What $30 Buys This Week

Inflation is at a 17-year high here in the United States. Grocery bills are through the roof. I can run up a $75 bill even going through the 15-and-less aisle somehow. Things that used to cost $2.49 have suddenly catapulted to $4.99. And so, to see this abundance in my CSA box yesterday for $30 filled me with enormous gratitude.

Here's what $30 buys this week:

* Farm-fresh, local, organic crops: a pile of sweet corn, a bunch of tomatoes at different stages of ripeness, a handful of potatoes, a few red onions, and three heirloom melons--the makings of at least two nights of dinners and a lunch, plus leftovers: tomato pie, vegan corn fritters, and melon smoothies

* The connections from hand-to-hand as the human chain passed the boxes from truck to ground

* Two hours worth of conversation. including the birth of an idea about a multi-town North Atlanta Sustainability Alliance

* The opportunity to share in wishing our farmer Charlotte's son a happy 2nd birthday

* Tips about what DEET-free bug spray actually works (thumbs up seems to go to a company called Ozark Herbals)

And no one even asked if we wanted paper or plastic with that.

P.S. For those who don't know--my friend Judy started this brand-new CSA drop for Charlotte by canvasing her neighbors and friends to see if they would be interested in participating. Judy had never been in a CSA before this. Now, she has enabled 53 families to share in this bounty each week. Kudos to Judy for pulling this off, and for inspiring others (like you?) to do the same in your neighborhoods.

Beats sticker-shock at the supermarket, I'll tell you that.

Just a Little Bit More Free

Yesterday, like most Wednesdays here, was a major local food day. First, it was CSA Day, and that meant the human chain of hands unloading Charlotte's boxes from the back of her white truck and a group of children playing with corn worms (perhaps to prepare themselves for the many that they would find in their deliciously sweet CSA-box corn. Those worms aren't stupid--it's the best corn in town!)

Then, we whisked to the farmers's market where we saw Corinna and Melissa and Jen and Makeba and a few new vendors and farmers as well--that woman selling the baba ghanoug and the pumpkin garlic hummus (delicious!), and Anne of Annie Okra's Barn from whom we got rattle snake beans and arugula, the hot, peppery taste of which I hadn't had in a month or two and which made me feel alive in a way few things can.

As dried beans soaked in a pot in my kitchen, onions from my garden sauteed, basil (which I now have growing in abundance) made its quick, magical journey to pesto, and two loaves of homemade bread rose, I ran out to Kroger for a couple things to "fill the holes." I zipped around the store, with brief stops at the several scattered organic sections, and thought for just a second about the latest food contamination issue in the United States (and no, the tomato thing has not yet been solved)--Kroger's beef recall this week (41 cases of E.Coli, 19 people hospitalized, one with kidney failure).

And I realized how incredibly free I have become since I became a vegetarian over a year ago, and since my family joined me (at least at home) several months ago:

* I completely skip the meat sections of stores.

* I barely glance at the news stories relating to this meat and that meat and what's good and bad, and I never have to ask that "is this sustainable?" question about which fish to eat.

* I am amazed that the typical American eats 200 pounds of meat a year--the size of a full-grown man--and am relieved to not be part of that.

* And, let's face it, I'm saving money--or at least keeping my food costs stable at a time when they are escalating.

And although my home does not yet have chickens frolicking in the garden, it is most definitely the Home of the Happy Chickens and Cows.

For anyone considering going veg or at least lightening up on the meat thing, I have this to report. It's really not that hard, especially if you are already eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies. And when you're out and about, finding vegetarian menu options is much, much easier than trying to find organic or local food (which continues to be the biggest challenge in eating close to home away from home).

And so, tomorrow, on Independence Day here in the United States, I will eat my veggie burger and my husked-and-cleaned Charlotte corn and enjoy feeling just a little bit more free.

Sex and the CSA

I'm blushing even as I write that headline. But write it I must, as will become clear to you shortly.

So yesterday I show up at Judy's new CSA drop, which, by the way, still has 56 members after a handful dropped out and some new ones started. A few folks are there already, and more come flying in the parking lot with each passing moment. Charlotte and her baby's arrival in the big white truck causes gleeful excitement, the boxes pass down the human chain of hands, much milling about occurs, much sharing of recipes and children playing together, and finally everyone disappears, their mutual experience still lingering in the air.

I'm driving home, the sweet, pungent smell of fermenting strawberries filling my minivan, and I swing suddenly into the parking lot of my very favorite chocolatier, Anne Stroer of Chamberlain's whom I haven't seen for awhile and whom I realize I will probably see every two weeks now as I go for my CSA box.

