Fair Shares Pick Up: Week 1

As some of you know, we have been on the waiting list to join a CSA for a while called "Fair Shares" in St. Louis.  For the record, there are not many CSAs in the St. Louis area (especially not compared to the population) and the ones that exist have waiting lists a year long.  Anyway, we received the e-mail that we were in for a full share for the 2011-12 season, starting at the beginning of April and ending in March.

So the idea behind Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is that small, local farmers, organic or not, need capital when they need to buys seeds, plant, and get things going... but don't get paid until they have a harvest.  Solution?  Community members commit to pay up-front with the understanding that they will get a weekly share of what the farm produces.  Fair Shares is a combined CSA, so some nice people organize a bunch of local farmers and producers.  The result is that we get a wider variety than just the traditional bunch of seasonal fruits and veggies.  And we possibly pay a little more for it.  We pay monthly, and it averages out to about $50 per week.

The process is fairly simple.  Every week at the same time we go to a pick-up site and get what they have for us.  The list changes every week and rotates for each pick-up site.  Okay, that's a bit complicated.  I'll keep it simple and stick to what we get each week.  

Week 1: 

Yellow Wood Farms Eggs (went to my mother-in-law since she watches the baby so much... and we have eggs already)

Hinkebein Hills Beef Bratwurst

If they look funny, it's because I didn't know that I wasn't suppose to remove the casing, and to my defense the casing looked different than I had ever seen before and didn't really cover the whole brat.  They still tasted great.  

 








Ozark Forest Fresh Mushrooms

It looks as if these are some of the seasonal selection, so we will be getting mushrooms for the next 7 weeks.  They are shitake and oyster mushrooms. This week it will probably be mushroom and spinach pasta for dinner.





Schroetter Farms Spinach

This got a very good soaking... several times.  The spinach was very crisp and good. It is also seasonal, so spinach for another seven weeks.






After a few rinses...















Final stage in the spinner...















Show Me Produce Mizuna

We had the choice of arugula or this delightful young mustard green. Next week (and for the next 7 weeks) we will probably choose other green selections. 

Marcoot Farms Cheese

It looks like we will get cheese or eggs every week.  We haven't tried this yet, but it might go well in our pasta sauce with the mushrooms and spinach.  We had a choice, and this one was supposed to be a bit sharp.  $5-6 for 8 oz.








 

  Hilty Pickles or Beets

(We chose pickles, but also bought the beets.  My husband was in heaven.  I liked them, too, and the baby enjoyed the beets. 16 oz. jars for $6)

Jailhouse Jalapeño Brew (spicy mustard)

 
Companion Pretzels
The big, fat, soft, delicious kind.  So guess what we had for dinner.

with

And for dessert... 

Frozen peaches that we bought for $6.50 thawing in the fridge.  With whole-milk yogurt.  Yum.

I had a few "moments" (i.e. uncomfortable moments) while cooking and eating tonight.  The first one was when I looked at the brats and realized I had never seen brats that weren't shiny from casing... which my husband informed me, when he came home, is usually animal intestines.  When I researched it, I found out that only the very best and most expensive brats are actually cased in real animal intestines.  In other words, the brats that I have eaten all of my life had man-made casings.  

I'm sorry.  Hold the phone.  

Man-made from what?  I don't actually know.  Anyway, tonight I thought that the brats were wrapped in paper, but what I didn't know I was looking at was real, dead animal intestine...  which would have made them a little more shiny that what we ended up with.  However, like I said, they were delicious. 

The other moment was when, as we enjoyed our very local dinner, I realized that although I said I was not the kind of person who would intentionally spend more money on food because of  X, Y, or Z... I did.  I spent more on food because it was local.  And really... natural.

I do have my limits.  For instance, although I have been looking into switching to raw milk for health reasons, raw milk is $10.50 per gallon.  I feel like that is going too far.  And yet, I just brought home 8 oz. of cheese for $6.  

The verdict is still out, but this is only Week 1.  Stay tuned!

Crunchy Consumer

That is possibly one of the bigger oxymorons that fall under this topic, with the exception of "all natural cookies." I mean, I thought the whole idea behind "crunchy" is supposed to be anti-consumerism. But no. The packaging on "crunchy" products is just as assuring and inviting as on bad-for-you, synthetic, processed items. Marketing people aren't dummies. Consumers are. :o)

Okay, but that isn't what I wanted to write about today. I stopped by Fair Shares and Local Harvest on the way home from work. I bought local. I spent more $70+ for not that many items. Let me explain.

