Tag Archives: CSA

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 9): MYOB encore

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This week’s return to the Make-Your-Own-Box (MYOB) plan is brought to you by the letters “O” for “Oops” and “E” for “Enh”. The “Oops” relates to my having remembered on Thursday morning that we didn’t place an order by Wednesday night. D’oh! The “Enh” relates to what I saw when I looked at the list of items included in this week’s box. Sure ’nuff, there were some great things, like 8 ears of sweet corn, but they were also throwing in a bunch of hot peppers – and the kids aren’t yet up on the same amount of spice that we like.

I don’t see this as the worst thing in the world; there’s a certain satisfaction to be had from bringing the kids into the farmstand and letting them help decide what will go into the cart. The more excited they are to eat, and the more invested they are in the food decisions, the likelier they are to want to eat the food…or so the theory goes.

To keep things simple, I pointed out the items that were clearly marked as being from the farm; that was the bulk of what they had to offer right now, anyway (apart from any citrus, which is always coming from out of state). This week’s haul:

Adventures in CSA Year 2 Week 9 MYOB

Lush color = luscious food

Year 2 – Summer Week 9 (Make Your Own)
Weight
(lb)		 Farmstand Unit Price
(per lb)		 Farmstand Total Item Cost
Corn 6.00 $0.58 $3.50
Wax Beans (large) 0.69 $2.49 $1.72
Green Pepper 0.72 $1.99 $1.43
Raspberries (half-pint) 1.00 $4.50 $4.50
Currants (half-pint) 1.00 $2.59 $2.59
Cherry Tomatoes (pint) 1.00 $3.50 $3.50
Grapes (quart) 1.00 $5.99 $5.99
Farmstand Total Cost $23.23

Now, you’ll probably notice that I WENT OVER THE LIMIT OF $22.00! (cue forbidding music and potential influx of ninja warriors to cut up my debit card with a sword) Here’s the issue, and I’ll leave it at this set of excuses:

  1. For whatever reason, Friday afternoon was THE time to be at the farmstand and it was packed with people. Thus, it was hard to get things sorted out easily with two small kids while trying NOT to be in the way.
  2. The farmstand, God love ’em, doesn’t appear to have a scale that’s accessible to shoppers, so it’s hard to tell how much you’ve purchased. I tried to keep a running tally on my iPhone, but I didn’t have a way to measure the weight of the items that were priced by the pound. Of course, it also didn’t hep that the kids were aiming for the more expensive items, like the grapes, but if the biggest problem that I have is that my kids like to eat fresh fruit and vegetables, I’d say there are probably plenty of people who’d like to have that kind of “problem” themselves.
  3. I was in a hurry. We still needed to hit up the fishmonger (who sets up outside the farmstand every Friday afternoon) to get some scallops before we headed home and started getting the corn on.

So, we have an overage. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! But it’ll all work out in the end. Why? Because it’s only $1.23, and it’s worth it when you taste the difference. I know it’s impossible to express this properly over a web page, but if you can get fresh stuff straight from the source, boy, is there a world of difference. I will note that the raspberries are the only one item that did NOT originate at this particular farm. However, they came from another farm elsewhere in Massachusetts, so I consider that local enough for my purposes.

Now, the only tricky item in this list is the one I never cooked with before: the currants. I haven’t dug through all of my cookbooks yet to see what the options are (aside from “heating and making into a sauce for meat”), so I’m curious as to what these currants will turn into. And I’m really hoping they turn into something tasty before they end up being “that thing I really wanted to try and never got to before it went bad.” Any suggestions for currants, folks??

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 8): Weekend challenge well met!

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So, as I noted when I listed off what was in this week’s box, I really wanted to see how much of the fruit and veg we could go through in a single weekend. I can’t say we polished off the entire box, but we certainly made a running start at it.

For one thing, the corn, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber made for an excellent set of additions to the pasta salad recipe I’ll post later this week. Second, the peppers went in a flash at the party (and leftovers were quickly gobbled up by the kids at dinner last night). Third, we got to the Melon Sunday (we had so much food out at the party on Saturday that more fruit would’ve been overkill), and it was very tasty and completely too much for us to kick all on our own in a single day. The blueberries are still in the fridge, as well, due to the fact that the grapes (not part of the CSA box) made the bigger impression on everyone. The grapes from our farm are tiny green grapes (sometimes trending towards a slight red), and they have thicker than usual skins encompassing a squishy fleshy orb. They have a tart flavor that I’ve never encountered in other grapes, and ds was eating them by the handful this morning (as was I).

Everything that we put out on the table that derived from our farm, including their pickled garlic and pickled asparagus (also not part of the CSA box), got rave reviews. It was a nice thing to be able to point to more than half the table and say, “That’s local” (even the tzadziki my sister brought was made with tomatoes and cucumbers from her garden, along with locally-produced yogurt). Of course, I’m still not ready to go full-on locavore (I just don’t have the energy to make it my life’s passion), but I love that we’re able to find a balance point between the reality of our busy lives and the hope that we can eat from a more environmentally-palatable, locally-sustaining supply chain.

So, looking at this week’s tally, it’s fantastic to see that the veggie box not only yielded lots of compliments but also yielded a savings. Fantastic!