This particular day, I'm looking for a movie snack since I won't have time to get to Whole Foods to get the dark chocolate raisins that I specifically want for the occasion. My friend, a mother of four, and I have somehow, remarkably, worked out a date tonight to see Sex and the City, a show I liked for its sharp dialogue, if not for its superficial fixation on fashion, that is now a movie.

Anne, upon hearing what movie I'm going to see, immediately puts a dark chocolate stiletto heel on the counter, which I purchase as a surprise for my friend, plus some other little delectables for me, and the kids that I'll be leaving behind (whom I've told, by the way, that I'm going to see a movie called Friends and the City, which, according to my older daughter's shaking head, was pretty much my lamest attempt at being respectable yet).

Flash forward numerous hours later, work assignments complete, every ingredient in the CSA box "processed" (and photos with the new camera taken, a camera with which I'm still fumbling like a new lover), sweaty bike ride to and from camp over, dinner served and shared.

And there I am, at the movie theater, waiting for my friend, who is late, four children scattered around her house and a husband cleaning up the barbecued ribs. Yet, at precisely 6:15, every other set of friends is meeting, all women, all between the ages of let's say 25 and 50. They are milling about, hugging, chatting, laughing. If Charlotte had pulled up now, they would have formed the same human chain, and passed the boxes from hand to hand.

Instead, as the lights dim and the movie starts, my friend breathing the first sigh of relaxation after a long day, Carrie and Samantha and Miranda and a very different Charlotte than the one from the back of the truck strut across the screen. Suddenly, this packed theater of women put their hands together, spontaneously, and applaud.

And I do, too. Not for the movie. For us.

An Interconnected Tribe

It sways out there in the late-Spring breezes, the rye cover crop I planted last fall, adding height and beauty and interest to my garden. Surrounding a sandy pit that serves as a place for kids to dig makes it look almost like a beach dune, warming the soul of this now land-locked former beach girl.

Rye, the cereal (not the grass), is grown mostly for forage and as a cover crop. A member of the wheat "tribe," it is the main bread cereal (used to make rye and pumpernickel breads) in Russia, Poland, Germany, Belarus and the Ukraine. As a cover crop, its deep roots loosen soil, draw nutrients from the soil and prevent weeds.

I think it is stunningly beautiful, especially when the late afternoon sun streams through the long golden strands that surround its kernels. I find myself out there in the garden staring at the kernels, endlessly intrigued by the way they interlap and support each other and fit together like a perfect puzzle.

A tribe. A member of the wheat tribe. This term comes to mind immediately when I hear from my friend Judy about the second week of her new Charlotte CSA drop, which currently includes 65 families. This week, a handful of moms stood there in a line as a human chain, like the kernels of this rye floret, and handed the boxes off to each other, from the back of the truck to their temporary storage spot from which all the other moms would come and take them home to nourish their families.

We are a tribe, an interconnected tribe of humans. We are the rye that digs our roots deep in the soil. We are the seeds that lean on each other and team with energy that can move soil or boxes or mountains.

Yet, already, after only two weeks, Judy says that although all of the CSA participants have been very gracious and thankful to both Judy and Charlotte, the inevitable complaining from a small faction has started. "Too many greens in the boxes." "I found a snail and I want to cancel." "I don't know how to cook this stuff." "Where are the tomatoes?" And already, the kernels are blowing off in the wind, leaving a smaller seed spikelet to withstand the elements.

And so, for those of you just starting in CSAs, I offer a couple of suggestions to help you stand strong in your commitment to supporting local farmers and eating fresh, healthy local food:

1. If your CSA has a newsletter, ask for copies of last year's issues so that you can anticipate the order in which crops will be coming if you are not aware of seasonality in your locale. Or just let go and ride it out, seeing it as an adventure, even when the unknown makes you a bit uncomfortable.

2. On the day you receive your CSA box, plan to process the contents (should take about two hours total). That means, wash, chop and sautee greens, wash and prepare a big bowl of salad, wash and chop anything else that can stay in the refrigerator a few days, consume anything else that looks very perishable that night for dinner, blanch and freeze anything that you have in abundance that you don't think you are going to consume in the next three days.

Put on some music, open the window, sing out loud and rejoice in this meditative action that fulfills your good intention toward your family and the earth. When I take the time to do this, I find that nothing goes to waste and adding these farm-fresh ingredients to meals is easy. (Plus, Wednesday afternoons have become one of my favorite times of the week.)