So my husband and I have been going back and forth about where to buy food, what to buy and how much to spend. The latter topic hasn't been back and forth, really, since the general consensus in our house is that we should spend LESS. In general. I have heard other people say that they WANT to spend more if they are buying organic foods, whole foods, pick a food. We are not those people. In general, we want to spend less.

The "where" is an issue mostly because we feel that buying locally produced foods is good for the local economy, which is good for our neighborhoods because it provides jobs, etc. However, I had a little revelatory moment was while reading my copy of the "More with Less" cookbook. One of the writers shared a little personal note about buying milk. She said that in her town she could drive 25 miles to the mega-mart to buy milk at a low price, or she could buy local milk from a little market only 5 miles away, but for a much higher price. However, she realized that with rising gas prices, the 25 miles could really add up. Not only that, but there could be a day when the local market might go out of business because everyone goes to the mega-mart, and then she would HAVE to drive 25 miles for milk. You get the idea.

The "what" to buy is a vast topic: organic, natural, whole foods, processed foods, cheap food, quick foods, baby foods. Suffice to say, we lean towards whole foods (not the store, but actually unprocessed or less processed foods) because of the health benefits and the financial benefits. If we buy bulk or buy at discount stores and then make the food ourselves, we save money, we know what's in our food, we learn to value the food because we spent time making it, and hopefully we make healthy things. We aren't so stuck on the "organic" label, but that's another topic.

All this to give a short background about why I made my stops today.

First, we just joined the Fair Shares combined CSA this year (more about that later). Today was the shopping day for the CSA, so I went to see what they had as left-overs from the last season. I should note that these are all locally produced in MO or IL, and that most of it is sustainably grown, but not necessarily USDA certified organic.

I bought:

• 1 qt. local maple syrup @ $15 (better than Schnuck's price and local to boot = good deal)
• 1 lb. popping corn @ $3 (not better than Schnuck's, therefore, I'm tempted to not care that it's local popping corn, or I hope it's the best popcorn I've ever bought. This might be a future item I buy bulk.)
• 16 oz. local honey @ $6 (same price at Soulard market and good for allergies = worth it, especially considering now it's a 1-stop shop at Fair Shares.)
• 1 pk. grass-fed beef hot dogs @ $4 (Holy cow. Or it better be. But hopefully better for us than the cheap hot dogs.)
• 1 bag tortilla chips @ $2.50 (Actually, they were quite good, and not much more than other chips, so a pretty good deal if we pretend chips are part of a balanced diet.)
• 3 7 oz. jars of cooked, pureed butternut squash @ $7/ea. (This was thanks to the marketing of Fair Shares' newsletter, which listed several ways to use this. And the baby can eat it.)

Then, when I left I remembered we were out of milk. Instead of going to Aldi, where they sell a gallon of whole milk for about $3 AND claim to sell milk that is hormone free (I have yet to investigate this claim), I turned on Morganford and stopped at Local Harvest, which true to its name, sells locally grown food. At a very reasonable price... for people who can afford to buy a house in the Tower Grove neighborhood. So not reasonable. But it's local milk.

I bought;

• 1 gal. pasteurized sans hormones whole milk @ $5 (So possibly the same thing that I get at Aldi if they are telling the truth, except I supported a local dairy farmer. My husband pointed out that Aldi might also support local dairy cows. Also, I've heard raw milk tastes better, so maybe I 'm missing the boat completely on this issue.)
• 1 qt. whole milk yogurt sans hormones @ $5 (This is about what it is at Schnuck's.)
  

With this milk and yogurt I will make 3 qts. (or more) of yogurt, hormone free, and doubly local since it's going to be from my kitchen. I will average $3/qt. for whole milk, non-hormone yogurt at that point. That's not bad, but then if I had bought the Aldi milk, I would average about $2/qt. on yogurt. And Aldi employs local people.

Was it worth it? Well, I fully believe in buying locally at this point. We are supposed to be a blessing in the city where we live. However, I also fully believe that if I don't balance the checking account, I am not being a good steward of the resources God has given us. Therefore, this discussion will continue... but not tonight. I'm going to eat the best popcorn I have ever bought.