Cooking Out of the Box
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The general idea is that at some regular interval, a box of produce is shipped to you directly or to a nearby drop-off point. I'm pretty sure all of them feature organic produce, and the intent is that the farm that grew the produce gets more money than they would otherwise, ideally allowing even small farms to stand their ground against the onslaught of agribusiness. The food has a high degree of traceability, an import concept among Slow Food members, and of course we get a personal connection to the people who produced our food.
There are a number of these programs, and Melissa and I did a bit of shopping around before we settled on one. Organic Express (usually just called The Box) and Planet Organics are two large ones that are popular with a number of our friends. But both of those pull from a large number of farms, and while it's still supporting small farms, I wanted to support a particular farm, or at least a small number. When it came to a choice between Capay and Eatwell, the latter won out. They were a lower price, and just seemed homier. Plus, they send their box to a drop-off point rather than delivering it, which is actually better for apartment dwellers.
Usually when people get these boxes, they complain of two things: not knowing what to do with what they've got, and not being able to use it all. The first isn't a problem for us; I have enough veggie cookbooks and creative ideas and just general experience that I can usually think of plenty to do with our produce. Our problem is using it all up. It's not that there's such an abundance of produce, but our busy schedules keep us from using it effectively. I always want to maximize the yield of this still pricey produce, and some shipments I do better than others. This week's shipment is particularly grim, as Melissa and I are out of town this week-end. We just need to be better about saying, "okay, we're getting a shipment this week (we get them every other week), so I'll come home early on Wednesday and we'll conserve some of it, and figure out what we're going to do with it the rest of the week". For instance, I imagine chard can be pickled, right? It's at least worth experimenting with, since we are currently getting chard in every shipment.
Which brings me to my next point; there's something very interesting about the seasonal cooking this kind of shipment enforces. You can see why things with long seasons pose a particular challenge to the chef who likes to be creative; let's say you got a big stack of chard every other week. What would you do with it? You can think of a few things, I'm sure. But what about when it's the sixth time in a row and you've still got a big stack? Hence one begins to think of things like pickling the leaves.
But the converse of that is things with such minute growing seasons that you want to gobble as many as possible before the season ends. We got sugar snap peas in one shipment, and then a tiny amount in a subsequent shipment. Does that mean the season is over? But wait! We want more! Melissa and I may not use everything in every shipment, but we appreciate what we get.
In general, we're pretty happy with the box itself. It's nice to know that some family farm is staying afloat in part because of us, and that they are given the ability to provide outstanding organic and flavorful produce. We just need to center our lives around dealing with it a bit more. And making food even more of a focus in our life is bound to be a good thing.
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