Live Hot Veg

We've belonged to a CSA for several months now. We were on a waiting list for two months prior to the momentous weekend that we became full partners in the farm. You pay in advance for the what the harvest will bare--allowing the farmer to have a guaranteed market and we to have real, I mean very real, veggies.

So, every other Saturday I (or we, or Dubs) go to an old hippy's house a few blocks away, load one waxed box of fresh veggies and a half dozen fresh eggs into our burlap sacks and wander back home schlepping our fresh, locally grown, organic veggies.

It's really a joy to be a member, despite the washing one must do. The dirt is a little inevitable and since I know that it was in good hands I don't mind eating a little of it every once and awhile, when I just can't rinse those greens one more time.

Well, today's box was exceptionally interesting. There was a lot of variety, but mostly it was all very beautiful. As I unpacked it, I thought to myself that this was the first time I've ever held vegetables in my hands and felt that they had such a strong similarity to animals, or to the properties of living creatures anyway; growing on their own, unedited for supermarkets and each very different.

I photographed them to preserve the thought and share how strange and interesting they were. I especially like the spiraling lettuce, the blood-red looking scallions and the purple hue peeking through the cauliflower. When walking through whole foods, central market or HEB you can't really escape how exactly perfect and similar all of the produce tends to be and is grown to be. Our veggie boxes are always a meditation on difference and variety. I am very greatful for the CSA culture that has developed as of late, without it the options for getting local produce of this variety would be more limited.

In a way the CSA is a new thing -- invented to bring organic, local produce to people over the last 15-20 years. Small farms, which had been slowly driven out of business over the years, can find some lifeline in this type of business--though it's amazing and sad that they need to be reinvented in this way, having had no protection over the years. For a really interesting film on a small farm that survived to become one of the first CSA farms and is run by an eccentric, talented and lifelong farmer, please check out The Real Dirt on Farmer John