We heard from Neale a couple of weeks ago about various ways to eat as locally as possible. I wanted to take some time to tell you about the main way that I have chosen to do my part for the locavore movement. This past spring I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) through a local farmer. If you will remember Neale’s description of a CSA, I subscribe directly to a farmer for a box of produce every week. Because this is a large initial investment, my husband and I share our box with another couple. We subscribe through Angelic Organics, and they have done everything possible to make sure that we enjoy our weekly produce. At the beginning of the season we received a cookbook that is specific to the farm and the produce they grow and every week we receive emails that let us know what will be in our box including even more possible recipes to use.
The farm that I subscribe to has different types of subscriptions, including the option to include fruit or choose a shorter length of time to be subscribed. I signed up for a 20-week share of vegetables and recently added a 4-week winter subscription. Our box is 3/4 of a bushel, it is delivered to a pick-up site about a half mile away (I can walk or ride my bike there), and started in mid June and has 1 week of the regular season left (before the Winter share starts). I think it has been well worth the investment. At times I get a little overwhelmed by how many veggies I need to eat in a week, but I have tried many different vegetables I’d never had and probably never would have bought on my own. I also am finally eating the recommended daily amount of vegetables and have even managed to lose some weight (and keep it off) with this change of diet.
You may think we haven’t been getting any good veggies since it’s been pretty cold recently. Maybe you think that only during midsummer, when tomatoes, peppers, and corn are coming in, that a produce subscription would be worth it. I want to talk about the veggies I got this week in my box, because they are all tasty, beautiful, and out of the ordinary.
This is a selection from our box this week, and because I couldn’t fit everything on the table, I decided to show at least one of each item. Because you may not recognize everything in the picture, I’ll briefly go through each veggie.
Carrots, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, and onions are all fairly common vegetables; we have been getting a couple of pounds or bunches of each the last few weeks. I am fairly familiar with almost everything else that is here, but celeriac and its greens and rutabaga were new to me. I learned from the accompanying newsletter that celery root greens have hollow stems and could therefore be used like straws. I immediately made myself a Bloody Mary with a celery root straw and it added great celery flavor! Rutabaga, like many other root vegetables, are great roasted or mashed like potatoes. Butternut squash, sweet dumpling squash, and acorn squash are great roasted or cooked and tossed with pasta. I love the fact that this late in the year we are still getting fresh salad greens as well as spinach and chard: the latter two can be eaten raw as well as cooked.
I hope this gives you a good idea of what a typical late fall produce box looks like, look into finding a CSA that would fit your needs and budget. Here are a couple of places to start looking for a CSA for you:
thelocalbeet.com (Chicago area)
localharvest.org
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