The CSA

Check out the goodies I got this week from my CSA box!

As a lover so many vegetables, you can imagine my excitement upon opening those cardboard folds Friday morning. I don't need anyone to tell me what to eat, all I need to do is look in my CSA box. Whatever is in there is in season; this is the food I am meant to eat living where I do.

This morning, immediately after going over the loot, I gathered up all my cookbooks, plopped myself on the couch and sifted through the recipes. The trickiest fella this week is going to be the turnips, and the bok choy. I've never cooked with turnips before and have yet to decide what I am going to do with them. Their greens however, I have a plan for. I am hoping they will make a good substitution for arugula in tomorrow nights citrus and fennel salad. Keeping my fingers crossed. The bok choy is a challenge only because there is so much. I may have to resort to juicing some of those guys.

I have been blessed with CSA boxes for three weeks now, and will have to give up this luxury when I go back to school at the end of the month. Fortunately, these past weeks have made me step away from my normal eating habits (kale, garlic, polenta, and roasted onions, squash, and sweet potatoes) and leap towards new ideas about food. Todays salad is a perfect example:

Massaged dino kale with quinoa (hello and why did I ever decide to eat less of you?), cilantro pesto, homemade goat cheese, and shaved radish - a garnish that is the epitome of cute. Not pictured is the small bowl of raw tofu cubes I intend to roast but ended up eating raw. I like tofu and am not ashamed to say I popped a few cubes in my mouth.

I love just looking in the fridge and seeing tons of vegetables, helpers like miso, tamari, and halved lemons, garnishes like cheese, seeds, and nuts, the unpretentious jars of homemade saurkraut, almond milk, and the random bag of saved SCOBY. I love looking in the cabinets and seeing jars of farro, wheat berries, bulgur, soba, quinoa, and kombu; bottles of olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. My life thrives by creating, and eating, and finding a right place and combination for whole foods in my daily life. To learn, to savor, to share, to celebrate and give thanks for all that we have that is so wonderfully humble. That is what it is all about.