Yesterday, between thunderstorms, I walked down to pick up my share. This consisted of corralling six or seven plastic bags, marching my bag-laden self into a stranger's garage, checking my name off a list, and making off with the following:
1 head lettuce
1 bag snap peas
1 head kohlrabi
2 small yellow squash
1 bag salad mix
1 bunch kale
1 pint black raspberries
chives
tarragon
basil
mint
There it was, my produce for the week. Locally-grown, occasionally bug-ridden, and, most importantly, choice-free!! Sure I joined the local Community Supported Agriculture initiative (CSA) after having the Fear-of-the-Lord-Plus-Industrial-Agriculture instilled in me by Michael Pollan. Sure I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint and score fresher produce besides. But the hidden benefit of the CSA, the thing that keeps me panting for more, is its neat end run around free will.
Never mind menu planning! Never mind weighing the nutritional benefits of chard vs. kale! I will eat asparagus five weeks running and then never again for the rest of the year! I will wriggle in anticipation of tomato season! I will figure out what the hell I'm going to do with that kohlrabi!
There's a surprising amount of pleasure in making do with what you get. Except I'm kinda sick of lettuce. Also I need kohlrabi recipes. Stat.
3 comments:
It's sort of mystifying how there's always too much lettuce. We receive most of the other vegetables in quantities too small for a proper sized side-dish for 3 or 4 people without combining different kinds, yet we have to eat more lettuce than we want to every day and there's still some left over at the end of the week when we get more lettuce.
You'd think the solution would be to plant less lettuce.
-Katie
Adam and I were in a CSA for a while. But since Adam is a professional organic gardener, he was increasingly skeptical of the stuff we were being told was gourmet lettuce. Turns out they were weeds.
Awesome.
Anne, you need to create a space to make comments on your polls. Because I often have things to say. For instance:
Notice how no-one "secretly" likes the Dewey Decimal System? That's because everyone loves Dewey! No secrecy needed.
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