The Box
Spring CSA - Week 2

Stop!

Of course I wrote this too late for those preparing Passover sedars, but for all you still cooking Easter dinners, stop. Consider your menus. Are they filled with dishes falsely associated with spring. Beyond, Easter, are you inspired by things like this? Have you shopped for asparagus, fava beans, strawberries, new potatoes. If not, please stop. Don't eat that stuff. Look what you could be eating.

The box this week: even more of these oil well drill sized carrots, and don't believe anyone who says big carrots have to be bad, these are amazingly sweet and delicious; tiny chard so tender you could eat it raw; a bag of mixed lettuces called mesculun; golf ball sized beets, with greens that can make another dish; and a full head of romaine lettuce. There was also a big supply of fresh thyme that went almost immediately into our spring lamb. It is enough for great meals.

We used some of last week's carrots in the pressure cooker with corned beef and a few more in this week's Grandma tzimmes. The broccoli raab got braised with garlic and then added to whole wheat pasta for a satisfying vegetarian meal. The sprouts, alas went mushy before we could figure out a use. Last week's kale awaits.

Listen, I am not perfect. We snagged some sweet potatoes for the tzimmes. We needed something green for our sedar. I convinced my wife that we could not get asparagus, but we still got broccoli. Still, people can try. We tracked down local, keeper potatoes at Caputo's, both for the tzimes and as a garnish with the lamb. We still draw from our store of onions. Not entirely devout, we still put meals on our table focused on local foods. You can too.