The CSA: Week 1

It was sunny. Beautiful. And after a quick start at Queen City Bakery (next to Latitude 44 on 8th and Weber – amazing baked goods, beautiful building) it was starting to get exciting. This was it. Our adventure in freshness. Our experiment in vegetable variety.

Our journey through locally produce was about to begin.

I’ll explain.

From now until September 27th, Kerrie and I – in partnership with my mom – have purchased a full share of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) from Warner’s Produce in Madison, SD.

What this means is we are partners in a local farm. We help pay for crops, and we get a bag of fresh produce from that farm each week. We’ll walk down to the Farmer’s Market, grab our bag, and walk home. What produce we receive is dependent upon the season and what’s ready to harvest. It’s kind of a surprise. And that’s part of the fun.

Sure, it’s kind of weird to be so excited about this. But I am. I’m excited about vegetables. I’m excited about going down to the Farmers Market – no excuses, we have to go every week, rain or shine – and making a morning out of it. A stop by Queen City, a poke around the other booths, and just like that we’ve spent a great morning out and about the teeming masses of Obama supporters and aging hippies.

What will we do with the veggies we receive? What can we possibly make that puts something like kohlrabi to good use? Come to think of it, what the hell IS kohlrabi?

This week, we’ve got to find out. Our haul for week one of the CSA included:
Kohlrabi
Rhubarb
Green onions
Radishes
Lettuce
In addition, we also purchased spinach and asparagus.

Throughout the week, we’ll enjoy fresh vegetables – oftentimes vegetables that we’d never have purchased on their own. We’ll pour through cookbooks. We’ll conjure up recipes from the Internet. Check back next week to see what we’ve done. (See? It’s also a surefire way to get a blog post out on Saturdays!)

And for now? We’ll just bask in our resourcefulness and simply enjoy the scent of fresh vegetables.