Talking Sweet About Nothing

One thing that Katie and I have become more aware of this year is eating locally. For a while we've been concerned about what is in our food (pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc.) but we've recently become aware of where food is grown and how much it costs (the cost of travel and the loss of local, independent farmers) to get food to the grocery store.

One of my favorite things we've done is to join a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is basically a group of people who buy into a local farm, or in our case, a group of farms. We commit to a subscription fee and every week we get to go to the farm and pick up a supply of fruits, vegetables, and occasionally dairy products. All of it is grown locally without the use of chemical fertilizers. A lot of it is grown on this one particular farm, but they have also joined with other local farmers to add variety to our pick up.

The season began in May with asparagus, strawberries, and other early harvest vegetables and ended this week with squash, apples, pears, etc. We've had 26 weeks of local, organic produce filling our kitchen and it's awesome. It's basically a surprise each week when we go to the farm and an unexpected benefit is that it is forcing us to cook many things we may never have bought on our own. This year saw the first time that I have ever eaten beets, turnips, parsnips, and a few others that I can't remember.

Here's a picture of this week's pick-up:


From left to right: fresh milled bread, tomatoes, beets, brussels sprouts, broccoli, pears, red apples, green apples, Romanesco broccoli, carrots, turnips, and red cabbage. (the onions and butternut squash are left over from last week)

This is pretty typical of the amount of food we get each week, and we're pretty good about using it all just in time for the next weeks' pick-up. I'm going to miss it for the next few months. I'll miss going to the farm every Wednesday and I'll definitely miss the fresh produce. I'm very excited to be a part of this CSA, though. I'm proud to support local, independent farmers and I love eating healthy foods grown in a responsible, sustainable way. I can't wait for next spring.