More Foodie Stuff

When I came to central PA, I have to admit that food was a major, major challenge. Sorry, Central PA, but your cuisine leaves much to be desired. I particularly missed hispanic cuisines and had issues with thai, chinese, and other ethnic cuisines. It just was not happening.

The bright side of this, though, is that we now get to cook at home a lot more, and one thing Central PA really does excel at is local food. We have a vibrant and active farming economy, a restaurant and market scene that supports it, and a wide, wide world of CSAs. We also have an informal system of your-friend-knows-my-friend-and-he-has-some-eggs. In this way we have now bought a quarter of a cow and agreed to split some produce with neighbors. But we also found a fantastic CSA.

For those who haven't tried it before, "CSA" stands for community-supported agriculture. Generally speaking, the consumers (us) eliminate the risk for the farmers by paying up front for produce and other farm products, and the farmers plant to the prepaid demand, providing to the consumers the fruits of that process. Generally speaking, it's a compact between the farmer and the consumer, to reduce risk and split the bounty of the harvest. If the harvest is poor, the share we receive is poor, and if the harvest is great we get inundated with vegetables. But, honestly, having participated in a few CSAs now, I've never really felt that I didn't get wildly more vegetables/products than I paid for.

Now, CSAs do vary quite a bit, depending on the strengths and inclinations of the farmers and market. I used to belong to the Roots Farm CSA in Athens, GA, and Roots had a work requirement and specialized in really gorgeous produce in immediately-usable quantities. That went so well that the head Rootster bought my house. Well, not really -- he did buy my house when I left A-Town, but the excellent quality of the vegetables and/or the fantasticness of myself as a member had very little to do with it. Anyway, I digress. I belonged to another CSA in Athens before that which specialized in giant quantities of a few crops, and quite honestly that was somewhat disastrous because those few crops included a bunch of crops that I would prefer not to eat -- but one of the charming things is how CSAs bring the community together, in that case by my donating huge quantities of turnips to my neighbors. Oh, something I liked a lot about Roots, and about my new CSA, is that both come with interpretive materials -- when you get artisanal/heirloom/unusual veggies, it helps to have an inventory and some recipes, and both supply them. Good stuff.

Anyway...I was beyond excited when I got an email a few weeks ago from Diane Cramer, who is one of the leaders of the Bellefonte Farmers Market and also the owner of a local farm with a CSA. She proposed that, for about $20 a week, she'd supply me with 20 weeks of produce, eggs, and mushrooms. And, key for lazy and busy people who also have meat on hand already, this should reduce or eliminate entirely my need to go buy things from the local supermarket for a while. So, that's a win-win. I wrote the check immediately.

So, this summer, there will be lots of delicious food at my house. Stop by!