Adventures in Agriculture: 4 weeks in Review
by Eric Richard
So, we are now into our fourth week of the distributions and wanted to take a step back and try to summarize some of the thoughts to date.
At a very high level, I think this has been a very interesting experience. We went into this not really knowing what to expect so, it has been a bit of a ride the entire way along.
Here are some of my observations about the experiences so far:
There is absolutely no question that we are eating better than we did before.
There has been a big shift from eating in restaurants to eating home cooked food. In fact, I think both my wife and I have found ourselves having restaurant cravings because we were so used to going out every night.
So far, we have been able to keep up with the food distributions without too much of a stretch. We are trying to cook dinner about 3-4 times a week and maybe have 1-2 lunches from this food. However, it looks like Week 4 is going to be our first failure; we will have to freeze some food in order to get rid of everything before Week 5’s distribution.
We are currently on track to pretty much break even in terms of the the cost of joining the CSA. We’re about 20% of the way through the season and so far we have received about $125 in food. If we project forward, that will mean we’ll get about $600 over the season which was almost exactly what we paid. It will be interesting to see if the value stays steady or if the value shoots up as we get to larger distributions and more berries.
I have not yet done an formal analysis of whether we are saving money compared to what we would have otherwise spent, but my suspicion is that we definitely are. As mentioned above, we are definitely displacing many restaurant meals. We are doing a lot more grocery shopping, but my feel is that we are definitely saving money.
There is an odd discipline that this puts on you that can really help drive forward food-related decisions. It used to be that our nightly conversation would go something like this, “What do you want to have for dinner?” “I don’t know. What do you want?” “I don’t know.” And then we would stumble into something which probably involved a restaurant. However, now there is a very real constraint — we have a whole bunch of very specific food sitting in our refrigerator. This changes the entire discussion since now we know exactly what the starting point is. Now the conversation is more like, “Do you want the lettuce, the cabbage, or the peas?”
In a very similar way, this has really helped us expand our cooking skills, but in a constrained and focused manner. In some sense the freedom of being able to cook anything is a bit daunting. Whereas, this has lead us to cook all sorts of new recipes that we probably never would have tried before because we had a type of food in front of us and we had to find something to do with it.
There is some downside to these constraints. I am definitely getting a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of lettuce and lettuce related products we are getting and I am definitely looking forward to moving into more fruits, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.
On the whole, I am definitely happy with the experience to date. We’ll see how it continues!
on July 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I’m not sure I view freezing some of the food as a failure; I view it as time-shifting the share a bit. If the goal is to eat locally, the cabbage doesn’t travel any further just because it spends time in our freezer.
on July 12th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I lugged home loads of veggies this week, but passed on the opportunity to pick just 25 blueberries (perhaps there will be more later this week). When I asked our share-mate if this was the most we’d end up getting, she paused, then quietly said no. uh oh.
We’re doing really well with most everything, but can’t quite get through all the lettuce. I don’t mind returning a few leaves to the rabbits and coyotes each week — they need to eat too. And we *are* eating a lot of fantastic salads on these hot hot nights. (Have you tried the homemade mozzarella yet? oh my.) I’ve been steaming greens and making some simple sauces to go on top. On hot nights, I just let the hot food cool a bit before we eat it. (No air conditioning here.)
Oh, and I’ve been supplementing at the grocery store too, but also at the Maynard farmer’s market on Saturdays (beets! tiny carrots! yum!) and the Kendall Square farmer’s market some Thursdays (chocolate! bread!)
I find that the grocery store I frequent does carry very decent produce (even if it’s not local), but there isn’t a huge variety. The farm, on the other hand, has something new and different every week. In fact, this summer, I’ve gotten to try things I’d never had before — garlic scapes, mezzaluna, mustard greens. This is a great adventure.
on July 12th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver? She discusses why you don’t see certain types of produce in your grocery store. I suspect that mustard greens don’t travel well, and thus, don’t make it to your local grocery store.
Oh, and 25 blueberries is about 2 handfuls — or enough to last you from the blueberry bushes to the car (which is why Eric was surprised to see blueberries on the list, but not in the fridge). Based on what I saw on the bushes, I would expect more in the coming weeks.
on July 13th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I have enjoyed some of Ms. Kingsolver’s books, and have read about that one, but haven’t actually read it. I think a lot of the produce we’re getting doesn’t travel well — some of those strawberries were awfully close to rotting, but were so very perfect when eaten right away, for example.
I’m glad there will be more blueberries. Someone on Tuesday commented “25! — that’s more than we had all of last year!”. And I peeked at the raspberries (which we helped rake out after they were cut back in the early spring) and those seem to be coming along nicely too. Yum.