Bridging the gap between farm and table

Just finished this quick read about Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSAs) in the New York Times. The article, titled Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy a Slice of Farms, takes a look at the growing trend of people finding more direct relationships with their foods and farmers.

In early spring, I joined a CSA run by a farm based in Winters, California- about an hour and a half from where I live. Before joining, I'd "borrowed" my sisters farm box when she was away on vacation, just to try out the system.

I like it, but there is something overwhelming about being confronted with a large quantity of similar foods every week. For instance, at first, I was totally pumped about receiving a pound of zucchini and a pound of summer squash each week. I made summer vegetable latkes, grilled them, made my own veggie burgers, and more. But I'm running out of recipes. This is hardly an insurmountable obstacle, but it does require a slight rethinking about how to find recipes. I'm now more interested in the spate of farmers' market cookbooks that have come out in the last few years, those that offer many ideas for each produce type.

Really, I think this is going to take a concerted effort on my part to create my own personal seasonal cookbook. Which is an idea I really like. But liking and doing...well you know how that goes.

Setting organic priorities

I just finished reading this New York Times article about easy ways to go organic. For a long time, I kept a beat-up old photocopy of a chart showing which fruits and vegetables had the most pesticides, but it got lost in the move, and was from 1993 anyway. But it was really useful in considering which produce I should always buy organic (for instance, I now only buy organic or pesticide-free strawberries).

So this article offers a short and sweet summary of five foods that you should always buy organic. The list is milk, potatoes, peanut butter, ketchup, and apples. The only one of those I would have guessed is milk, so this article will certainly impact the way I shop.