3. When in doubt, chop it in the food processor and add it to muffins (I do this regularly with kale, collards and Swiss chard). Add (organic dark) chocolate chips and the kids will eat it. Also, never underestimate the power of olive oil and sea salt to transform dishes into delicacies.

Stand firm. Hold tight. Work together. And work through the discomfort that is a natural byproduct of doing something a little bit differently. Sway in the gentle breeze of change and let the beauty of a new day, and a new way of eating, shine through you.

One Local Pizza

Okay, so it's not entirely local. The tomatoes are from my sister foodshed, Florida, and they're not even organic, but I bought them from a little vegetable stand that is walking distance from my house but has absolutely nothing local or organic. The oregano is from my garden, and that's about it. But I served it with a side of magenta lamb's quarters, a cultivated variety that Corinna sold at the farmers market last week (see sidebar for photo). And frankly, that's how local I can get right now.

Now, I have gotten used to this at other times of the year, but now, in May, in a zone 8 area where having a four-season garden or farm is completely possible, I can't understand why I still have to search so far and wide for some basic fresh local produce.

Turns out that Georgia is rock bottom in the United States on farmers markets per capita (I read that fun fact this weekend). Whole Foods two days ago had next-to-nothing in the produce department from Georgia, and just a few things from the region, hardly any of which was organic. Atlanta is a booming, sprawling metropolitan area, and as far as I know, participating in Charlotte's CSA, as a few hundred families now do in a city of millions, is pretty much the only game in town if you want consistent, abundant, high-quality local organic produce and you don't want to drive to Morningside Farmers Market (which is not around the block for me).

* Serenbe Farms has a CSA with pickups on the farm only, a solid 40 minutes south of the city.

* Gaia Gardens distributes to members of its intentional community and sells at Morningside.

* I hear TaylOrganics has a CSA where half-shares are $20 a week (whereas Charlotte's full shares are $25 a week in spring and fall and $30 in summer). According to the Urban Ecology Center, the typical cost of a CSA share averages from $20-25 a week. How much do you pay for your CSA share?

* Full Moon supplies Farm 255 and has a CSA on-farm in Athens, an hour and a half away. I wrote to Jason Mann on Full Moon/Farm 255 and asked if there was a chance that they would consider coming back to Atlanta (Full Moon was the first CSA in which I participated 6years ago). "Not a chance," he replied. With gas prices what they are, and enough demand in Athens, who would blame him?

And so I keep planting more things and hoping this might be the year where I can rely less on the farmers and more on my food garden. An every-other-week box from Charlotte, perhaps, and alternating weeks with Corinna, Melissa and Chad at the tiny farmers market (I just listed all the farmers there) nearby. How many farmers are at your local farmers market?

One Local Summer was a thing last year where bloggers posted about their local meals each week. I know Liz from Pocket Farm, the woman who started it, is not even blogging anymore, but I'm guessing some other blogger will pick up the ball and run on this. For me, however, I'll be featuring One Local Pizza in my sidebar with some semblance of regularity, as a barometer of local abundance here in my kitchen.

I pulled up the first of the potatoes yesterday (and what is more fun that that?!) and shared some with the children of Open Garden (which made me feel like the Pied Piper with my willow basket marching around the block delivering potatoes). My collards look beautiful, my onions are fattening up (I've already used a few), the herbs are everywhere, the blackberries are just starting to turn, and new green tomatoes appear almost daily, plus many other things are happening out there. Plus, I know at least a dozen families who didn't have food gardens last year who have them now, neighbors and friends of mine who may have something to share or trade with me down the dusty road ahead.

So there's hope (there's always hope) for some very special One Local Pizzas during our long, sure-to-be-hot summer.

The $64 Question

I'm limiting my gas to $35 a week. I canceled the lawn guy. I gave up paper napkins and plastic cups and water bottles. Yes, to help the environment, but let's face it, with the way the economy is going, to save money, too, or at least not raise total expenditures. Because, in all honesty, if you're in touch with your food, there's no denying that food prices are going up, up, up. In fact, this year is the first year in something like the last ten that sales of organic food are showing declines instead of increases, not because folks don't continue to value organics over pesticide-grown or GMO foods but because they are trying to find ways to cut back on their bills. Hell, when I rode my bike to Kroger the other day and bought only enough that I could carry in my not-large panniers, it cost me almost a hundred bucks.

