House of Swank: Behold the Bounty

Sweetie and I officially belong to a CSA now, and have reaped our first spoils from the farm. This is something I've contemplated doing for a while now, but a CSA share isn't practical for a single girl. Or an engaged girl in the midst of planning a wedding, so it had to wait until I was a married girl to go after seriously. Joe's post about his experience helped kick me in the butt to find one.

But finding one was a bit more difficult that in seemed. My requirements were:

Convenient location. As in, I don't want to waste a 1/2 a tank of gas to get the goods each week, as then the environmental benefits seem to disappear pretty darn quickly. Ours is on a way I will sometimes take home from work anyhow, so fits that requirement.
Appropriate produce. As in, they must be able to work around Sweetie's food allergies. No eggs, honey or sage. Willing to work with us on the whole tomato thing and other issues that may arise. Ours does not offer any of the forbidden products, and when it comes to others they have said that I can ask if we can make a substitution on an as-needed basis. Depending on the harvest that week and what the item is they'll try to work with us.
An actual CSA. A lot of local places use "CSA" as a marketing term to try to get folks to buy their produce. Some are wholesale or retail farms looking for a new, consistent income stream for their goods. Others take their goods and supplement them with items from other farms. Which I MIGHT be OK with if it was a local co-op type thing, but frequently these supplements are from out of state. Ours is a real-live CSA, and as of when I left the farm this afternoon there were 9 shares left for the season.

I stumbled across our farm on the way home one day, and we made the decision to join the end of June. Right as we were getting ready to be out of the house for the better part of a month. So we held off joining until now.

I'm already excited about this weeks bounty. We've got:

One head of magenta lettuce
One head of butter lettuce
One bunch of carrots
Three beets, with greens
One LARGE bag of yellow wax beans
Two onions
One small zucchini
Two small yellow squash.
One small bag of tomatoes

My goal is to go through all of the produce every week, either through actually eating it, or making something with it that can go into the freezer and be used during the winter. I think I'm going to cook the tomatoes down into a marinara, and if Sweetie can't tolerate it I'll use it to make lunches for work. I've never had wax beans before, and haven't cooked much with squash, so am excited about what I might do with those.

As much as I want to use the onions, I also just want to leave them out on the counter as a reminder of why I'm doing all this. Even at the local organic stores the onions are all pretty and round looking. Maybe not as perfectly spherical as at the regular supermarket, but definitely "round." The ones from the farm are oblong. Not picked for their pretty shape that will look good on the shelf, but I'm sure they'll be mighty tasty.

In addition to the items you get in your share each week members also have access to u-pick flowers, herbs and greens. In the green front there's rainbow chard available now, and it sounds like the fall greens will be plentiful and spectacular. The herb garden includes chives, dill, cilantro, parsley, and other standards. But they are known for their basil. And when you walk back to where the basil plants are you can smell it. In addition to your run-of-the-mill basil they have small plots of lemon basil, Thai basil and cinnamon basil. Normally pesto doesn't do much for me, but I'm thinking cinnamon pesto or lemon pesto could be really yummy indeed. Those beds will be put to rest soon, so I think I'm going to have to go picking there next week.

Our normal day for pick-up will be Wednesday. Since we're already halfway through the week, and Sweetie is out of town until Monday I figured I shouldn't bring home any more than our regular share this week. As it is, it may be a challenge to go through it all this week. A challenge I think I'm up to.

Comments

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Tim and I are thinking of joining a CSA-type program for produce. I'll be interested to see what you think as you get more boxes!

Posted by: Abigail | 19 August 2006 at 06:20 PM

CSAs rock! This is our third year and we adore it. There are a few weeks where there's just way too much stuff, but the farm folks are doing a great job of surveying us and adjusting what they plant to match up with what we want/can eat in one week.

There are some weeks, especially early on in the season, where we get a *LOT* of lettuce and leafy stuff that is hard to finish before it wilts, but once we get ast that, it's delightful!

Posted by: Greg | 20 August 2006 at 01:55 AM