One Local Summer: June 14

On Wednesday, I picked up my first share from my CSA (community supported agriculture). For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, people who like farm produce invest in a farm before the growing season, and then receive ‘dividends’ in the form of produce for the rest of the gardening season. In the past I have always had my own garden….I’ve tilled it religiously with my little rototiller, planted, weeded, sworn at hail and burning sun and suffered through harvests of 6 peas and 40 thousand hundred and 12 tomatoes.

This year I thought I would take the monies I would normally spend in plants and also consider the value of the sweat equity of my gardening and buy this CSA share. I’m a bit skeptical of the whole process (will I get a bunch of crap we’d never eat; will there be enough for my share?) but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised on Wednesday afternoon. I stopped by after work and came away with collards, kale, lettuce and spring mix, garlic scapes, potatoes (from last year), haruki turnips (which I think will be lovely braised), strawberries, peas and wildflowers. Nom, Nom, Nom.

So this week’s fully local meal (in reality, there are local foods in just about every meal we eat) was:

RED BEANS (sans rice)---if rice could be grown in NY, it would have included that. As it was, I made a stew out of red kidney beans from Mary-Howell and Klaas Marten’s farm in Penn Yan, NY. In that stew was ham from Cobblestone Valley farms and andouille sausage from The Piggery. We sopped it up with some crusty sourdough bread from Le Banneton. The meal was accompanied by a simple salad of greens from the CSA and more of the Lively Run feta, topped with a homemade vinaigrette with herbs from the garden.