EatLocal365 » Baby Steps

Thoughts from a Virgin Shareholder

Jeff — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:32:33 +0000

Last year, when I finally decided that buying a share in a CSA “made sense” based on the way that my family was eating, it was unfortunately too late, at least for that year – the season had ended and Lindsey and Erik were embarking on their yearly Dark Days challenge. So, I used the winter months to research nearby farms that might have a CSA share available come the spring and more importantly, where their drop points were located. While I loved the idea of getting a share and really wanted to make it work, if this endeavor was going to require a significant amount of effort, the organic section of my local supermarket would just have to do.

Luckily one great farm called Hesperides Organica, located in the Black Dirt region of Upstate New York — where one can just scatter seeds lazily about and still be able to come back and reap a large bounty because the soil is that fertile, had a drop point that was only 1 mile away from my house. When I learned I could come as late as 9 PM on drop day to pick up my goodies, I was sold.

Now, almost two full months into this adventure, I have to say there are two things that jump out:

1. The size and shapes of the vegetables. In the photo below you can compare last week’s yellow squash and zucchini to a normal household portable phone. Ridiculous.

While everything in the supermarket is very uniform, our share bounty is anything but. The weirdness of some of the foods we receive, like the super knobby carrots below, is fantastic.

2. The amount of vegetables. Not only do we receive a lot of food every Tuesday night, but the dirt that comes along with all of these items is voluminous as well. We expend a significant amount of effort washing and storing the produce we receive – my sink turns black before the water drains down whenever I’m washing the produce – but that to me is much better than not having to bother with triple washed plastic bagged flash frozen imported from California produce, organic or not. Plus, its that wonderful black dirt that makes everything taste so extra delicious.

Then, for the rest of the week we spend a lot of mental and physical energy trying to use up as much of them as possible before they all rot and/or the next batch of produce arrives. Regarding the pressure to eat what we’ve been given, the NY Times just had an article about this very topic titled “Raw Panic”. In it Julia Moskin writes:

What should be a beautiful and inspiring sight — your kitchen, overflowing with seasonal produce — is sometimes an intimidating tableau of anxiety. The knobbly piles and dirt-caked bunches are overwhelming. Already the peak-ripe multicolored peppers are developing soft spots; the chard is wilting and the race is on.

Considering I have had many pitchers and vases full of parsley, mint and basil strewn about my kitchen for weeks now, I definitely commiserate with the author.

All of that being said, this has been a great experience, one which my family and I are quite enjoying. My kids, both under 5, are learning about the true source of their food and are being healthy and having fun at the same time. I don’t need to trick them or try to sneak these veggies inside of processed chicken nuggets. My kids eat them because they taste good, period (dipping sauces, a.k.a. salad dressing, optional).

Case in point: we went up to the farm a few weeks back for pick your own sugar snap peas day and we all loved every minute of it, especially when we used a old fashioned hand pump to clean up afterwards. It was tons of fun, and cooking and eating the peas later in the weekend with our family was that much more satisfying.

I now look forward to every Tuesday the way office workers look forward to every Friday (which I still look forward to as well being an office worker myself). That being said, its a good thing that Tuesday is still five days away because I have a lot of food to cook, eat and store right now…

How to Navigate the Bulk Foods Section to Survive the Dark Days

Lindsay — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:17:44 +0000

Let me just get this out of my system. If you haven’t explored your supermarket’s bulk food section, you are missing out! It’s a smorgasboard of tasty bits and pieces. You can get a HUGE sack of oats for oatmeal or a tiny nibble of chocolate-covered raisins right in the same place!

Besides the excitement, which I think stems from Mom occasionally buying bulk yogurt pretzels when I was a kid, here are the rational, adult reasons for loving the bulk foods section:

There is very little packaging, so you cut down on waste. You can even bring your own containers.
It’s almost always cheaper than other options, especially since you can buy exactly the amount you want.
It allows you to have more variety in your pantry, since you can buy smaller amounts of more things, rather than getting a gigantic bag of black beans or settling for just raisins in your oatmeal for two weeks.
You can try new things without the committment.

I like to think of all choices as a hierarchy. If not this, then this, etc. My food hierarchy goes something like this: I prefer to buy food from a local farmer I’ve talked to, so I know how he or she runs the farm. If I can’t get what I need that way, I’ll buy food from Joe Schmo local farmer either at the farmers’ market or a grocery store. If I still can’t get what I need, then I probably don’t really need it. But, if I do really need/want it, I’ll buy organic produce from the US (since at least it hasn’t traveled as far as, say, Chilean strawberries) and almost everything else from the bulk foods section. In the Dark Days, we get down to the last level pretty often.

Our supermarket carries several different types of rice, grains, beans, nuts, and dried fruit. It also has a few flours and varieties of granola and trail mix. We can get some beans, flours, and grains locally, but we get all our dried fruit and nuts there.

Here’s how it works:

There’s often a roll of thin plastic bags nearby. Grab one or pull out your own container. If you bring your own, make sure it’s pretty lightweight. Some supermarkets will tare (zero out the weight of your container), but others won’t. If the store tares, remember to do it before you fill the container.

Find what you want. This can be the confusing part, since the aisle might not be organized in a logical way, so ask an employee if you can’t find something. They usually know exactly where everything is. Even though we go every other week or so, I feel like the section is constantly rearranged!

Fill up your bag or container. Sometimes there’s a scoop and sometimes the food comes out of a shoot that you open with a lever. Go slowly if it’s the lever kind, so you don’t take too much.

Take a look at the bin and find the product number. This is usually pretty conspicuous, but ask someone if you’re unsure. Some stores let you weigh your own and print a label with the amount and product number. Some just want you to record the number on the fastener, so that they can weight and price it when you check out. If you don’t see a fancy scale where people are printing labels, assume it’s the latter.

That’s it. Now go to the grocery store and try something new!

Conventional apples are now the dirtiest!

Lindsay — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:56:14 +0000

After spending time lower on the list, apples have now been deemed the dirtiest conventionally grown produce by the Environmental Working Group. Yuck! Just another good reason to seek out locally and responsibly grown produce. We usually buy our apples (and peaches, nectarines, and pears) from Breezy Hill Orchard. They’re Eco-Apple certified, which means they use integrated pest management (IPM) rather than just dumping a bunch of chemicals on their fruit. Just look at those beautiful Fujis!

Financial and logistical issues often prevent people from choosing local and organic produce, so the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list is a good way to prioritize. Be sure to buy the Dirty Dozen from farmers you trust, even if you can’t buy everything that way.

Check out their handy pocket guide of the best and worst choices!

If you do one thing in December to eat locally…

Lindsay — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:40:07 +0000

…make a pie with local apples or pumpkins instead of buying Chilean apples, pumpkin in a can, or a whole pre-made pie.

Who’s with me?