And So We Begin...

“Just out of curiosity,” my husband asked me last week, surveying the two bunches each of dewy-fresh  Chinese cabbage and Swiss chard in our refrigerator, “how much did it cost to join the CSA, (Community-Supported Agriculture co-op) anyway?” 

As anyone who has been married for more than 5 minutes knows, “just out of curiosity” is married-people code for “at least one of us is probably going to regret my asking this.”

“Six hundred dollars,” I answered, cool as a local, organic cucumber.

“SIX HUNDRED BUCKS???” (Okay, sometimes we BOTH regret his asking…)

“Well, it’s for 26 weeks,” I answered, trying not to sound defensive.

“So, you’re telling me that four bunches of green stuff cost us 23 dollars?!”

“Well, it’s just the first week,” I said. “In August we’ll need a U-Haul to bring all the produce home, just wait!”

He scowled and said nothing.

“And it supports a family farm,” I said. “And,” I added, with all the conviction I could muster, “I’m really, really not going to let any of it go to waste.”

To which my everlovin’ husband just grumbled, “Yeah, this I gotta see.”

This is probably a good time to mention that my husband is neither a tightwad nor a controlling jerk. In fact, he is one of the most generous and easygoing people I have ever known. But he is also a realist. A realist who has probably emptied THOUSANDS of dollars-worth of forgotten-'til-it's-rotten produce from our refrigerator in the dozen years we’ve been married, and who also knows that I have thrown out thousands of dollars-worth more on top of that when it was my turn to clean out the fridge – which, I admit, does not make us the ideal candidates for a CSA (or Community-Supported Agriculture co-op) in which you pay a flat fee up front and get a percentage of a farmer’s crops every week throughout the growing season. Some weeks it’s a lot; some weeks it’s a little. Some weeks it’s stuff you like; others it’s the veggies that make even grown-ups wrinkle their noses and say “eeeeew.” Last time we signed up for a CSA, 6 or 7 years ago, we ended up giving half the stuff to our kids' babysitter.

But -- call it the triumph of hope over vegetable-chucking experience – I have committed myself, again, nevertheless. To the farmers. To a half-year of eating local/organic/sustainably-grown produce. And (me and my big mouth…) to using ALL of it.

And to shame myself into doing just that, I am going to be writing about it here. I hope you’ll check in to see how I am doing. Thanks for stopping by.