Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Joining a CSA - I feel like such a nerd

I'm picking up my first CSA basket today, and I'm just giddy about it. All that produce! And what will it be? And what will I make from it? There might be veggie fried rice in our future. Or Thai red curry or squash soup or oven-roasted potatoes. People, there could be quiche.
See me, awash with nerdy glee.
I've been interested in CSAs for a long time, but there's never been one with a pick-up close to me. But two weeks ago, my sister told me that she was picking up a CSA basket for a friend, who was traveling in Peru. Apparently you can't cancel your pick-up just because you're on vacation, so she'd asked my sister if she wanted it. Laurel said yes, but then she ended up having a meeting during the pick-up time, so she asked if I wanted to pick it up.
Totally!
Anyway, it was so much fun to go to the pick-up (which I gather is a newish one), just about a fifteen minute drive from home (when traffic is good), and find a group of baskets waiting in the shade, full of fruits and veggies and herbs and topped with bouquets of bright yellow, spicy-scented flowers. I smiled all the way home, the smell of basil wafting from the huge basket on the passenger seat of our minivan.
Then at home, I got to unpack it, and found, in addition to the flowers:
-a big bunch of basil, both green and purple
-a big bunch of parsley
-a bunch of beets, greens intact
-a bunch of chard, both green and red
-two heads of green-leaf lettuce, one head of red-leaf and one head of iceberg
-cucumbers
-a zucchini (well, you can't win them all . . .)
-apples
-pears
-persimmons
-an ear of pretty decorative corn
-a small pumpkin
And I'm probably forgetting some of it - after all, it's been two weeks. My sister came over and we split up the produce - Laurel being Laurel, she generously left us the lion's share. And the next day I called the CSA and signed up. (I also made pesto, processed and froze the parsley, cooked the chards and beet greens together, etc, etc . . .)
I think it'll work well for us, because the pick-up is every other Wednesday, and I menu-plan on a two week schedule, so I'm just going to plan our menus on Wednesdays, after I see what's in our basket. Then I can shop Thursday and/or Friday for whatever extras we need.
So . . . I'm spending the day doing the dishes, reading to the kids, teaching Bess math and Gamgee how to spell his name . . . but inside I'm bouncing up and down and chanting whadyabringme?whadyabringme? and wishing my basket were already here.
I'm telling you: such a nerd. Such a nerd.
:)
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
p.s. This guy is also a nerd (um, I mean, "geek"), so maybe I'm not in bad company. ("I've seen him on the youtube, I said . . .")

(hat tip to my brother for the video)
p.p.s. For my friends who live in the area, the CSA is run by South Coast Farms, and the pick-up I'm using is at Cal State Fullerton.

3 comments:

becca said...

How fun! I'd love to join a CSA. This summer, my co-worker was in one. We'd walk every Friday during lunch to pick it up. It was always stuffed with such lovely produce!

Amber said...

How neat! And I think that is the only good thing about living in SoCal - you can get a CSA basket like that in NOVEMBER!! Ours ended at the end of October, and our squash and basil were done by the end of September. Oh well, but at least we get fall color and snow. :-)

Enjoy your CSA, we're eagerly awaiting the start up of ours again in February!

Jen said...

We love our co-op! Have fun!