And so, when Charlotte's email came last week offering flats of her delicious organic strawberries, I sat there and debated. The strawberries are here now, and then they will be gone. If I buy a flat, I get my hands on a good supply, since I can hardly ever find organic strawberries at the supermarket (and strawberries are one of those things of which I really only want the organic version).

But $36 a flat? And how big is a flat anyway?

My friend Judy emailed me to see if I could pick up a flat for her, too, if I decided to get one. Okay, now, if I ordered two flats, the price dropped to $32 a flat. I would freeze them. Judy wanted to make jam. So we ordered.

The delivery was set for last Thursday, to Parsley's Catering, the same drop for our weekly CSA from Charlotte (which starts at the vague "end of May"). Charlotte usually arrives arround 10:30 AM, so I started calling Parsley's at about 11:30, and then each hour after that until I had to to leave for school and life beyond my home. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. No Charlotte. I called Judy and asked her the $64 question, "Are these strawberries really worth it?"

I was ready to cancel. But how do you cancel with a farmer who has picked her crop fresh for you, and is currently in transit to deliver it to you? You don't. But how do you turn your day upside down in order to acquire these delicacies? You just do. And that is definitely the challenge with buying local from a farmer you know in a city filled with traffic and a life filled with commitments. Judy has started a brand new CSA drop with Charlotte, which involves 64 families and has already resulted in a payment of mega-thousands of dollars to Charlotte. Managing expectations and encouraging folks to be flexible is going to be Judy's biggest challenge, I think. And mine, even after 6 years of this kind of challenging meet-up-with-the-farmer thing.

It was 6 PM before the strawberries and I connected. The strawberries were loose in the flat and frankly, although strikingly beautiful with a fragrance that permeated the car, the total number of strawberries was definitely less than I expected.

I made a quick phone call to Judy to let her know "the eagle had landed," and then Judy, who doesn't live around the block, came over in the rain, in the dark, for her flat.

She stood there and looked at it.

"That's it?" she exclaimed, which made me feel, at least, like I wasn't greedy and unrealistic.

I called Marc at Parsley's the next day, since he had ordered a flat, too.

"Was it what you expected?" I asked him, and he said yes, that a flat is 12 pints for about $3-$3.50 a pint, and he thought Charlotte's delivery was right on target. What's more, he said the pros at Parsley's did a quick taste test comparing Charlotte's strawberries, strawberries from another local organic farm, and non-organic strawberries from the supermarket and he said Charlotte's strawberries blew the other ones away.

Taste. I forgot about taste. We barreled through half the strawberries in no time at all, and the rest are in the freezer, precious strawberries that will be doled out like jewels.

I packed some for lunch and told the kids, "Cherish these." They know they cost almost a week's worth of gas. They know I spent an entire day trying to track them down, and then drove out of my way to pick them up. They know I stood there at the sink late at night washing them and laying them flat on a cookie tray to freeze them. They know that Charlotte grew them with care and intention. They know they matter.

Was it worth it? Well, if these are the last organic strawberries I eat this year, at least I know I had the best.

Stymied by Fear (or What Happened with the Wattle Seeds)--UPDATED!

I keep putting it off, cooking with the amazing array of Australian Outback bush spices, grown by traditional Aboriginal communities and distributed by a company named Outback Pride, that Kate sent me over a month ago. They are unfamiliar to me--the kutjera powder, the ground mountain pepper, the saltbush, the ground roasted wattle seeds. And it's not like I'm not excited about experimenting with them. I just keep putting it off.

I think I'm sort of scared. No matter how small a risk it is to try something new, it's still a risk, and it takes time and a willingness to get things wrong. And I'm reminded of when I talk with folks about getting CSA deliveries of farm-fresh crops, sight unseen, and many of them are, at the root of things, a bit frightened. Not sure what to do with all those greens. Concerned whether or not they'll like what they get. Afraid they'll end up having to go to the supermarket anyway and then, what was the effort worth?

I sat there on the garage floor (which I had to clean yesterday so that my cute little new lawn mower would have a convenient place in my too-small garage) and as I whipped through the minor assembly instructions of the mower, I thought about why I hadn't done this before. How I was sort of scared that the lawn would look bad if I did it myself, that I wouldn't have the time, that it would get too hot out there.

My goodness, this fear theory pretty much applies to lots of things. Afraid the recycled toilet paper will be scratchy. Afraid that if I get my car retrofitted to use vegetable oil, it will somehow blow up. Afraid that if I get solar panels installed, my roof will collapse. Afraid that if I stop and really think for longer than two minutes about all the things in my house that off-gas toxicities, I won't be able to breathe.

