Local Food!

We just came back from our very first ever CSA pickup.

Now, around here, local farmers are mostly North of here, in New York State, a couple of zones colder than we are. And it was a very cool May. We had a Meet the Farmer gathering two weeks ago, at which she warned us that they were planting late, as there'd been an unusually late frost, so things would be a bit slim, to begin with.

So - for our half share, we got a nice bunch of spinach, a good amount of lettuce (three varieties,) one green garlic stalk, some radishes, and two apples. The apples were a freebie - we did not join in a fruit share, but these were tossed into the vegetable share.

I know there will be more later... this is still early, around here. I have seen a few things, though, suggesting that we would have done better with a full share.

Most CSAs seem to define a share as enough for a family, frequently defined (for the estimate) as 2 adults and 2 children. This one was very vague about how many people one might feed, so I decided to err on the side of too little. A lot of the people seem to be single, though, and there seem to be many full shares of couples. We'll see what we get!

Meanwhile, we'll eat spinach tonight. I'll cook some of the garlic with our lentils, along with onion and a smoked turkey leg I'd gotten at Greenmarket. And I've already washed the lettuce, and it's hanging in a basket over the sink, drying. That, with the radishes and perhaps some of the spinach, will be the basis of my lunches this week, with enough for some dinner salads, too.

It's a start.