Get a CSA

Local Beet Editor in Chief Michael Morowitz is very enamored with the Home Grown Wisconsin CSA he subscribed to this year. He summarizes the experience, with totals, at the Beet.

Me, whenever I hear discussion of a CSA, I have to give my lecture on all the great ancillary benefits of belonging to a CSA. Here's my comment to Michael's post

Gosh I wish I could be so organized! Very well done.

I've said this many a-time around the internets. I really enjoy and appreciate being part of CSA even as I have certain CSA reservations. Like you, I enjoy cooking, cooking new things and having a base of material. I also enjoy (maybe too much see forthcoming blog post) shopping. I like the challenge of cooking what is there, but I also like the pleasure in finding something at the market. If nothing else, I rue two things about CSAs. First, the quality of one particular item is often screwy, like not really enough kale. Second, there's always somethin' I'm not wild for, mostly an Asian green-ish type thing.

That all said, I would not even consider ditching my CSA. The most important thing about a CSA, it aligns you with a farm and a farmer. You are there when she needs you. She is there when you need her. It is altruistic, but beneficial too. To paraphrase something Michael Pollan said, by belong to a CSA, you learn about the real and true issues that affect farmers and affect our food. The forced interchanged from a CSA from country mouse to city mouse helps all.

A CSA helps in other ways. It affords one, typically, a chance to visit a farm, learn more. At times, a CSA might get produce too limited for other outlets. CSA subscribers earn extra benefits. The biggest one, I believe is ongoing access to the CSA, including access to other wise closed CSAs such as off-season CSAs.

Michael's done a good job of selling a CSA. Hopefully, I've sold some of the side benefits.

Remember #7 in the chai of local is subscribe to a CSA.

More Beet - How Can You Eat Local All Year

Is this blog simply the repository of posts leading to the Local Beet? Dunno, but in the meantime, keep track of our latest visit to a farmer's market + our weekly CSA here. More importantly, the Local Beet has published its guide to Fall/Winter CSAs. Michael's first mission when he launched the Local Beet was to offer practical advice on eating local. In other words, he did not aim for a lofty see how we do it standard, rather he wanted us to be in it together. One of the first steps towards practical local, towards always eating local, is the ability to eat local beyond the months when farmer's markets exist. One way for people to do that is to subscribe to Fall/Winter CSAs. The Local Beet's newly published guide should help.

On the same vein, practical, eating local more, I will soon be publishing something on the Local Beet on making your harvest last. My wife and I answer the question, "how can eat local all year, in Chicago by saying we do two things. We keep food around--canned, frozen and "cellar-ed"), and we shop for local via our Spring and Fall Genesis Growers CSA, Robin's Winter markets, Irv and Shelly and Cassie's Green Grocer (as well as where ever else we find local). There is no right answer as to which is more important stored vs. buying, but I can say for sure, that which matters more depends on your individual circumstances. My hunch is that most local eaters have limited root cellars, no extra freezer and little experience canning. So, regardless of how much they learn to put-aside, sources for buying remain, well, vital. We got you covered.

A Moment of Triumph

Inventory Update

It's been a bit since I've updated the inventory list. Plus, we got our first Spring CSA box last week, and I have a picture I can post too. Still, I needed to get my Winter recap post up over at the Eat Local Challenge blog.

The latest inventory includes a shopping spree at Robin's last Winter Market and the arrival of our first box from Farmer Vicki as well as a trip to Madison a few weeks ago.

The previous inventory report; from there you can follow the embedded links to all the inventory reports/updates. In addition, you can click the tag for storage to the right.

One very apparent thing, from the reports, is that we never came close to running out of food this winter. Even when it seemed like onions would be our sole vegetable, we seemed to run across stocks of indoor lettuces and such. It gave needed variety to the diet. The family also took very much this winter to mushrooms. We ate a dish from cultivated Wisconsin mushrooms about once a week. Eating local this winter was doable first by the discovery of our attic and the ever staying natural refrigeration. We stocked away enough food, and it stayed stocked away until needed. It was further doable, in a great way, by the supplies provided by Robin and her winter markets, Cassie and her Green Grocer and Irv and Shelly and their Fresh Picks. As I wrote today on the Eat Local Challenge Blog. I am here to tell you it is possible to go all Winter eating local in the Chicago area.

