10.21.2004

 

Community Supported Agriculture Saved My Life

Well, that is a bit hyperbolic. "Changed," maybe. Anyone who hasn't gotten on the CSA bandwagon yet is missing out on some REALLY amazing vegetables. Here's how it works (there are variations): you buy a share in a local farm and every week in the summer and fall you pick up a box of organic veggies from some location near you. (Or not so near you. Sometimes you have to go to the farm.) You get whatever's in season, so it's fresh and not made of cardboard. It tastes better and keeps longer than the organic produce you get in the supermarket. I have learned to love parsnips. I make salad all the time (I never used to buy greens because they'd rot before I used them; now I can't bear not to have salad). I've made carrot cake about six times since August. Goatdog is not quite as enthusiastic as I am. But I think he's glad to be forced to eat his vegetables.

I actually live right next door to a community garden and if I wanted I could grow my own stuff there. Sometimes I wonder if it's because I'm a vegetarian that I don't want to get that intimate with plants. As with animals -- could I really harvest them if I grew them myself? Well, probably I could. But I just don't have a green thumb, and I do have a bad back.

Now, those few readers I have left may be wondering why I'm not posting on political topics anymore. Or not much. I just can't bear to think that much about it. It's frightening, and depressing, and awful. Next weekend (not this coming one -- I mean the weekend before the election) I'm going to go to Milwaukee to try to get out the vote, so maybe I'll blog about that experience.

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