Today's Haul...

Despite the very cold (well, very cold for Georgia) temps, I bundled up the kids into the minivan and we headed out for our "farmer food" run--in other words, our CSA delivery.

I am still amazed at the amount of beautiful, local produce available year-round. This week, my delivery included a dozen eggs, spinach, chard, sweet potatoes, apples, 2 different kinds of lettuce, a half-dozen homemade muffins, a gorgeous-smelling bar of lavender goats-milk soap, baby radishes, a big pile of unshelled pecans, an herbal sachet, and Asian baby turnips.

My last pickup a couple weeks ago (during the winter the CSA is on an every-other-week schedule) didn't include any lettuce, because the unseasonably cold weather and heavy rains we had at the last minute washed out the crops that might otherwise have been available. I have grown addicted to the sweet, tender lettuces I've gotten in my CSA deliveries, so it's a welcome sight to have them back in my box of goodies this week.

I never thought I would rave over something as simple as lettuce, but I can't help it--the taste comparison between the local lettuces--especially the Bibb--and the bagged greens I used to grab at Kroger aren't even close to being in the same league. The bagged lettuces taste like styrofoam to me now, and I find I'd rather wait until my CSA greens are available to have my salads and eat them, too.

Another nice thing about local winter greens is that the cold brings out a delicate sweetness in the greens that makes them quite different than their late summer-early fall counterparts.

There were only a few radishes, not enough to try the cream of radish soup I was thinking of trying, so this batch will get sliced thin and used in the above-mentioned salads--although I tasted some amazing pickled radish last year--I think it was at Canoe--and I would love to replicate it, but so far haven't managed that yet. Tried a recipe last year, but the result was too, well, pickled---it didn't have that sweetness of the ones I'd previously had, or the subtle crunch and fresh taste. Any recipes out there would be GREATLY appreciated.


The muffins are half-gone already--Sam, my 2 year old, started stealing them off the counter before I had finished taking the photos for this blog. I joined in quickly thereafter. The boy has good taste--they were quite yummy.


The chard is a gimme--I always do the same thing with it, which is follow Alice Waters' simple but ridiculously good recipe for Chard with Parmesan from her must-have cookbook, the Art of Simple Food:

Pull the leaves from the ribs of one or more bunches of chard. Discard the ribs (or save them for another dish), wash the leaves, and cook until tender in abundant salted boiling water, 4 minutes or so. Drain the leaves, cool, squeeze out most of their excess water, and chop coarse. For every bunch of chard, melt three tablespoons of butter in a heavy panover medium heat. Add the chopped chard and salt to taste. Heat through and for each bunch of chard stir in a generous handful of freshly gratedParmesan cheese. Remove from the heat and serve.

SOOOOOO goood. Again, never thought I would be having rhapsodies over chard, of all things, but I am starting to have a clue as to why Barbara Kingsolver chose rainbow chard as her can't-live-without favorite food.

As for the turnips, not a clue yet. They're pretty, though. Right now I'm admiring them--food as art. Need to figure out something for them before they turn into food as garbage. Inventiveness with turnips is new for me.

The sweet potatoes are going to become baby food for my sweet potato. My 6-month-old, Rosie, has just discovered solids, and these will be perfect for her after they're boiled until very soft and processed through the finest blade on my food mill. I have these groovy 2-ounce baby food holders that I can fill up and keep in the freezer and use as I need them, so Rosie's an early locavore.

The apples will be devoured raw--no recipe needed. Those puppies are just too awesome to bypass in their natural state.

The pecans are going to require a shelling party, possibly this weekend. I'll probably freeze a bunch of them, although some sort of pecan coffee cake may be in the works. I'll let you know. I'm thinking of glazing a bunch of them, too, to be used in my salads. Yum.

