I heard my first cardinal locally about a week ago. We adopted a cat, who lords over our windows now since they’re open often. They were entranced with the new sounds of birds, almost as much as I was.
It’s CSA (“Community Supported Agriculture”) subscription sign-up season where I am. If you haven’t heard of this before and you like fresh veggies and fruits and reclaiming agriculture for regular folks, read on.
Usually, you sign up for a CSA subscription before the growing season begins where you live. You select the season(s) you want to receive a share, the size of the share (bushel, half bushel, quarter bushel, etc.), and generally where you want to pick it up if they don’t offer delivery. The farm or organization usually has a portfolio of the crops they grow that you can look through. I like to look for cabbages and herbs. As the crops mature, you get a mix of everything they harvest each week in the amount you chose. The CSA we signed up with this year allows you to put items you don’t use or want on your file so that when they build the box, you don’t get those things.
It’s an investment you make in the farm(s)—if the season is bad, you get less for your money; if the season is good, you get more for your money. Nature and the growing season(s): the original stock market! The intention behind CSA’s is to prop up regular-person owned and run farms to keep them from going bankrupt in a bad year, and also reward you, the investor, with surplus bounty for your loyalty in a good year. So it’s important to select a farm or organization you believe in and/or want to support in particular.
CSA’s are a really great way to reduce fossil fuel use because your food doesn’t have to travel very far and you don’t have to go very far to pick it up! It’s also much easier to hold your farm accountable for paying farm workers fairly for their labor because they’re smaller and local, and you can leave for a different one if you don’t agree with something they are doing or saying.
We finished signing up for the one we’re trying this year a couple weeks ago. This one offered a payment plan—25% at sign-up, 25% on the first distribution day, and the remaining 50% to be paid as small payments at pick-up time each week. Over time, the cost of a CSA subscription is so much cheaper to the consumer than buying produce at the grocery store, similar to shopping at a farmer’s market. In turn, more of the money you pay ends up in farm workers’ pockets because it’s getting split among fewer people (and boards and CEOs and admin and managers, etc.). We’ve found that we end up eating more diversely in veggie types as well. Reduction in choice is sometimes a great thing!
I am pretty excited to have even more veggie scraps soon to save in the freezer for making veggie stocks. We might even be getting enough that I can just make drinking broths daily for in the morning when it’s colder as a gentle digestive alarm clock. I received a teeny tiny tabletop food dehydrator as a gift last growing season, so I think I’m going to try making dry veggie stock blends as well. I made “sun-dried” tomatoes in the dehydrator from some that I received from a family friend’s garden, and packed them in oil for the fridge. They turned out really well and I like adding them to “lazy quiches”.
A “lazy quiche” is what I make when we don’t want to/can’t leave the apartment for the grocery store. It’s 6 beaten eggs, whatever mix of cheese is in the fridge—at least ¼ cup once shredded, a dash of cream if we have it, salt, pepper, and whatever flavor-makers or frozen veggies are around. Whisk it all together and add it to a frozen pie shell. No frozen pie shell? It works as a kind of egg bake in a normal pan that’s been prepared with butter or oil to keep it from sticking, too. It’s nice warm, and it’s nice cold. Quiche was another mainstay of the older coffee shops in our old neighborhood. It’s a cheap, effective way of using up scraps from the prep of other dishes while still looking fancy.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about since I started experimenting with fermentation (of which there will be a great deal in a couple months with all that surplus produce around the apartment), is how important our individual microbiomes are and how disrupted they become here in America because of our absolutely bizarre food system. It is well-documented that a lot of people living in America have significantly less diverse gut flora than many of our global neighbors. I was intrigued by the studies on the relationship between mental health and gut health when they first came out. I don’t remember when that was exactly and I’m having a hard time finding a date or specific research paper online. Either way, I was a vegan at the time, and I felt validated about how I was experiencing the power of enough raw vegetables. As a generally depressed, anxious person, I can attest to being able to personally regulate myself, my mood, and my health much better when I have unfettered access to a consistent supply of fresh produce that takes up most of my plate/bowl.
I have a fantasy of saving up to get a modest scratch of land to start living off of like the youtubers Liziqi and Dianxi Xiaoge. I don’t think it is realistic because I have barely been on farms, and I don’t know much about growing plants outside of houseplants, container herbs, and simple tubers. It seems very rewarding to grow things yourself, dry them, ferment them, cook them, and share them, though. Maybe it's not everything I make it out to be. I’m doing my own smaller versions as I can. Who knows, maybe I’ll work my way there somehow?
Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you have a meal you like to look forward to today (or tomorrow). See you again soon.