Bright Orange Carrots and Lettuce Like Lagniappe...These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Well, it's been a looong time since I've posted. I know that's breaking rule number one in blogland - mea culpa. I've been scatterbrained lately, for want of a better word. But I recently received a compliment on my back-burnered blog, and that got me in the mood again. Besides, today it's 70 degrees outside and feels like spring. And with spring comes thoughts of...joining the CSA again. And I had to tell you about what a positive experience this was...and will be again this year.

Last year, for the first time, I joined an organic farm offering a Community-Supported Agriculture program, and it was everything I had heard it was. CSAs are farms that ask you to share the cost of their business, in exchange for a share of the crops. You, in effect, own a piece of the land and the crops grown on it.

I'm fortunate that I work at an organization big enough so that it's profitable for the farm to offer a drop-off site there, and close enough to it to make this possible. I split a share with a co-worker, and for about $215, I had fresh produce (and sometimes a fruit or two) from Memorial Day till Thanksgiving. If you do the math, that's less than $10 a day. And the half-share was more than enough to supply me with a week's worth of good healthy greens.

The food was fresh (we received it the day after it had been picked), often lasted for two to three weeks, and the variety was unpredictable: they grow according to the time of year, and pick according to what is ripe that week. The CSA is not for incessant planners who know every meal two weeks in advance. It's a freewheeling adventure in getting to know the local harvest, and I encountered two or three vegetables that I had never heard of, let alone eaten, before. (I joined with a friend who is a gourmet cook, a real "foodie", and even she was surprised.) The CSA provided recipes on its website, so we were never at a loss for what to do with our "exotic" veggies.

Why buy from a CSA when you can go to your local market and buy organic and close-to-fresh? I gave you some good reasons already, but stay tuned for more in the days ahead...