"What do we need to do about the house?" my husband asked. "Start over from the ground up?"

"Could we?" I answered, sort of facetiously, sort of not.

Fear is not a bad thing. It begs research, and it begs experimentation. It begs a willingness to try. A willingness to fail. A willingness to try again, differently. But fear is a paralyzer, even the little, teeny, tiny bit of fear that keeps me from putting a half-teaspoon of ground wattleseeds in my muffin batter.

As Martin Luther King, who was assassinated 40 years ago yesterday (and has now been deceased longer than he lived), said:

“Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyzes us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it.”

What is it you're a bit afraid of that, really, is the thing that keeps you from making certain eco-changes? Taking the bus instead of driving and not getting to work on time? Installing a rain barrel and getting mosquitoes in it, or starting a compost pile and getting rodents? Buying a cleaning product that just doesn't work, or a food that your family just doesn't like? There are ways around all these little fears. But the biggest fear, of course, is that you may simply have to change your entire life, because, yes, it's true, one change begets another on the slippery slope of eco-awareness. And frankly, this fear is valid, because when I look back at the last six years or so (when I first met Farmer D), my life has completely changed.

Listen, I'm just a mom in surburbia. I drive an eight-year-old minivan. I check that homework gets done. I try to find something clean to wear to client meetings. I watch American Idol. I'm just trying to figure this all out, what happened during the 44 years of my life to our food supply and our planet, and trying to see what I can do to make a difference, at least in the way my children see the world and perhaps in the decisions they will make about how they live on this earth.

And I'm trying to share what I learn so that perhaps I can save some of you some time researching these things or figuring out jargon or cutting to the chase about what we're being told by corporations, or the government, or the folks on our left and right. I'm just trying to make sense of it all. And the one thing that I see, clear as day, is that fear is our enemy. Fear of doing something different. Fear of wasting time or money. Fear, sometimes, even of knowledge.

And so, no matter how small a gesture this may seem to you, I am taking this next week (Spring Break here in Atlanta) off from blogging. And I am facing my fears. I am cooking with Australian bush spices. I am evaluating every aspect of my daily life and seeing where I am stuck in "old-think," where I am stymied by fear. And I am opening myself to the next stage of this journey I share with you on our FoodShed Planet.

Please enjoy some of my previous posts, or links to the amazing fellow-bloggers I've somehow befriended.

A little story:

I have seeds sitting on the counter to mail and my older daughter said, "Who is this for?"

I answered, "My friend in Delaware,"

She said, "You don't have a friend in Delaware."

I replied, "Yes, I do. Christy. The lady to whom I sent the jalapenos last summer."

And she remembered. I threw her off, I think, because I didn't say my "blogger friend." Because, I guess, I no longer differentiate that way.

I send my heirloom organic seeds from food that fed my family to people I've never met and get Aboriginal spices from a previous stranger halfway around the world. All because one day six years ago I stopped and talked to Farmer D. And wasn't afraid to listen.

And so, off I go. See you next Sunday, perhaps as a changed person.

UPDATE: April 8, 2008

And speaking of Farmer D, here's the brand new Farmer D/Whole Foods video that's running on the Whole Foods website! Don't you see what I mean about his peaceful aura? I can't wait to go to Whole Foods this week and actually see (and buy) the Farmer D Organics Organic Biodynamic Compost! Just in time for my summer seeds and transplants (I hear Melissa has organic tomato plants at the farmers market this week).

As I Kicked Off My Flip Flops

Look at that. Look at that! Is that not a feast for December eyes? This is what came in my CSA bag yesterday (the last one until next May). It was so heavy that, out of curiosity, I came right home and weighed it. Fourteen pounds. Cost me 25 bucks. That averages out to $1.78 per pound, for fresh, local, organic, seasonal food. And folks say eating this way is unaffordable?

I left this basket on my kitchen table all day yesterday, like a still life, and I tell ya', no red and green display of holiday lore could have made me happier. Or so I thought.

But then, last night we got our Christmas tree (and it is the first time in my life that I got a Christmas tree while wearing flip flops, I might add), and no, we didn't chop down a Leyland Cypress at a local tree farm this year (as we have the past two years). But as we were driving home with our Douglas Fir, no doubt from clear across the country in Oregon (where 80% of all U.S. Christmas trees originate), my kids reminded me of how we also cut down a little Charlie Brown tree the last two years, really nothing more than a tiny shoot with a few tufts of needles, and frankly, that they missed it this year.

