Let me e’splain.

I get all worked up over finding new ways to cook vegetables, or really, any other food bits that I’m willing to eat.  (Which leaves out many forms of meat.)  And about a month ago, I coordinated a CSA program that operates right out of my own back yard.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  In a CSA, people basically “join” a locally-owned farm, pay a weekly, monthly, or seasonal stipend, and are allocated a box of organically grown, locally-produced, just-picked-that-day gorgeous vegetables.  It’s a terrific way to support local farms, to avoid the burning of fossil fuels to transport fruits and veggies from far far away, and to eat organically.  I’ve always been a wanna be “locavore” and a CSA allows me, at the very least, to only eat vegetables that were grown within a certain number of miles.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Strangely, though, there are no CSA programs in Napa.  All the land here is covered with grapevines or olive trees- or is wild and protected open space.  There are small farms, but none large enough to support a CSA.

So I did some research in the surrounding communities, and found a terrific farm in Sonoma county.  But it’s an hour and a half away, and the idea of driving three hours a week is not only impossible, given my schedule, but also sorta against the whole no-fossil-fuel burning thing.  I realize Sonoma is a lot closer than, say, Chile, where most veggies are coming from this time of year, but still.

So I contacted the farm, and suggested they consider delivering in Napa, if, say, I could cobble together a few folks to participate.  Turns out they had just become a supplier to the Napa Whole Foods, so they would be coming this way anyway.  And after a few email chains, I found ten willing participants.  So every season, those ten send me a check for 13 weeks; I send the checks to the farm, and the farm delivers 10 gorgeous boxes of veggies to my back yard once a week, where everyone comes by and picks them up after work.  

This week, the box had fingerling potatoes, apples, eggplant, butternut squash, arugula, mizuna, green beans, radishes, peppers, and I can’t even begin to remember what else.  Every week I’m challenged to cook veggies I’d not cooked before, and every meal is enhanced with these unbelievable greens (and reds and yellows and such).  

Of course, I live in California, so I’m unbelievably lucky.  We get winter vegetables here that most of the country can’t imagine, at least without a greenhouse.  I also have both lemons and oranges ripening on my very own trees.  Spoiled might be an even better word.  But I think such programs will only grow in popularity as people become more aware of where their food comes from, the fossil fuels it takes to move those foods, and as the nutritional benefits of organic foods versus “conventional” foods become more widely known.  I know I don’t want “baby carrots” (that come from regular bent imperfect carrots but that are sliced and diced and preserved in chlorine- yes, chlorine, that’s why they start turning white when the get a little old) that come in plastic bags that will exactly never decompose.

I don’t think these things are radical.  I don’t really consider myself a leftist commie socialist tree hugger.  I consider myself someone who does the research and wants to put only decent things inside my body.  Again, living in California makes this all the easier, but there are some 3000 CSAs across the country and there just might be one somewhere near you.

In case you are wondering:

http://www.biodynamics.com/csa1.html

And, well, if you are interested in starting your *own* garden come spring time, well, that’s another blog.