So long, CSA

Last Thursday was the final week of my CSA. I had the good fortune to be in a year-round CSA run by the local university. With hoophouses and cold storage, they provided veggies for every single week of the year, except the short breaks between semesters.

Although I loved getting a new treasure trove of goodies, I could not keep up. The demands of a full-time job, maintaining a household, and cooking with oodles of fresh veggies each and every week just became too much for me. So, with much sadness, I've given up the CSA for now.

The CSA was both liberating and constricting. On the one hand, I was preparing more veggies than I had in my life. On the other hand, I was locked in to cooking with the veggies for the week. If I wanted leeks, and there were no leeks, tough cookies.
Also, anytime we takeout or went out to dinner, that meant losing a day's worth of veggie cooking time.

I'll be taking many lessons from my time in the CSA and applying them to my everyday cooking. I have a lot of veggie recipes now, and I know how to cook veggies-and how I like them prepared-in a way I didn't just two years ago.

I may still participate in a smaller, growing-season-only share from May to October of next year. And there's always the farmer's market. One just opened within walking distance of me, which I can now take full advantage of. And, I may plant my veggie garden for the winter so I can harvest some carrots, parsnips, and leeks in the spring.

So long, monster cloves of garlic. Bye-bye, basil. Sayonara, random bitter Asian greens (and, no offense, but good riddance).

You are gone, but not forgotten.

Last week of my farm share :(

Today was the last day for the weekly farm share, which I've been participating in since early Spring. For about $15 a week, I got between 5 and 15 items freshly and organically grown on a farm within 25 miles from me.

The farm share is also known as CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agricultrue. I like "farm share" better, because it needs less explaining. We are a family of two, so I got a half share.

The experience was pretty good. It definitely got my husband and I to eat more veggies, and I was able to use nearly all of the produce I recieved without it spoiling. There were a couple squash that I let sit too long, and some swiss chard, and that was pretty much it.

It was, at times, hard to tell if I was getting my money's worth from the CSA, especially with the early season being droughty and the late season being floody, the reverse of what is ideal for farming. But, overall, it was a great experience, and I'll probably do it again. It did mean that a lot of days, I had to cook even if I didn't want to, or else my produce would spoil.

I'm lucky that there are several CSA's in my area, and I think next year I'll try a different one to see if I like it any better. After I've shopped around a bit, then I'll pick the one I like best.

If you are wanting to get into the local food thing, and you enjoy cooking on a daily basis, I highly recommend CSA's as a good way to start. And the fresh garlic that I got was very, very nice.

Look for a longer post about local food sometime soon--meat and veggies.