Okay, let's try something new.

[leahbobet]

I mentioned last summer, in and around things, that I signed up with a farmshare. It's one of those that's really collective on both ends: a bunch of small family farms in the Kawartha Lakes produce the food in an environmentally sustainable way, and then the organizer of the CSA (who is awesome) brings it all down to Toronto for CSA pickup and farmer's markets, five days a week. Where a bunch of people -- including a whole lot of my friends and co-workers* -- buy and munch it. This means supporting small family farms versus large industrial outfits; removing the timesuck of manning farmer's market stalls from the farmers themselves so they can, well, farm stuff; supporting ethical, fair trade, and environmental growing practices (although only some, not all of the farms involved are certified organic); eating a lot more vegetables, and they're much better-tasting vegetables; and actually achieving the first steps to a 100-mile diet.**

It also means I've learned to cook like an Iron Chef.

No kidding: Every Wednesday I stop at the pickup location on my way home from work with only the faintest idea of what I'll be getting that week. I grab whatever's chalked on the board, maybe buy a few extra odds and ends I really want, and then I have a week to figure out what to do with them. The words What do you do with ____? were uttered a few times last summer. Stuff got inventive. Many soups happened. It was kind of crazily, impressively fun.

So, farmshare started up for the summer again last week,*** and I had the notion that maybe this year I will blog it.

Consider this a new feature, as long as I have the time and attention span to do it, and as long as you guys are interested: CSA Wednesdays. What I did with my farmshare this week, and what I got for next week. Like jmeadows's Spinning Sundays, but, y'know, tastier.

It will have pictures.

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So, Week 1:

Last Wednesday was a bit of a smaller haul. I think partially it's the first week, but partially I didn't browse the other stuff as much: I was sticky and hot and kind of sleepy, and needed to get home for something. We got:

1 Boston lettuce
1 pint, or maybe 1.5 pints of spring mix lettuce
1 celeriac
5 stalks rhubarb
1 bunch popcorn on the cob
1 bunch asparagus

There was a lot of "what do I do with that?" in this batch. And then I had an idea, and since I haven't been able to find a rack of lamb in this neighbourhood that's less than $50 (Dear Rowe Farms: No.) I haven't executed a lot of that plan yet. So most of this is still sitting in my fridge, hopefully to be used tomorrow when I go to Kensington Market to get lamb that isn't $50.

The lettuces got all used. I mixed them together for salads, and got one or two caprese salads and then this one, which has both lettuces, some grocery-store tomato, some daikon from The Biggest Daikon in the World, slivered almonds, and pickled pomegranate seeds I put up this winter. The dressing is mead vinagrette. Yes, mead. The honey vinegar is also local.



So carryover from week 1 is the asparagus, the popcorn, the rhubarb, and the celeriac, which I do not know what to do with yet, although Dr. My Roommate had a suggestion I might follow up on involving grating and raisins and salady things.

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The Week 2 preview!

This week's box was:

2 heads romaine lettuce
1 pint strawberries
1 handful garlic scapes
4 bunches spring onions
1 big basket spring mix

I also got a bunch of radishes on top of that, because I like radishes and they were there looking at me.

There's a MyMarket farmer's market a couple blocks away from home, also on Wednesdays, and I stopped there both looking for that lamb solution and to see what they had. So add to the count:

1.5 pint new potatoes
1 pint heritage mix cherry tomatoes

So that's the preview. Tune in next week to find out what happens to them! Thrill with suspense! Eat Ontario produce! Ogle pictures of yummy food!

(And if you have any recipes for celeriac, let me know?)

*Apparently CSAs are like Fluevogs. It takes two seperate vectors of exposure to get you addicted to them, and then they spread through casual social contact like you wouldn't believe.
**I haven't figured out the grains and staples yet, or a lot of the cheese. We're working on it in that idle, backburnered, compiling-code kind of way.
***I didn't do winter share last year, to my eternal regret. Won't be making that mistake again.

Comments

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if it's likewise intensive and paperworky and kind of a pain. I could ask next week, I suppose. Although my thing has always been the ethical and local, versus the organic; systems of economy in food and all that.

Yay space! :) What do you have going that's not celeriac?

[clarentine]

Markety stuff, as my son is convinced he wants to be A Farmer - strawberries, a row of what was supposed to be raspberries but expired before rooting (we'll try again in the fall), melons and peppers and tomatoes and beans. Winter squash. And something I've wanted to grow for a long while now, the white sweet potatoes we first had in Hawaii. I still need to plan out the herb garden, so it's mostly fallow, though I do have parsley and basil and oregano in one of the garden beds. And flowers - marigolds, cosmos, borage. The poppies keep trying and keep getting drowned by deluges.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I have no garden space at the new place, so I will have to live vicariously.

[clarentine]

From your lovely CSA! The local food movement is the best thing to happen to people in a long while.