Running Even

Latest In Inventory

(previous inventory)

It's starting to be the time of year where the new stuff exceeds the stored stuff. We are in our fourth week of the Spring CSA. Last week was not a great CSA week. Farmer Vicki warned us that the Napa cabbage had some insect damage, to peel off some leaves, but it turned out that our cabbage was gone, totally. Such is the price of organic/sustainable farming practices. In addition to what we are getting from Genesis Growers, we picked up some produce from Cassie's Green Grocer. She's made a great find, Windy City Harvest. Windy City Harvest would be an all around terrific project on its own, but the produce they are selling to Cassie just gorgeous. Great reason to get to her place.

Before I get to what's at hand, one housekeeping note. The weather has warmed enough that the attic is no longer a viable storage spot. We moved the remaining potatoes to the basement, and we moved the remaining apples to the basement fridge.

Celery - Stalk by stalk, it has its uses

Herbs - Mostly rosemary and mint. We have Farmer Vicki mint and Green Grocer mint.

Keeper onions - Based on our purchases a few weeks ago at Andy's Fruit, we are holding out.

Scallions (a/k/a green onions; a/k/a spring onions) - A bunch, this is the first crop produced outside by Vicki. The use of spring onions/scallions as the cooking alium, after keeper onions run out, is one of the things that gives Spring food its characteristic flavors.

Garlic - Garlic remains fine, and we should last until the new garlic arrives.

Cabbage - Red head remains but for what?

Sunchokes - I looked at the sunchokes the other day, and they are pretty much caput. We had our chance. I just have not had the nerve to toss.

Carrots - Last week's CSA box had several large (assuming over-wintered) carrots, but none this week. We are not heavy on carrots, but given their market availability now, I'm not worried.

Parsnips - In addition to some we've carried for ages, last week's CSA box contained very large over-wintered (i.e., kept in the ground during the winter) parsnips.

Potatoes - We've used a lot of potatoes of late. We finished the 50 lb bag of Wisconsin russets we got earlier this winter, and we've used quite a bit from our smaller bag of Wisconsin russets. We have about 20 lbs of reds and about 5 lbs of speciality potatoes.

Apples - Not that many left, mostly what we got at Andy's a few weeks back.

Lettuce - The CSA boxes have had a lot of lettuces. This week we got a head of romaine. Time for Dad to whip out his Ceasar salad kit.

Burdock root - 1 lb - No change

Beets - Hopefully Cassie gets some more baby beets in from Windy City Harvest as I bought out her entire supply. As I said above, this is high endorsement for what they're doing on the West Side of Chicago. Moreover, these are double duty beets, with enough nigh perfect greens for the money that it's a steal. Also got beets, larger beets from Farmer Vicki, and we still have beets from before.

Kale - One bunch in this week's CSA box. Farmer Vicki suggests using it raw, but I'm just gonna save it for a week, so that there's enough for a good helping.

Radishes - We got a lot, ate a lot--so much that we ended up not having the ones we planned on serving for a Passover salad--and have obtained a bunch again. If you want some of your own, Cassie has some great looking French breakfast radishes.

Local Pantry - Cheeses (actually low on cheese), yogurt, eggs, noodles, pork, beef, lamb, bacon, granola, grains, milk