Life is Like a Box of Local Produce

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Dustin recently read In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan where he was introduced to the idea of Food Box programs -- also known as CSA (community shared agriculture) programs. We signed up with Culinarium, who puts together these food boxes from a variety of local farmers. Biweekly, for twenty weeks, we receive a food box filled with local produce, a protein, a cheese, and a pantry item: we never know what we're going to get until two days before pick up date.

So exciting! We get to try new foods and support local farmers. For our first box, we got all sorts of goodies: most of which you can recognize in the picture above, whereas some are a bit of a mystery.

In first place for weirdest produce ever is the Romanesco Broccoli. Dustin calls it the broccochinilini. A strange looking vegetable that is supposed be a cross between a cauliflower, a broccoli and an alien. Our plan? Oven roasted with olive oil and a backup bechemel cheese sauce in case it ends up in the "yucky" section of this blog.

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Some other exciting goodies: Toscana cheese (I took a little nibble,) organic, local tomato paste, and look at those farm fresh chicken eggs! I'm thinking maybe a quiche? Maybe save the tomato paste for a pasta somewhere down the road?

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Who's in a jam? My concord grapes will be! That's the plan for these beauties.

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So many raw ingredients! 9 more food boxes. So many blog post possibilities. If only I could quit my daytime job...