 

Year 2 – Summer Week 8
Weight
(lb)		 Grocery Store Unit Price
(per lb)		 Grocery Store Total Item Cost
Purple Pepper 0.29 $3.49 $1.01
Sweet Green Pepper 0.21 $3.99 $0.84
Purple Potatoes 1.69 $1.49 $2.51
Blueberries (1/2 pint) 1.00 $2.50 $2.50
Cucumbers (each) 2.00 $0.99 $1.98
Cherry Tomatoes (pint) 1.00 $3.99 $3.99
Melon 5.13 $0.99 $5.08
Field Tomatoes 1.09 $2.99 $3.25
Corn (ears) 6.00 $0.60 $3.60
Grocery Store Total Cost $24.76
Year 2 Summer Week 8 Savings (Deficit) $2.76

The melon clearly had a hand in keeping us in the black this week; that sucker weighed over 5lbs, and it’s really yummy stuff. Also, rather randomly, the price of corn is increasing. Since this is LOCALLY produced corn that they offer at our grocery store (although not as local as what we get at the farmstand, which is grown AT that farm), the drought sweeping the nation shouldn’t be affecting the prices that much, eh? Given that it jumped 20%, I’m glad to see that corn is still relatively cheap. A jump of 20% on more expensive items, like peppers, would probably start to hurt. And I remember seeing seasonality and odd price swings last year, especially in things like beets, so I’m curious to see whether the corn price stays up from this point forward.

So far, overall, I’m up nearly $2.50 for the season. Of course, that’s small change…but when you factor in the lack of truck fuel and exhaust to bring the fruits and veggies to the store (since I’m buying instead from the farm where the stuff is grown), the overall financial impact is greater. Additionally, the more my farm sells, the more likely they are to stay in business, and there should be some measure of property tax coming from them back to my town. The grocery store where I tend to do my regular grocery shopping is one town over, so my town gets NO financial benefit from them if I give them more business.

It all adds up…it’s just a matter of how you want to look at it. And, to be frank, the quality of what I get from the farm so vastly outweighs what I get at the grocery store, it’s not even funny. The cherry tomatoes are the perfect example, where what I get at the grocery store is practically cardboard by comparison. When you put together the farm-fresh veggies, the preparation can also be infinitely smaller since you need to do so much less to it in order to get flavor from it.

OK – off the soapbox. I love being a CSA purchaser, but I know it’s not for everyone. But for those on the fence, really – GIVE IT A TRY. If you don’t like it, I get that. But if you DO like it, you’ll just be ever so glad you gave it that shot.

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 6): Savings a-go-go

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Rather impressively, this week’s box was cheaper than the grocery store by more than 25%! It’s rather impressive, really. Maybe it’s something about being mid-summer, that you’re neither dealing with light and inexpensive greens nor are you dealing with heavy (but similarly inexpensive) winter squash. I remember the first grocery shopping trip I did before dd went off to camp and needed to have her lunches packed for her. The list of fruit and veg was quite long and, though I was happy filling my cart with so much lovely produce, our wallet did take a hit once I got up to the register. This week, in particular, certainly does show that it’s possible to eat local fruits and vegetables without breaking the bank ANY MORE than you would if you purchased the exact same items as the grocery store.

Actually, cancel that last statement – or let me amend it. When I do my pricing, I price against the mass-market fruits and vegetables, as it were; I don’t price against the more expensive “organic” varieties offered in store. So, technically, if you were to buy the organic versions at the grocery store, you’d be spending EVEN MORE than what you’d pay for the veggie box through the local farm. That’s just lovely.

Here’s how it all broke down…

Year 2 – Summer Week 6
Weight
(lb)		 Grocery Store Unit Price
(per lb)		 Grocery Store Total Item Cost
Green Peppers (each) 2.00 $1.99 $3.98
Potatoes 2.74 $1.49 $4.09
Zucchini 2.48 $1.99 $4.93
Cucumbers (each) 2.00 $0.99 $1.98
Cherry Tomatoes (pint) 1.00 $3.99 $3.99
Wax Beans 1.02 $2.49 $2.53
Heirloom Tomatoes 1.24 $3.99 $4.96
Corn (ears) 6.00 $0.50 $3.00
Grocery Store Total Cost $29.45
Year 2 Summer Week 6 Savings (Deficit) $7.45

It’s clear, from looking at the numbers, that certain items – like the heirloom tomatoes – really helped me get a lot of extra value out of the box. (They’re also terribly yummy, too.) The sheer heft of the box also helped; though they claimed that I was getting 2 lbs of potatoes and zucchini, both came in well over that weight. Even had they come in right on the dot, the quality and expensive nature of some of the items included (specifically the cherry tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes) helped out quite a bit.

Of course, here’s where you then start to diverge from a simple value discussion. The cherry tomatoes we get from our farm aren’t like the cherry tomatoes you get at the grocery store. Take the best, most wonderful, sweetest cherry tomato you can get at a grocery store and then double the flavorfulness. You may then come close to approximating how incredible these cherries are. The sheer wonderfulness of them makes them disappear in a heartbeat; we had most with dinner Saturday night and the remainder got snapped up at lunchtime on Sunday. In fact, my prediction of caprese salad fell flat but was replaced instead by dh doctoring half a Digiorno cheese pizza with the fresh basil, halved cherry tomatoes and a few cloves of garlic. Holy cow did that take the pizza to a whole other level. It was fantastic.

So, looking at it from the point of view of savings, this box hit one right out of the park. From a taste perspective, it also went a long way towards validating that buying this week was the right choice.