We joined a CSA early in the year, buying a stake in the output of an organic and biodynamic farm in Pennsylvania. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. This one is a bit unusual in that it is all-year-round, and we often get extras or supplements in our weekly haul such as bread, a dozen eggs, a sack of pasta, a bag of quinoa, a tub of yogurt. There are 150 members in our area, and the folks bring the harvest down on Tuesday evening in a refrigerated truck for sorting and distribution on Wednesday morning. That’s a volunteer activity that we all share in by pledging one morning per quarter.
Members pick up their alloted goodies on Wednesday afternoon or evening by bringing their own bags and weighing or counting out the individual items in their share: things like three pounds of tomatoes, two pounds of potatoes, one kohlrabi, 1 lb + 1 oz chard. You get the idea. Most people drive to the drop-off site and park in the tiny parking lot, but I am fortunate enough to be able to walk about 90% of the time; it’s only about 1.3 miles from my house. I feel pretty great about not using gas, and I get the exercise. But if I’m already out on errands then it’s just one more stop on the way home.
Adjusting to the variation in produce, and the fact that it all comes at once, has been an issue. Most people think it is the “odd stuff” that we get, like kohlrabi or turnips, but that’s nothing that Epicurious.com or other recipe sources can’t solve.
In-take (what I call the tasks of washing, separating, and rearranging the storage spaces to accommodate everything) takes an hour. The refrigerator goes from bare to packed, and sometimes over flowing. We’ve been inundated with beets for five or six weeks now, and the giant zucchini and cucumber feed has trickled away. I’ve learned to make pickles (cucumbers and turnips) and boy are they tasty! The other thing I’ve learned is not to go to the grocery store until after I know what is in the CSA share for the week.
On the side, I am in a special group that gets a gallon of raw milk every week. Yep, right from the cow into the jugs, presumably by a machine of some sort. It’s got all the good stuff, bacteria, etc., that is killed off by pasteurization. These are pampered cows, on an organic and biodynamic farm, and the facilities are fastidiously clean. The milk and cream is amazingly tasty and loaded with fat and cholesterol, and the bacteria and stuff repopulates all the flora in my stomach that antibiotics have killed off over the decades. This point is the driving part of this experiment, not to mention other health benefits.
I barely get through a half-gallon per week, probably because I am nervous about the fat and cholesterol. So I have started making yogurt out of the milk on Wednesdays to make room for the new gallon. I’ve been eating a lot of yogurt, and it is very, very good. I tell myself that the milk is now yogurt, and somehow the fat and cholesterol don’t count. There is a great mental disconnect here that mildly amuses, but I am able to ignore it somehow.
Life goes on. I take my Lipitor every day, and am holding off going to see if I need to increase the dosage. The downside is that I might have to stop the milk. Lipitor will go generic in a few years. Maybe I can hold out?
Now that you have the set up, I can next write about making the perfect yogurt despite random obstacles.