While picking up my CSA box this afternoon, I ran into a woman who was picking up her share not from the same farm as me, but from another one whose pick-up location was two doors down. She waved and hollered across the street, “This is a CSA-friendly neighborhood it seems!”  I laughed as I hauled my bag of veggies into my car while another woman stopped to pick up her box-o-goodies. Here’s a picture of this week’s haul:

CSA box [03 May 07]

That’s a whole lotta chard!

Before last week’s box, I had never eaten chard in my life. I’ve heard horror stories about cooking greens for hours on end and still being chewy, so I always passed by the huge leaves in the market whenever I would pick up produce. Of course, I had somehow associated chard with collard greens, so my opinions were misleading. But after cutting, washing, swishing and drying (by hand cause I didn’t have a spinner), I stir-fried the Swiss chard and they were yummy. With the aid of a spinner, I cleaned and cut this week’s bunch of Erbette chard and am looking forward to eating them over the next week.

Oh, my mystery item was STRAWBERRIES!  I ate one as soon as I got home and nothing but goodness filled the depths of my soul and tummy. I ended up with a few more heads of Little Gem Lettuces which I found is great in sandwiches, but not so great by themselves. The salad mix I’ll go through pretty quickly and the spigariello will need to be researched. I’m planning to use the yellow carrots in Petit Salé aux Lentilles which I’m planning on making in my new Staub Cocotte (more on that some other time).

Still need to figure out what to do with my huge bunch of cilantro…