And so you know, of course, what we did next. We pulled over at the first site of scrub brush on the side of the road. By the power lines. Where we had found the wild blackberries and morning glories during our two-part harmony walks to camp this past summer. And we spread out among the little tiny saplings until we found the one that "talked to us." And we pulled it up by its roots and brought it home and planted it in a pot and sat it on a coffee table in the living room.

While I was stringing lights on the big tree, my kids disappeared. They returned about twenty minutes later, with a song they had written, and they performed it for me. My older daughter was the Big Tree. My younger one was the Little Tree. The words went like this:

(Little Tree)

I am just a little tree
Some even call me scrawny
I might be small
But that ain't all
I got spirit

(Big Tree)

Back in my prestigious land
Where all the best decor is planned
I am the true heir
To the best holiday lair
I got more than you

It goes on and on, with the trees arguing back and forth until they finally work together, in the spirit of Christmas.

As I kicked off my flip flops, chomped on an apple from the CSA box and basked in the glow of the Christmas lights, I had to agree. It all somehow works together. In the spirit of Christmas.

All Roads Lead to Pliny--UPDATED!

So I found this monster of a turnip on the bottom of my CSA bag this week. Yes, that is a soccer ball next to it--I wanted you to truly appreciate its size.

I went to do some research on turnips this morning (an endlessly thrilling life I lead) and ended up, once again, on a page that made reference to a certain Pliny the Elder.

He has come up before, this Pliny. In fact, all roads seem to lead to Pliny, sooner or later. And today, I said, "Enough! I will learn about Pliny!"

Turns out Pliny the Elder (not be confused with Pliny the Younger, who is actually the senior Pliny's nephew, not son) was a Roman naturalist who lived from the years 25 to 79. He wrote many books, but the only series that has survived is his Naturalis Historia, which consists of 37 separate books that cover topics from geography to human physiology, pharmacology to mineralology, and many other "ologies" in between. For the record, Pliny believed the turnip was one of the most important vegetables of the times because its utility surpasses all others.

So I got curious about Pliny and searched for some famous Pliny quotes. I offer these to you as an early holiday gift. Impress friends and strangers alike at all those parties this holiday season with some dashing comments from our friend Pliny. Can't you just see what a hit it will make you around the buffet table to say, "As Pliny the Elder so aptly put it, many dishes bring many diseases." Hmmm. Maybe we'll skip that one. But try these:

* As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.
* Hope is the pillar that holds up the world.

* Hope is the dream of a waking man.

* Let that which is wanting in income be supplied by economy.

* Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.

* Human nature is fond of novelty.

* It has passed into a proverb, that wisdom is overshadowed by wine.

* It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.

* From the end spring new beginnings.

* The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

* The best plan is to profit by the folly of others.

* There is always something new out of Africa.

And, finally, that real crowd-pleaser:

* When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.

If you see the mice leaving, grab a plate of goodies and hightail it out of there.

UPDATE! (Later the same day)
Heard from Christy and she has tipped me off that this thing pictured above is a rutabaga, not a turnip (although, apparently, a rutabaga is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip). I found a fabulously interesting (again, I need to get out more) write-up about rutabagas that should really hit home with our FoodShed Planet readers in Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Wales and eastern Canada.

Sharing the Bounty

It hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. I am not alone. I am not a crazy woman out in the yard with my kale seedlings, believing in something different from the rest of the world. I am connected. To history. To diverse cultures. To Australia and Germany and Michigan and Idaho and now, it seems, some new friends in Alaska (welcome!). And to every family everywhere that picks up a box of crops from a farmer, with nothing to regulate their relationship except a few dollars and trust.

When I came upon this pile of CSA boxes waiting to be recycled at the Oakhurst Community Garden the other day, I just stood there and looked at it for what seemed ages. Behind every one of those boxes is a person who left his or her job or home at a set time on a set day to pick up a box of crops unknown, and then brought them home to be part of his or her family's life. Each person worked his or her own culinary magic to include this bounty or asked a friend or neighbor, perhaps another box recipient, for advice. And each person sat down with thanks to the same farmer on the same piece of land in the same northwest corner of Georgia.

As I drove home last night in the dark, the cloudy, rainy sky of the past few days suddenly clearing to reveal a brilliant full moon, I thought of those boxes that I share locally, and then I thought of that moon that I share globally. How today farmers all over the world are taking advantage of the moon's gravitational pull and harvesting crops surging with nutrients. And sharing their bounty with each other. And proving, once again, that no, those of us committed to eating close to home around the world are not alone.

And My Life Changed. Poof. Like That.

