Winter CSA

When we first moved to NY I was excited about the prospect of joining a CSA (community supported agriculture). The traditional farming season came and went and I was delighted to discover that we could also purchase a winter csa share. I jumped at the opportunity and we received an ample share of root veggies and beans (and sometimes greens) November all the way through February.

Abundantly Happy!

It was definitely a new way of eating and looking at food. We were dedicated to eating local, fresh food in the summer and fall, and it seemed easy and common sense to eat in season. However, the winter share really took our locavore ideals up a notch.

When I did meander into a grocery store for some staples it became very obvious that without our winter csa share most of our food would be coming in from California.

Eating according to our winter share highlighted that even though a particular vegetable might be in season, it does not necessarily mean it is local. For example, I knew that cabbage was a winter vegetable because it is able to be stored over the long cold months. Unfortunately, our farm lost many of our cabbages due to an early frost and when I went to buy one from our local co-op I saw that they were from California, thus another ethical dilemma. I try to make the best decisions for our family, our community and our planet, and I believe that as more awareness is raised about the importance of eating local and season it will become easier to do so.

Embarrassed to say, some of our veggies did end up in the compost for lack of preparedness and ingenuity. Our ideal is to embrace the Slow Food movement
but sometimes our life adopts a fast paced mindset and if the beans haven’t been soaked and the potatoes parboiled, then what’s for dinner? So we keep on trekking, pausing for a breath to revisit our values and match our actions to our ethics. In this case it means always being prepared and starting dinner sometimes days in advance, letting the basic ingredients work upon each other making every meal a creative adventure.

Farmers’ Market picks up in a few weeks and we will be able to get potatoes and some hardy greens and once again watch the harvest rise and celebrate with our community. It is these simple weeks, when a locavore has no idea what to eat that I find gratitude for the farmers and the food. I know it’s coming!

Next year we plan to a have a simple root cellar dug in the backyard so we can store some of the winter csa abundance for these in-between weeks. So if you see a woman hiding behind a scarf in the produce aisle looking distressed about buying greens from Cali, you’ll know it’s me.

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Tagged as: Community, csa, farms, food, locavore, organic farming, winter