Nine Things I’ve Learned from the Farm Share

I am a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) newbie. In Massachusetts, local farms sell CSA shares and then provide share owners with a weekly supply of vegetables (and sometimes fruit), from early spring through late fall. Shai and I decided to buy a share for this year, thinking that it would be better for the environment than buying products transported from other parts of the country and the world. But I was wary because I have made it 25+ years of life on a study diet of processed foods, a small number of favorite fruits, and 2 vegetables (saag and aloo at the local Indian restaurants).

For the first few months I was baffled by the vegetables arriving in our home. But gradually, I have engaged with them, even cooking a few things. And it has been really fun.

Living in the city, I often feel detached from the amazingness of nature, but through the vegetable encounters, I’ve learned a few very cool things about planet earth:

1. There are purple carrots. They taste a lot like regular carrots, and are orange on the inside.

2. Green grapes can be really juicy and yummy (rather than sour and crisp).

3. You can cut the top off of acorn squash, take out the seeds, put in some stuffing and bake the whole thing. Then stick in a spoon and eat it. The squash is like a bowl, with an edible inside.

4. Leeks are good. Add butter.

5. Beets are good. Add butter and lime juice.

6. Onions don’t make me “cry.” They make my eyes burn and turn red. It’s not the romantic experience I always pictured onion-cutting to be.

7. Cinnamon goes with apple crisp. But you can make peach crisp and add honey instead of cinnamon, and it tastes great too.

8. Garlic comes in more than one shape. (There are garlic “scapes” that look like tubes.)

9. There are also purple peppers.

Praise be for the Earth!