Farm Fresh

3 Miler maintenance run this week, did it, it was fine, not much to report on that front....

Hard to read, bad picture. Our CSA* haul for the week

I have always loved fresh food. Packaged food is convenient yes but it rarely if ever fills you up, is nutritionally abysmal and just doesn't taste as good. I also love to cook and try new things so a CSA* seemed like a perfect fit for my family.
For some back ground, Cindy took me with her to pick up her parents CSA share once when we were hanging out while she was on summer vacation, though she swears she has no idea what I'm talking about. I was immediately kind of obsessed with it. The veggies looked divine and it was a lot of fun tromping through a farm field picking beans. I harassed her for the info and she sent it to me. The shares for that year had already been sold so I bookmarked the website, promising to remember to sign up in the fall and promptly forgot about it for about two years. Towards the end of that two years I discovered the Fulton Street Farmers Market. Holy crap, I was in heaven. This place had/has stall after stall of fresh veggies, fruits, breads, cupcakes, etc with the nicest people ever! .....Save for a rather awkward encounter with a free-range chicken farmer but we'll save that for another day. Two years later, I still drag my tired butt out of bed every Saturday morning at 6:45am (MB is awake anyway) to get my little family up and ready to be at the market by 8 to avoid the worst of the crowds in rain, shine or snow to get our produce for the week. Yes I said snow, I'm that into it.

To swing this rambling story around, one week at FFM, I saw the Trillium Haven Farm stall and remembered it was the farm I had visited with Cindy. OF COURSE their shares were sold out for the year already but I was determined to get one next year. Well, next year they opened a restaurant and halted the CSA program for a year ARG! So this year, Finally!! My mom and I went in on a half share and it has been great! I've started eating things like Kohlrabi, garlic scapes and green garlic, three things I had never even heard of a year ago let alone eaten.

While not the greatest picture, you can see the over abundance of veggies we get every other week.  (Sorry. Bad lighting, trying to do it fast with a niece and nephew grabbing on to me) My market bag was overflowing with yumminess. Seriously, like overflowing. It had to weight 20 lbs and stuff kept falling out while I walked to the car. Beets, kohlrabi, two kinds of cabbage, carrots, turnips, radishes, lettuce, spicy greens, broccoli, kale, Swiss chard and I'm sure some other veggies I'm forgetting.  This is a typical haul for the week. The value in this program is phenomenal. If I were to buy each of these items at the FM individually it would easily be about as much as I paid for the whole season through Trillium. Not because it's expensive because there's so much of it!

So long, weird story aside, I encourage everyone to try to buy and eat local! Almost every city has a farmers market somewhere these days. Our immediate area has 4 that I can think of off the the top of my head. Buying straight from the farmers is the way to go. Everything tastes a whole heck of a lot better then any of that "produce" you get from Walmart . I swear farm fresh lettuce changed my life. And it's just fun! I love that my daughter gets to see where her food is coming from at an early age. It's a great thing to do as a family after a long week of work and daycare. We started small, getting a couple things here and there the first couple years and have slowly increased our market hauls. Try it, I promise you will not be disappointed!

Send your spare good thoughts to me this weekend, this week I'm tackling an 8 miler! I'll share how that went next week. Keep cool and eat local my friends! :) 

*What's a CSA you ask? It is Community Supported Agriculture. A lot of farms around this area (and I'm assuming nationwide) have them. You pay for a half or full "Share" of the farm and in return get a predetermined amount a produce. In my case it's every other week plus you-pick-it on the farm.