It was an innocent day. He was standing next to baskets of innocent peppers, albeit purple, and tomatoes, albeit heirloom, and cucumbers, albeit round and yellow. We had an innocent conversation. And my life changed. Poof. Like that.

Since that innocent day when I first met Farmer D, I have participated in CSAs for five years (CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it's when folks pay a farmer directly, up front, for a share of that year's crops, which they then pick up in a pre-packaged box every week from a designated central location).

The first year, I got my crops from Full Moon Farm, an organic research farm affiliated with a professor from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia about an hour away. The crops were delivered to a community center near me. Picking up the crops was a highly social event, with the farmers there to chat and other CSA members lingering for awhile. Fun.

The second year, Full Moon Farm delivered CSA shares to centralized CSA member porches, each serving about ten members. That whole summer, I never saw another member, including the one whose porch hosted the crops in big coolers so the Atlanta heat wouldn't completely wilt them. Not as fun.

The third year, Full Moon limited distribution to Athens because they were also starting a restaurant, Farm 255, that would rely on the fresh produce from the farm. Concurrently, Farmer D started Serenbe Farms at the absolutely gorgeous community, Serenbe, about an hour south of Atlanta. He now had a stand at the farmers market, so I picked up my Serenbe Farms CSA box every week there. Serenbe did a great job, but their soil was not so great yet and it definitely showed in the crop yields. That's when I met Charlotte, munching away on her sweet, raw corn at the next booth at the market. Charlotte had a CSA also and her boxes were always bulging with abundance. I started coveting her boxes. Not so good.

Year Four, as destiny would have it, Farmer D moved to Hampton Island Preserve to start a new farm, Serenbe limited CSA box distribution to on-the-farm only, and I moved over to Charlotte's Riverview Farms CSA. Charlotte and her husband Wes own the largest certified organic farm in Georgia. It is on fertile Cherokee Indian soil, nestled on the banks of the Coosawatee River in North Georgia. Her crops are diverse and gorgeous, week after week. She also sells grass-fed beef and pastured kuributo pork. Charlotte no longer had a booth at my market but left her boxes with Chad the Milkman. Which is how I met him and started buying milk from Chad. All good.

So this year, I'm still with Charlotte (the photo above is what I received in yesterday's box, all for $25) but she's dropping her boxes at Parsley's Catering. Which is how I met Mark. Who went to camp with Farmer D when they were kids. Which only proves, once again, that it is all a circle, and we are all connnected. And it all works out in the end.

To find a CSA near you, go to www.localharvest.org. Or ask around. You may be surprised to find out who you know who's actually in-the-know on this rapidly-growing way to connect with local, organic food and help support family farmers.

When Their Eyes Turn White, They're Ready--Updated!

Ran into one of my local farmers yesterday when an extra CSA box became available (the CSA to which I belong doesn't start until May) and the thought of fresh kale, turnips, braising greens, eggs, and more had me over there in minutes. As the other box recipients and I leaned over the farmer's truck in the parking lot in the shadow of a mall, as if we were doing a drug deal, she asked us what we thought about her possible plans to farm tilapia in water holding tanks in her new hoop house. She shared the statistics--how fast fingerling tilapia (as if they are potatoes) grow, how many she can grow, how they would only be available "on the fin," which means on ice with head and tail and innards. How she would give a filleting class. How wouldn't that be great, and yes, the other two people nodded and prodded her on. But I wasn't quite with her. I think she identified my discomfort as merely not wanting to fillet the fish.

"It's easy," she said. "And then you just cook 'em. When their eyes are white, they're ready."

It nagged at me all day. Hundreds of tilapia in a tank in a hoop house, their whole short lives, their entire reason for being to simply end up on ice, to be cooked until their eyes turn white.

I talked about it at dinner, all those wonderful greens sauteed and the turnips baked with salt and pepper and some newly sprouted herbs from my garden, along with chicken legs from Gum Creek Farm.

And then it hit me. This is not the way fish live, or are supposed to live. They are not a crop. But why, then, do I eat tilapia from the supermarket--is it simply because farmed tilapia is on the "okay to eat" list from Oceans Alive and I've excused myself from any further thinking about it?

Wouldn't this farmer's tilapia be better than that, since I know the farmer and I know she would do whatever she can to be as environmentally sound as possible?

Or is there a bigger truth I have to face--that by eating local and knowing the source of my food, I now face some ethical decisions that I can no longer escape?

Is tilapia now off my list of things I feel comfortable eating? What about wild salmon? Are fish that have had a chance to express their "fishness" ethically okay to eat?

