Awhile ago I wrote that one of my favorite things about the city was joining a community-supported agriculture co-op. Ironically just after I wrote that, Stephanie left the job where the vegetables were delivered. Though there were a few other locations downtown where we could have elected to pick them up, extending our trek home after commuting from Sausalito was a little too much to bear. That and it was getting to be a bit of a chore to always choose the fruits or vegetables we wanted each week. So we let our winter “subscription” expire without renewing.

Then this past September I stumbled upon the idea of having fresh fruits and nuts delivered to work with another CSA called Farm Fresh to You (by Capay Organic). Every other week we got a great assortment of fruits and nuts which I shared with the office, all of which would disappear in about 3 days. Around Thanksgiving the tech group at FM moved across the street to a new space, and it didn’t make sense to me to continue the fruits and nuts delivery for just a few of us—sharing them with everyone was half the fun. So I decided to switch my biweekly order to a small box of vegetables and fruits to bring home for me and Stephanie. Unlike the first CSA, with Farm Fresh to You we no longer got to choose what we wanted in advance. I’m sure that makes it a lot easier for them to prepare, and for us it’s one less thing to remember to do.

Plus the best thing is it forces us to be creative and find a recipes for some vegetables we’d probably never pick up at the supermarket, let alone identify, like fennel, rapini, or turnips. There’s something about the lack of choice in this situation that’s actually freeing. The first CSA we’d joined was called “Eat with the Seasons” and though I understood what that meant conceptually, I really had no idea what that meant in practice. Growing up in a world with cold storage and a global supermarket meant I had practically no working knowledge of seasonal growing patterns. I had access to almost anything all the time. So by eating more seasonally and by subscribing to a regular delivery schedule, not only do I feel freer, I’m also guaranteed never to be bored. Every other week comes with a slightly different assortment, bringing with it new cooking challenges.

Here’s what we discovered in our box this week: