Tag Archives: locavore

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 3): MYO Box Time!

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This week was an odd one. Having been uninspired by the option in the box offered by the farm this week, we decided to invoke the privilege of NOT purchasing a box. I figured that I would first try to construct my own box from the grocery store, since that’s what most people have access to. I set about with some basic rules:

  1. Must not cost more than $22 total
  2. Must have at least six items
  3. Must not have items already needed/planned for a meal
  4. Must contain at least one item that’s new to me (or that we have had only infrequently, at best)
  5. Must be items grown within the US (preferably New England, to keep it regional)

I’m pleased to say that I managed to do all of the following, including keeping everything to produce grown within Massachusetts! All but one of the items we picked out came from our local farm (the same one that does the CSA we’ve been ordering for the last few weeks), and the other item came from a farm on the other end of the state, out in Western MA. I will say that going to one of our local grocery stores was terribly disappointing. Not only did they not have any indication of the specific source for their fruits and veggies (unless marked in packaging, things were marked only for their country of origin), but they didn’t have anything other than squash from even a regional farm (and that was across the border, in Rhode Island).

When I talked with one of the produce guys who was stocking the area during my trip through that grocery store, he said that they hadn’t even been contacted by any local farms yet. I will note that this isn’t the store I typically do all of my week’s shopping in, but it’s a major chain and it’s a full-size store. Furthermore, when I went to one of their other stores that’s also nearby, I saw fruit tagged “Local!” and noted that the label said it was from New Jersey. OK, same coast, but NOT LOCAL, GUYS.

DH wanted us to give the farmstand a chance to provide a more interesting variety than what they were putting in their box, and I’m glad he pushed for that. They had a whole section that was just their stuff, and they clearly marked what was theirs versus what was from other local/regional farms versus what was from out of the area or country. Clear, easy-to-understand labeling really is a must if you’re going to try to understand where ANY of your food comes from, especially when it’s fresh produce.

So, here’s what I got:

Adventures in CSA, year 2 week 3

MYOB attempt #1: so colorful!

 

Year 2 – Summer Week 3 (Make Your Own)
Weight
(lb)		 Farmstand Unit Price (per lb) Farmstand Total Item Cost
Blueberries (pint) 1.00 $4.50 $4.50
Fancy Summer Squash 1.04 $2.19 $2.28
Golden Beets (bunch) 1.00 $1.75 $1.75
Red Beets (bunch) 1.00 $2.99 $2.99
Wax Beans 0.66 $2.49 $1.64
Cherry Tomatoes (1/2 pint) 1.00 $2.95 $2.95
Gooseberries (1/2 pint) 1.00 $4.99 $4.99
Farmstand Total Cost $21.10

The cherry tomatoes are the first of the season from our farm and they are always OUTSTANDING. As it happens, between me and dd, it’s unlikely that they’ll last the night. The fancy summer squash, wax beans and gooseberries are all “new to us” items that we’re excited to try. The summer squash may get grilled, the wax beans will surely be steamed, and the gooseberries (thus far) have been eaten plain. They’ve got a really bizarre-looking inside and the one I tried seemed like a grape, only a little more tart. It’ll be interesting to see how this MYO box process works for the week. We went with some items that we’re familiar with, like the beets, tomatoes and blueberries, and we branched out a little, too.

With some careful selection, we were able to purchase only local items (I consider Western MA local, since it’s within the same state), and we managed to get a decent selection of colorful, fresh produce within the budget I’d set. If this works out well enough, we’ll repeat it on any future weeks where we have a similar lack of excitement over the pre-selected box. Hopefully, it’ll also inspire others to consider trying their own MYO-CSA project. Supporting local agriculture and feeding yourself fresh fruits & veggies at the same time…it’s a win-win!

Adventures in CSA: trying something new

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Ironically, as much as taking part in a CSA involves somewhat of a leap of faith (“I’ll like _____” or “I’ll at least TRY ______”), the investment of money and time involved with a box program locks you into the notion that you must live within that structure. It’s a good discipline to get into, for sure, but can you do it when no one’s looking?

Put another way: do you need the CSA box to inspire you to try something new or eat more fruit/veg?

This week, we’ll put that to the test.

The CSA box from our local farm was announced this week and, since I didn’t opt into the season share through work, we have the flexibility of the week-by-week program at the local farm to lean on. This means that we also have the option NOT to purchase a given box, if we’re uninspired by the box. Amazingly, we’ve already come across that situation. This week’s box, as described on the farm’s web site, contains:

  • 1 pint blueberries
  • 1 bunch carrots
  • 1 bunch swiss chard
  • 1 bunch parsley
  • 1 bunch radishes
  • 1 lb beans
  • 2 lbs squash
  • 2 cucumbers
  • 1 head lettuce

As it happens, this being Wednesday and all, we have yet to get through the beans from the box we got last Friday. And we still need to get to the tatsoi, squash and carrots…and only dh eats the blueberries (I’m just not a fan of blueberries, sorry). This new box would have several of the same contents PLUS lettuce (which is fine, but we tend to lean more towards the more nutritious spinach), and dh would be stuck with the blueberries and radishes, since no one in the house but dh will bother with radishes. I’ll confess, I keep trying everything in the boxes, even the stuff I know I don’t typically like, and CSA-quality radishes have yet to sway me towards thinking that radishes are tasty. I know there are people who like radishes, but I just don’t count myself as one of them.

All this leads me to having the convo with dh this morning about the veggie box contents and having him say, “I don’t think we should get it this week.” Cue my surprised look. It hadn’t occurred to me that we wouldn’t get a box, but he’s right; we wouldn’t need more of what we haven’t yet finished and there are several items that only he eats, so it’s just more stuff for him to plow through alone.

So we’re going to go in a different direction this week: a make-your-own box approach. I’m going to take the same $20-22 we’ve spent per box in the CSA programs and use that as my budget. I’ll head to the grocery store with the following conditions:

  1. Must not cost more than $22 total
  2. Must have at least six items
  3. Must not have items already needed/planned for a meal
  4. Must contain at least one item that’s new to me (or that we have had only infrequently, at best)
  5. Must be items grown within the US (preferably New England, to keep it regional)

That should hit on the “in season and local” aspect, as well as the “try something new” aspect. Depending upon whether or not I can get decent tagging from the local grocery store, I may have to switch over to a Whole Foods (so I can get a better sense of where fruit/veg were produced). I don’t want to come home with items sporting other countries’ flags, and I’d really prefer to get stuff that’s from the local area.

If you ask, “Why not just go to the local farm and buy from the farmstand?”, the answer is this: they also cart in stuff from out of the region, to supplement what they make themselves. What they’d offer that’s “local” right now is pretty much what they’re putting in the boxes. This is the benefit of the box that hits more farms; you have a better shot at a variety when you’re pulling from a number of different local farms versus just one.

I’ll head out Friday to get my stuff, just as I would get the box, and my BYO-box contents will be announced once I have ’em, along with the prices. If it ends up being a fun-enough experiment, then I’ll probably repeat it if we get to any other weeks where the CSA option looks less interesting. Of course, my hope is that I can just buy the box straight from the farm, but when that option doesn’t hold a ton of appeal, I think the BYO is a great way to improvise a way to keep things going.

Short thoughts on shell peas

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Shell peas had been given nearly-mythic status in my mind thanks to the ravings of my BIL, who swears that freshly shelled peas from my sister’s garden is one of his favorite summer foods. So, it was with great joy that I saw the CSA box would have shell peas (aka “English peas”) this past week. I was never much of a pea person until dh and I started dating and he would get me into canned peas as a decent side dish at dinnertime. After we had kids, we more firmly transitioned to frozen peas – typically, the 2lb bag with the grocery store brand label.

And then there’s shell peas. They’re going to be fantastic. Mythic. EPIC.

My verdict: They’re yummy, but they’re more trouble than they need to be worth. That’s not to say that I didn’t like them. I did – really, I did! But they didn’t blow me away enough to make me think that this is THE PEA FOR ME FOR NOW AND FOREVER.

First off, there’s some effort required in taking them from in-the-pod to not-in-the-pod. For the bag of approximately 2lbs of shell peas, I spent a little more than a half-hour to shell the lot of them, and I yielded just about 13oz of peas. Half of them were prepared last night, and the other half went back into the fridge to be prepared later in the week. Everything I’ve read about shell peas said that you should eat them pretty soon after they’re picked, so we’re trying to be good about getting through them.

Once you get past the shelling process, the cooking process is super-easy. For about 6-7oz peas, just boil some water in a saucepan, add the peas and cook them for about 1-2 minutes, until they’re a pretty green. Turn off the heat, strain them to get rid of the water, and then stir in about 1/2Tb butter or margarine. Some people put salt in the water or salt the peas after. Some bypass all that and just eat them raw. Peas are, as always, a “whatever works for you” kind of vegetable.

Everybody liked the peas, but it was clear that the reception was only somewhat better than what we get for the frozen ones heated up in the microwave. For the price difference and the work required, that relegates shell peas firmly to weekend-duty, on an irregular basis. Shell peas may be a treat, but I think I’ve seen now that the myth was more in my head than in the pod.