What about the chicken? The chicken ran around, scratched and ate the food of its choice, and died a humane death. Is there such a thing? Am I drifting toward vegetarianism?

What do you think about farmed fish? Help me with this.

UPDATE: March 12, 2007--What Nina Says

Okay, so I had to see what Nina Planck says on this topic. Nina Planck is the greenmarket guru who wrote the book, Real Food, which I read and loved and which basically aligns with my philosophy that if you eat real, whole food, grown the way nature intended, you're making the best decisions for your body. Now, I didn't find anything Nina said about the ethics involving eating animals, but here's what she says nutrition-wise (in reaction to what the ubiquitous Michael Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine recently):

There's one kind of 'meat' it's almost impossible to live without: fish. Pollan explains neatly how omega-6 and omega-3 fats work and where they come from. Essentially, you get omega-3 fats from fish and omega-6 fats from plants. The body needs both. But they must be in balance. A major cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in the US today is the excess of omega-6 fats from industrial grains and seeds suchs as corn, soy bean, safflower, and sunflower oils. So in addition to adding omega-3 fats to your diet, it's a good idea to limit omega-6 fats. I realize this is the very nutritionism Pollan decries, but it's difficult to discuss food without discussing its nutrients.

As it happens, I don't live by nutritionist thinking on a daily basis. I don't count calories, fat grams, or anything else in my diet. The easiest way to limit omega-6 fats is to avoid all the yellow industrial oils, such as corn and soy. Most are refined anyway. If you eat olive oil, you will get all the omega-6 fats you need.

Doesn't Pollan say you can get omega-3 fats from plants, too? Yes - in theory. But not the most important omega-3 fats, the so-called long-chain, polyunsatured fats DHA and EPA. Your brain must have these fats. (This is known as an 'absolute' not 'conditional' need.) They're found only in fish (and in small quantities in grass-fed meat, milk, and egg yolks). Hence one of the dangers of a vegetarian diet: omega-3 deficiency. In theory, your body can make DHA and EPA from other omega-3 fats found in walnuts and flax seed oil, but in metabolic terms, that conversion is what the biologists call 'costly and uncertain.' It is much, much wiser to eat fish. If mercury is a concern, remember these rules of thumb:

The smaller the fish, the better. Mercury, like other toxins, concentrates as it climbs the food chain. Sardines are better than shark or swordfish.
Herbivorous fish, for the same reason, have less mercury than carnivores because they don't eat other small fish containing mercury. That means tilapia, catfish, freshwater trout.
Quality fish oil capsules, or cod liver oil, are good ways to get omega-3 fats.

If you're pregnant, nursing, or at risk of heart disease, it's vitally important to eat fish. In my view, the risk of omega-3 deficiency is greater than that of mercury poisoning. (Do make sure any vaccines your kids get don't contain mercury (thimerosal) and consider having all your mercury-containing fillings removed.)
I eat wild Alaskan salmon, canned and frozen, which I love. I also take cod liver oil, which I don't. But it's a fabulous source of EPA and DHA, plus vitamins A and D. I do recommend it for pregnant and nursing women.

To find out more about Nina, go to www.ninaplanck.com

Ebb and Flow

Glorious, glorious fall begins to cast long shadows as brilliant blue skies and welcome, long-missed breezes replace the stifling heat of another Atlanta summer. Frilly green tops of carrots, covered with swallowtail caterpillars, and sweet potato vines full of flowers shout out the bounty that lies beneath the ground just outside my kitchen door.

Charlotte's CSA farm boxes continue to overflow with butternut squashes and I discover more ways to use them each week--a butternut squash, carrot and fennel soup; fluffy butternut squash muffins; a butternut squash puree that literally silences my children, a look of deep joy on their faces. We cut and cook and season the squashes and talk about how we'll serve it on Thanksgiving. And, in doing so, we cherish it.

When you eat local, you overload on each crop as it comes in, and you can barely imagine its abundance ever dwindling. Yet, this week the basil has turned from fragrant to woody and bitter and so another basil season ends, little ice cubes of pesto safely stored away for winter. The tomatoes are trickling in, one at a time, days of nothing in between, and each tomato somehow tastes as if it might be the last. No scraps are wasted. At the same time, the leafy greens have returned, and every meal, once again, includes a salad.

There's an ebb and flow to eating local, a wave to ride, and somehow I believe that our bodies get different combinations of nutrients at different times of the year for specific reasons that we don't yet quite understand. And I trust that.