The current inventory/recent changes to the inventory:

Cranberries - They wait for...?

Celery - My plans to preserve the celery, like so many of many preservation ideas, has fallen by the way side. We've been using, a few stalks at a time.

Herbs - rosemary, thyme, basil, cilantro, mint, oregano - We purchased everything AquaRanch was selling a few weeks ago.

Winter squash - Our pace right now is: toss one about every two weeks; that still leaves about five. Like cranberries, the problem is, who wants squash now?

Keeper onions - We got got three or four in our CSA box, but have already used them; these stocks are getting pretty low.

Sweet potatoes - Blink and its gone. I thought the remaining sweet potatoes would last until Passover, but low and behold some mold found them. All gone.

Garlic - We are very good here.

Cabbage - A head of red cabbage remains from the winter, tired but eatable.

Sunchokes - I peeked in on the sunchokes last week, about 25% were going/gone. As I say, tired but eatable.

Carrots - The time of carrot restraint has past. We have stocks as well as new supplies from Vicki. The newest, wide "over-wintered" (i.e., stored in the ground) went into one of the trio of Bistro salads I made the other night.

Parsnips -Hanging in there.

Potatoes - OK, plus some reds from Vicki last week.

Apples - All Winter long, Robin's been talking about the apples being stored away by Hillside Orchards. They finally came out at her last market. We got some but have ate them already. We are still working through a big bag of Michigan red delicious from Costco.

Lettuce - Long on lettuce. It took so long to finish the mondo head from Vicki that we tossed before it was over. We picked up the last bags available at Madison; then got a few more from AquaRanch, and we got a head of butter lettuce in our CSA.

Microgreens/Sprouts - At Madison, my daughter took an over generous sample from one bag. After buying that, we had about four bags of sprouts/micro-greens in the bungalow. They go in the kidz lunch a lot.

Mushrooms - We picked up mushrooms both in Madison and at Robin's last market. Most of them have been eaten.

Celery root - I finally used the celery root, with remoulade as part of the Bistro salad trio.

Burdock root - 1 lb - No change, but I'm not quite sure where it is.

Wild watercress - Some, maybe.

Arugula - See lettuce, we keep on getting.

Beets - Local beets from Whole Foods (they swear!) as well as some from Vicki last week. The last of the Bistro salads.

Kale - From the CSA box.

Local Pantry
Cheeses, yogurt, eggs, noodles, pork, beef, lamb, bacon, granola, grains, milk, cream

The Iceberg Cometh

(pic courtesy of David Hammond)












You Should Subscribe to a CSA

Over at LTHForum.com, there's a discussion on CSA's, prompted by the once a year inclusion in the Genesis Grower Spring box of a head of iceberg. Besides wanting to re-post Hammond's great lettuce shot (I tried one myself, against Chez Panisse Vegetables, for irony sake, but it was not even close to as good), I wanted to re-post why I think it's a good idea to subscribe to a CSA.

To quote myself:

Why the CSA? Well, I do feel some conniption about actually supporting, nay "owning" a piece of the farm. Still, it is not just an act of charity. Ownership has its benefits. First of all, as with this week's iceberg, there will be things that go into the CSA that never make it to market. We have first crack. Second, and even more important, you build a relationship with a farmer. This cuts two ways. You can go to the farm, see how the stuff is grown, see what kinda practices they use, actually understand where you food comes from. Also, you get the inside track on things. As I have blogged about, there may be the opportunity to buy some of the heard, there are the off-season CSAs, these are less available and may be sold out to non-subscribers--and off-season is the time when you really need the stuff. And, and there is off-season. Farmer Vicki does not advertise or offer to many, but there is the chance to buy from her even in the dead of winter. Finally, as an owner, you also have access to other products of the farm. Vicki offers her home canned goods (and she's a fantastic canner).

Now, I should have more on this today or soon, but with what's being reported these days about food imports and food inspections, it seems more important than ever to be a farmer (so to speak).