Second CSA week.
2 kinds of lettuce - larger heads, so much the same amount as last week.
Green garlic - more mature, and this has a scape. I've been reading about scapes, and can't wait to try cooking this.
Spinach and kale. Our half share gives us a choice, and we keep choosing the Not Cilantro, as I dislike it. One of these days I'll get some for Rich, and, I don't know, freeze some or something.
Some more radishes.
We've been having a heat wave, and our dinner was essentially a repeat of last night's. I'd gotten some chicken at Greenmarket the other day, cooked it overnight in the slow cooker to avoid heating the kitchen. We've been eating it in salads ever since. Chicken and (not local) feta cheese over a salad combination of lettuce, snap peas, and radish, with salad dressing I made (of non-local olive oil, vinegar, and Dijon mustard.) Potato salad on the side, and iced tea, both of which I'd also made yesterday. It was rather nice, after a long, hot, unairconditioned work day, to just assemble, rather than cook, our dinner.
The Greenmarket in our immediate neighborhood has now opened for the season. They have a nice variety of vendors, and are well timed if we run out of CSA produce. Right now, as well as the above, I have some bok choy I got last week, along with asparagus and snap peas (our CSA doesn't seem to really do the spring vegetables so much.) Strawberries, also.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Local Summer
I've been reading a lot of Local Food blogs and discussions, and have been thinking about this issue.
First of all - I have always been a supporter of local, fresh, seasonal food. I won't eat asparagus in November - that's just silly. That's time for broccoli and brussels sprouts. On the other hand, I eat frozen peas all year. Their season is so short, it is often hard to get good fresh ones even in season, and the frozen ones are good and work into so many dishes so well. (Rich calls them "The default vegetable.")
I have shopped at Greenmarket since it opened, even sometimes when I lived in New Jersey. I was also involved in the early stages of a farmer's market there. The food is wonderful. Five months of the year, though, there are almost no vegetables. Our farmers come mostly from New York State, and the first greens really just started coming in at the end of April. Also, they are not less expensive than the grocery stores, but frequently more so (for much better quality and freshness, of course.) I frequently see people in other parts of the country happily talk about saving money by buying from the farmers, but that just doesn't happen here, and our budget is a major consideration.
We are fortunate to have many things besides vegetables. Meat, dairy, even fresh fish (about a third of my locavore circle is water) are all available. I can even get some grains! We'll be eating local polenta tonight.
We also just joined a CSA. I'll see how that goes - it is less forthcoming than some with information and "customer service" stuff, but it's also the one within reasonable walking distance, and it has half shares (and even, I gather, a winter program.)
I have other considerations, though. The budget, as I mentioned, is an issue. For various reasons, I prefer that a substantial amount of our protein come from vegetable, rather than animal, sources, though we are by no means vegetarian. I have not seen any local sources of beans, though - I don' t think they are really the most sensible use of farm land in this area, and they do ship well and inexpensively. When I buy my lentils at the natural food market, I don't know where they come from, and it is not my main concern. And I can't eat much cow's milk - the soymilk I use is definitely not local! (Though when I can make my own soymilk, I think importing the beans from a family farm in the Midwest, but making it here, is quite reasonable.)
All this musing is to decide if I want to join One Local Summer. That is not all local, all the time, of course - the concept is that you prepare one meal a week from exclusively local food. (Oil and spices, I think, are the usual exceptions.) To me, it feels a little artificial - but, at the same time, an interesting challenge. If I do, I may make my locavore circle 150 miles. Too much of a 100 mile circle from here is either city/suburb or water. (I consider anyone at Greenmarket to be local - I'm not going to go plotting them on maps, and rejecting someone who travels to make this work!)
First of all - I have always been a supporter of local, fresh, seasonal food. I won't eat asparagus in November - that's just silly. That's time for broccoli and brussels sprouts. On the other hand, I eat frozen peas all year. Their season is so short, it is often hard to get good fresh ones even in season, and the frozen ones are good and work into so many dishes so well. (Rich calls them "The default vegetable.")
I have shopped at Greenmarket since it opened, even sometimes when I lived in New Jersey. I was also involved in the early stages of a farmer's market there. The food is wonderful. Five months of the year, though, there are almost no vegetables. Our farmers come mostly from New York State, and the first greens really just started coming in at the end of April. Also, they are not less expensive than the grocery stores, but frequently more so (for much better quality and freshness, of course.) I frequently see people in other parts of the country happily talk about saving money by buying from the farmers, but that just doesn't happen here, and our budget is a major consideration.
We are fortunate to have many things besides vegetables. Meat, dairy, even fresh fish (about a third of my locavore circle is water) are all available. I can even get some grains! We'll be eating local polenta tonight.
We also just joined a CSA. I'll see how that goes - it is less forthcoming than some with information and "customer service" stuff, but it's also the one within reasonable walking distance, and it has half shares (and even, I gather, a winter program.)
I have other considerations, though. The budget, as I mentioned, is an issue. For various reasons, I prefer that a substantial amount of our protein come from vegetable, rather than animal, sources, though we are by no means vegetarian. I have not seen any local sources of beans, though - I don' t think they are really the most sensible use of farm land in this area, and they do ship well and inexpensively. When I buy my lentils at the natural food market, I don't know where they come from, and it is not my main concern. And I can't eat much cow's milk - the soymilk I use is definitely not local! (Though when I can make my own soymilk, I think importing the beans from a family farm in the Midwest, but making it here, is quite reasonable.)
All this musing is to decide if I want to join One Local Summer. That is not all local, all the time, of course - the concept is that you prepare one meal a week from exclusively local food. (Oil and spices, I think, are the usual exceptions.) To me, it feels a little artificial - but, at the same time, an interesting challenge. If I do, I may make my locavore circle 150 miles. Too much of a 100 mile circle from here is either city/suburb or water. (I consider anyone at Greenmarket to be local - I'm not going to go plotting them on maps, and rejecting someone who travels to make this work!)
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