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Top Ten Signs You Participate in a CSA

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I think it’s high time we talk veggies; farm share veggies to be exact.

Yes, I’m absolutely glossing over my disappearing act. What can I say? Life got in the way and I needed a sabbatical, partially due to my CSA, so this post is more than fitting, in a you don’t need lubrication to get there kind of way. Admit it; you missed my sexual innuendos. It’s also possible the Hubby is home for a solid week, which means I’m getting my groove back, and yes, I do mean it like that. 

Back to the point of this post: CSA goodness.

For those of you who pick and choose your produce from a grocery store and then buy it in reasonable and manageable quantities, this post will likely be strange for you. Even so, I wanted to give you a glimpse into my world, so I’ve decided to share the pleasure, the panic, and the pandemonium, which comes with participating in a CSA. 

CSA Fall 2014 Produce

Let’s give it up for The Glorious (pause for effect) The Magical (a second caesura) and the Overwhelming Produce which threatens to overtake you, your loved ones and everything in its path. At the end of the day, or really the season, only the strong survive.  

Top Ten Signs (or way too many to count) You’re Participating in a CSA

  • Produce pick up day is like your birthday and Christmas rolled into one.
  • Phallic veggies become your thing.
  • You get ridiculously excited for the first tomato of the season.

Tomatoes

  • You eat salads. Lots of them. In fact, you put the neighborhood bunnies to shame.
  • You start to give away entire heads of lettuce.
  • Come October, you beg people to take them.
  • When they refuse, you try adding lettuce to smoothies. You realize this was a horrible idea and vow never to do it again.
  • You do it again.

One Head of Lettuce

  • You receive Facebook messages from dear friends simply stating “Greens Paralysis,” and know exactly what it means.
  • You respond to those same messages with “I can’t eat another fucking salad.”
  • Then you eat another fucking salad. You even like it.

Strawberry Blue Cheese Salad with Red Onions and Walnuts

  • Managing and processing produce is high on your weekly To Do list. 
  • Chopping bell peppers at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night is all the rage.
  • You turn down social engagements because your Bok Choy is on the brink of death, and you’ll be damned if you lose another bunch. 
  • You put in on an Autumn Pizza and declare yourself a genius.

Autumn Pizza with Bok Choy, Carrots and Green Beans

  • There is some kind of green soaking on your counter, in a giant vat of water, at any given moment.
  • You’ve dubbed this method ‘Revival of the Fittest.’
  • Sometimes you’re hoping it will fail, sending your sad and sorry produce to the Great Compost in the Sky or really the giant black bin in the backyard. Pfft, technicalities.

Summer 2013 CSA Final Week

  • The sight of wax beans makes you want to curl up into a fetal position or head for the hills with Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp kids.
  • You learn to yodel.
  • You head to Rozi’s and drink beer instead. 
  • You realize this is a much wiser decision and pat yourself on the back for such quick thinking.

Beer Tasting at Rozi's

  • You start to lose counter space.
  • Almost overnight bags of apples are everywhere.
  • You put those same apples in everything.
  • And I do mean everything.

Apple Collage Pizza, Muffins and Grilled Cheese

  • You have a small mountain of squash, hiding in a cool dark corner of your basement.
  • You’ve named them.
  • Fred and Sally to be exact.
  • You’ve numbered them too.

Squash Hoard - Pumpkin, Spaghetti, Butternut and Acorn

Mediterranean Eggplant Salad

Summer 2014 CSA Week 3

  •  You single-handedly keep Ziploc in business.
  • Tupperware is your new best friend.
  • Sucking the air out of plastic baggies with a straw no longer feels illicit. In fact, it’s become the norm. You even have a spot for the straw in your utensil drawer.   

Freezer Stash Collage B

  • Despite all of this, you wouldn’t change a thing.
  • In fact, you even sign up for the Winter CSA program.
  • You call yourself a die hard, and it’s true.  

Have you ever participated in a CSA? If so, what was your favorite and least favorite part? What are your signs you’re participating in a CSA? If not, you should consider signing up. It’s a barrel of laugh and a ball of monkeys rolled into one.

Comments

  2. Thank God you posted, I almost sent you an IG photo of my boobs to make sure you were still alive. I should still do this to highlight how big they are right now due to over consumption of…everything. Somewhere in my mind I feel like you’d be one of the few to understand and appreciate. As for this post…pure beauty in phallic and non phallic form. I want all of it…in my mouth.
    Brittany recently posted…Early Morning ConfessionsMy Profile

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  3. Somebody up there was having a laugh when they decided that the most delicious produce have to be phallic-shaped (e.g. zucchini, bananas & butternut squash)!! Although I am not officially singed up in a CSA, I feel like I indirectly participate. Living in Mumbai, we tend to buy all our produce from the markets which are sourced from local farmers…which probably explains why veggies taste so dang delicious here (even more so than normal)!!
    Khushboo recently posted…The Sassy SpoonMy Profile

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  5. HA! Yes, this! There’s also the bit where you eat more kohlrabi and turnips than you ever thought possible, and start cramming greens into every single thing you cook, and think nothing of having a gigantic vat of cauliflower and leek soup for dinner, and feel as though you will never get to the end of your massive supply of exotic homemade pickles…
    Eileen recently posted…Fennel pickle with lemon and gingerMy Profile

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  7. Move over betty fucking crocker!! OMG, if I had that many veggies, I’m not sure I’d be able to deal. You are a culinary rock star.