The eggs will be used like, well, eggs. I get a kick out of these eggs, though--they range in color from brown to white to blue, and the yolks from pale yellow to this gorgeous shade of saffron that makes beautiful scrambled eggs. One of the best discoveries I've made since making a concerted effort to eat local foods is the range of colors, textures, and tastes of a single food. In a grocery store, even an organic store, the eggs would all be uniform in shape, color, and size. I had no idea fresh eggs could come in such a lovely shade of blue. It continues to be a lovely surprise.

The spinach has been my green of choice to be piled on my lunchtime sandwich and eaten raw. It also responds well to being sauteed in butter and olive oil just until it wilts, then gently tossed with a generous amount of salt and pepper, dried cranberries and tasted walnuts or pecans.

So that's the take for today. More to come as I figure out what to do with all this goodness.

Alright, here we go...

Last year was a big year for me, food-wise. I've always been a foodie (whatever that means--for myself, it simply means I have a borderline obsessive interest in all things food-related), but last year I had 3 things happen that changed my view of food completely and permanently.

First, I discovered the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. In a very gentle yet thorough way, she educated me in why it is essential to know where your food comes from. That local is even better than organic, and "certified organic" in a mega-grocery store is not all it's cracked up to be. That the agricultural industry is a mess, and we're paying for it in the food we eat, and most importantly why it is absolutely essential to support your local farmer.

Next, my husband got me to watch this documentary on PBS titled King Corn. It reinforced what I'd been reading, and made me swear off high fructose corn syrup (which, by the way, is in EVERYTHING). So, left with little real food left to eat in the grocery stores, what's a foodie to do?

Research, research, research--and that's how I found the third thing that changed my food-life forever: my beloved bastion of locavore goodness, my CSA: Farmers Fresh. CSAs, or Community Sustained Agriculture programs, are programs you can subscribe to and receive bags of local, in-season food on a regular basis. In my case, I get in-season fruits, veggies, meats, eggs, and even handmade goodies like muffins or soap or honey sometimes. It has been a revelation for me and my family to be a part of this program. I had always been more in favor of natural vs. processed foods, organic over non-organic, but after joining the CSA I realized that I had forgotten what a blueberry is supposed to taste like, an apple, a salad made of fresh greens.

See, when food has to come from California, for example, to a grocery store in Georgia, it naturally has to travel quite a distance to do so. Therefore, the California grower has to choose varieties of plants that are bred to 1) yield well, 2) look nice on the display shelf, and 3) travel well enough to make it a long distance without spoiling. Notice one key essential missing in these criteria: TASTE. Even more important, the behemoth of the large-farm, supermarket-mentality agriculture industry is squeezing out heirloom varieties of plants--plants that may taste heavenly, but don't travel well, or don't promise to spit out perfectly-formed versions of themselves like little clones every growing season. Or plants that don't yield to the genetic modifications of massive seed companies.

CSAs can offer these heirloom plants and animal products, because they don't have to travel far. They are farmers who may not be able to afford the cost and time necessary to go through the byzantine process of being organically certified, but care more about organic and sustainable growth and humane methods of food production than many huge certified-organic megafarms that supply food for major chains.

Local food tastes INFINITELY better than its alternatives. It is better for the environment, better for your health, better all the way around. And there are added bonuses: this past summer, when the tainted tomato scare happened, and people all across the nation were taking tomoatoes and tomato-based products off their plates and shelves and menus? That was because no one could trace the source of the salmonella-tainted tomatoes--were they from Mexico? California? What farm?

I smiled smugly (yes, I know, smugness is unattractive but...) and went to pick up my mouth-wateringly good local tomatoes from my CSA delivery. I knew my tomatoes were from right here, and there was no chance they were part of the recalled tomatoes. It's nice, in this age of mass production, to know where your food comes from and that it comes from people who care about what food you put in your mouth.

So, this blog is going to become dedicated to the food I get from the CSA, where it comes from, what I'm doing with it, and maybe even a little about the growers. It's going to be about eating mindfully, locally, and well (after all, I'm a foodie, not a martyr).

Come rediscover food with me. Join a CSA and do your own delicious research. Support your local farmer's market. Take your fork out of the hands of corporations. We're in for one delicious ride.