vegetables have been excellent. Jeff was impressed by the zucchini, so much more flavorful than ordinary store-bought squash (I grew up on my mother's garden zucchini, so I was not as blown away). I don't like bitter greens very much, but I have been enjoying snacking on the carrots. The carrots are a bit more flexible than I expected, which weirded me out a bit because I associate flexibility in carrots with old age, but these have been very flavorful, juicy, and much easier to chop than the rock-hard stuff. (And what do I know? I've never grown carrots.)
Speaking of carrots, I think I'll have one now.
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