A Trip to Bountiful: The Tasty Challenge of Joining a CSA          by Mala Hoffman

For some, becoming a member of a Community Supported Agriculture farm [CSA] is a chance to enjoy the bounty of the season while participating in the preservation of an important local resource. For me, it’s a culinary challenge and a race with time.

I rejoined a CSA last spring after having missed a season, and missed the food, the previous year. But what I had yearned for -- the constant availability of just off the vine, out of the ground, fresh from the plant produce -- was the thing that almost did me in as I found myself constantly cutting, freezing, parboiling and, more frequently as not, donating, the benefits of my membership.

Perhaps it was the early weeks of greens -- three kinds of lettuce (and you got to take one head of each), watercress and chard -- that started it, for how much salad can one family of four really eat? Later on, maybe, it was the abundance of peppers. But mostly, I think, it was the tomatoes.

The farm we had joined is known for its tomatoes. These are not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill plum or beefsteaks, but exotic heirloom stock ranging in color from the palest yellow to orange to one that is nearly purple. I have never tasted anything like them, and in my previous year of participation spent many a happy hour simply chopping them up, tossing them into a pan briefly with olive oil, garlic and basil and serving them over pasta. No pressure, just pure gastronomic pleasure.

This past year, however, the harvest gods were good to the tomatoes, and soon, much to my dismay, they were taking over everything -- my refrigerator and basement, my recipes and my personal interactions. At one point, my half-share with the farm entitled me to weeks in a row of 25 pounds of tomatoes. Twenty-five pounds a week! Shareholders would arrive, look at the cartons upon cartons of beautiful, delicious vegetables, sigh and shake their heads. Towards the end of this period, the sign listing the amount we should each take also read: “Will it ever end?”

I found myself bringing tomatoes, like party favors, everywhere I went. My older daughter’s guitar lesson? Bring the teacher tomatoes. My office to check the mail? Bring a large assortment for everyone to share. A brief visit to my parents? Tomatoes. And so on. I was actually limited on my husband’s side of the family by my brother-in-law, who had his own garden and his own quantity of tomatoes to pawn.

twice-weekly meal. Tomato soup, a given. Tomato sauces of varying styles were tried and frozen, as was tomato puree for future use. When we also received an abundance of cilantro, I became a salsa-making mama.

But I wasn’t only cooking tomatoes, because a farm being a farm, there was lots of produce, all requiring attention. The basil I brought home each week was transferred immediately into pesto. Spinach was automatically blanched (a new process I learned) and frozen just so it wouldn’t take up additional space. I encouraged my daughters to eat cucumbers whole, lots of them, and found new and innovative ways to marinate beets. Zucchini, forget about it, I still have some grated in my freezer waiting to be made into bread. It was a full-time job.

I was chugging along through the early fall, thinking that all I had to do was to stuff a few more squash and boil a few more potatoes, and then the season would be done when I happened to ask my wonderful farmer how long the share lasted. “Oh, it goes until the first or second week of December,” he said. “Wow, that’s terrific,” I replied, but inside, all hopes of an imminent release from my culinary bondage died. I picked up my two pumpkins and drove home in silence.

When it finally ended, as the winter began, I took home my last few heads of garlic, some onions, a few carrots and assorted other vegetables and realized that the next time I needed these items, or any produce, I would have to go to the supermarket. It was a sobering thought.

Recently, I got an application in the mail for the 2006 growing season at the farm. I’m going to fill it out soon. I have to. I miss the tomatoes.

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