CSA (Christ Supplies Amazingly? Christmas Surprises Amy? Oh, you mean Community Supported Agriculture!!)

I stood in my kitchen feeling a bit like I was drowning. Every inch of counter space was covered with fresh produce. It was beautiful and slightly dirty and I had no idea what I was going to do with it all. There were vegetables in the refrigerator from last week and probably some from the week before, slowly turning to mush. I could almost see the dollar signs and my family's good health wafting away as I opened the refrigerator door.

 We've been members of a farm co-op or CSA (community supported agriculture) off and on for over 7 years now. While I love to cook and we eat most of our meals at home, I think this kind of “alternative, locally based economic model of food distribution” (as Wikipedia says) can, and really should, be for everyone.

Yes, it can seem expensive and extravagant. Yes, it can be intimidating. And, yes, you could end up wasting some of it.

Expensive: Rod Dreher, in his book Crunchy Cons, says, "To appreciate how your food got to your table, to know how much we depend on the labor of others for our sustenance, is to begin to reestablish community, and even a kind of humility in the face of our radical dependence on each other. And that's worth something you cannot quantify on a balance sheet."

Joining a CSA will be financially costly up front. I average it into our grocery budget over time, subtracting $40 or so each week. Thus, by the end of the CSA we've come out even and will probably be ahead of the grocery game because there will be food that I've frozen for later.

If eating really well, introducing your family to new foods and flavors, supporting your local community and helping ensure small family farms survive for another generation is extravagant, then get ready to swim in your indulgence.

Intimidating: Looking at a bag of slightly unfamiliar vegetables that you've paid good money for can be daunting. Never cooked collard greens? Never seen a fresh black eyed pea? Never touched a baby Bok Choy? I've had to figure out what to do with Swiss chard and radish greens, kohlrabi and sunchokes and you can too! Your family will be better for it. My children sometimes complain about eating pinkish beet buns and they will ALWAYS wonder what I've secretly stuffed into their smoothies. But, they also take at least a bite of everything on their plates and will sweetly submit to huge salads for dinner (as long as there's meat, to a 16 year old boy it's not a real meal without meat).

 Wasteful: Though my goal is to consume, freeze or give away all the produce we receive each week, I admit that I'm rarely successful. I've been mad at myself for wasting perfectly good heads of romaine simply because they got buried somewhere under the organic carrots and the watermelon radishes. I've had to learn which vegetables will take happily to being stuffed raw into a Ziploc freezer bag and which need to be cooked first. I Google weird and exciting things all the time like “recipes using Mirliton” and “how do you shell Fava beans”.

I look at it as an adventure. A beautiful, organic, costly, frustrating, rewarding, delicious adventure.

We've been members of at least 4 of these wacky and wonderful CSAs and there have been 2 huge highlights. Maybe 3.

1. The food. You may be saying, “Duh.” But, let me be specific. If it had not been for CSAs, my family wouldn't love or even try Fried Collard Green Wontons, Greens with Cornbread Dumplings, Tomatillo Salsa, Arugula Pesto and Navy Beans with Ham.

 

The Delicious Fried Collard Green Wontons

2. Beverly. While living in Fort Worth, we joined a CSA called Locally Grown Good Stuff run almost entirely by a beautiful, blond, bright woman named Beverly. She had CSA members pick their share up in a private garden where she taught us that organic vegetables are probably going to be ugly, allowed me to sell homemade bread, had my kids selling fruit and CSA shares to customers, beat my kids at arm wrestling, dared Davis to eat a whole habanero pepper (he did, silly kid) and introduced us to goose eggs, real live goose eggs. She literally kept the food on our table during some rough patches and became a priceless, dear friend. I'm not saying every farmer who runs a CSA will become your friend. But, I hope they do. Oh, how I hope they do.

3. Lastly, supporting our local economy, feeding my family good stuff that brings us together around our table, and helping the earth too? It's just the right thing to do.

Once again, Rod Dreher, puts it beautifully when he writes, "It is a rare thing for Americans these days even to think about where their food comes from, but when you've seen the face of the woman who planted it, and shaken the hand of the man who harvested it, you become aware of the intimate human connection between you, the farmer, and the earth. To do so is to become aware of the radical giftedness of our lives."