    Missed ya!

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  9. This is totally making me feel bad about the 1st year CSA summary that has been sitting in my draft pile for forever…. But I love everything about this from the deep freezer to the straw in the drawer! I have a lot to learn from your CSA mastery in the coming years and I cannot wait 🙂
    Sarah Pie recently posted…Spiced Bacon Risotto- Recipe ReduxMy Profile

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  11. This is so funny! Wish I had a CSA, which you’d think might be true since this is the Garden State, but Nooooo…The pizza looks so good. Love the idea of the eggplant salad. Glad you’re back and you got to spend some time with Hubby! Hugs!
    Fran@BCDC recently posted…Saturday Snapshot~October 25My Profile

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  12. I’ve never participated in a CSA but the year after my grandfather retired from farming, he still kept a “family garden,” which was two acres big. So I can relate to the race against the clock to eat every last bit of produce ever. And now that we don’t have it, I miss it dearly. I still kick myself for not liking tomatoes a couple years ago because he had every kind imaginable.

    PS- Wax beans + butter + breadcrumbs= amazing.
    Tara @ Rovin’ Rambler recently posted…Dragon’s Back and a Big ‘Ol BurgerMy Profile

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  13. Meghan, Meghan, Meghan!

    Every year I think about joining a CSA but I have too many friends who suffer from the same maladies you have shared above. I may have to find someone to join the CSA with me next spring so that I am not putting veggies out on my front porch for anyone – the mailman? – to take away come fall.
    Marnie @ SuperSmartMama recently posted…Pregnancy Update: 31 WeeksMy Profile

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    • You might find you rise to the occasion and end up loving it. I certainly did. In fact, when my CSA began offering a small share, I stayed with the medium portion size because I liked the challenge. Also, the Fall/Winter share is a good one for newbies because you get a lot of squash and that stuff lasts forever or at least a couple months so it’s easier to manage. 🙂
      Meghan recently posted…Top Ten Signs You Participate in a CSAMy Profile

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  14. HAHAHA welcome back!! We missed you! (by “we” I speak for the entire internet) I’ve never participated in a CSA, partially bc I live in a small studio and I dont think it would be able to handle the sheer quantities of delicious things. However, the only thing I’m thinking about right now is an autumn pizza.

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  15. Confession: I’m honestly not sure I could handle participating in a CSA — it would stress me out WAY too much. That’s part of the reason I don’t shop at Costco, too… too many things in mass quantities that I wouldn’t know what to do with. Maybe it would be different if I had someone to share it with, but since I’m only cooking for me, there’s only so many places for those veggies to go. I’d try to pawn them off on other people, but I already have enough trouble trying to constantly pawn my baking off on friends and family… I’m not sure how they’d take to veggies 😆
    Amanda @ .running with spoons. recently posted…. spoons, sprinkles, & minty greens .My Profile

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    • The Hubby just went on a giant (pun intended) Costco run yesterday and now I have 6 pounds of pasta, 7 boxes of crackers and 10 pounds of oats, not to mention everything else. Ha! I generally only buy non-perishables in mass quantities.

      Maybe if you gave them a baked good along with each veggie casserole. 🙂
      Meghan recently posted…Top Ten Signs You Participate in a CSAMy Profile

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  16. We did the CSA last year; and barely kept up!! I still have a freezer full of cut veggies we haven’t barreled through.
    But, you wanna talk apples…boy, do I have apples. And then some.
    Lots. And lots.
    of.
    apples.

    Glad to see you’re back. Hope you had a good week off!!
    Shannyn recently posted…Have your Applesauce and CAN it too!My Profile

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  17. You are right on so many levels. I do the CSA thing and I have my own garden and I process extra veggies and fruit for folks (my payment is I keep half). I have a spare unheated bedroom that has a section covered in cardboard (to protect the carpet) and then boxes and stacks of potatoes, apples and squash.

    Have you done the freezer Tetris to get a few more pounds of blanched greens tucked in? or started requesting mason jars for your birthday? or regularly quiz vendors at the farmer’s market on how to store various vegetables for the winter? Also if your toddler knows what Swiss Chard, kombocha and rutabega are, then yes you participate in a CSA.

    Brilliant post!

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  20. When I participated in a CSA, before I grew my own veggies, I used to entice coworkers from the hospital I worked at to join me for “farm day” – and we would drive out at lunchtime and pick up the box. One coworker referred to it as “farmin’ it up” and always wanted to come along. We would walk around, pick herbs and flowers from the Upick area and generally geek out.
    I’ve since left that crappy job and moved on to WAY better things, but the awesome memories and general merriment of opening the box and transferring lush produce to my giant take home basket in the middle of the workday has always stayed with me. Super fun. And the towering inferno of produce was a blast, too. I even learned how to consume eggplant and not gag.
    (And it’s good to see you!)
    Lindsey @HalfDimeHomestead recently posted…The Birth of a Low TunnelMy Profile

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