CSA Veggie Guilt

I’ve had more than enough focus on my hearing lately, though I will write more about that shortly. First, some focus on eating.

First, credit is due to my good friend and writer, Denise Frame Harlan, for the title of this post. She nailed it in a quick FB comment somewhere between cabbage and zucchini. The concept of ‘veggie guilt’ would not have come together so perfectly were I left to my own literary devices. Thanks, Denise and my the Gourd Be With You…

We are members of a CSA this summer.  ‘We’ would more accurately be translated as ‘I.’ If I wasn’t interested in supporting a local farm and managing the produce we receive, it wouldn’t happen. Not in this house with the Happy-mac ‘n-cheese-‘n-cereal Diner and the other I-like-the-idea-of-eating-at-home- but-not-the-reality Diner.  Being good pseudo vegetarians (and not owning a TV til my oldest was ten and ordering cheese from the Amish and wearing Birkenstocks…) I raised my kids on vegetables. “Mom, look!  Artichokes!” they once proclaimed in the produce aisle much to the amazement of a matronly onlooker.  Like all good things, young adults must turn their backs on elements of one’s upbringing. In this case, mine have turned their backs on excessive vegetable consumption. Had I known this was going to be our present reality, I would have rethought the idea of belonging to a CSA this summer.

Enter Veggie Guilt.  If you’ve never been a member of a CSA, suffice it to say that it is a great way to share the burden of farming and weather with local farmers, often ones who farm organically.  Theoretically, it’s a stunning concept and it works really well, um, until the produce starts being harvested. The CSAs I have belonged to have grown great quality veggies. There is no doubt about that and I commend them for all their muddy, sunburned, long houred effort. Really, I do.

But when that fabulous box of produce arrives at home, my task is only beginning. The guilt arrives with the box. “Such lovely Kohlrabi! What the hell am I going to do with it this year?!” “Another cabbage? There are already three in the fridge.” “More zucchini. Oh good.” “What ARE these?”  Our boxes are filled with the things that grow well in Ohio, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes and fennel, among them. (Oh thank you Dear Farm, for not planting fennel this year!) They are not always filled with things we actually wish to eat.

I tend to the rest of my summer life:  running a small business, replacing dying plants in the planters, washing sweaty laundry, turning on and off the air conditioning and, this year, recovering from surgery and learning how to hear again. But, behind the scenes, I KNOW what is in the produce drawer. Laying on top of the kohlrabi (it lasts a LONG TIME, by the way) and underneath the slowly rotting zucchini is a peck of veggie guilt.  I tossed some of it in the huge pot of borscht the other day and a little bit in each container of refrigerator pickles. I have added it to the olive oil and freshly ground rosemary slathered on the grilled veggies. Some went into the baked polenta with greens. I also sent plenty spinning down the garbage disposal, not quite sure why the patty pan squash was so bitter; and the recipe SAID the grilled cabbage would be yummy…

Right now, over in the kitchen, the guilt is seeping around the cucumbers and rotting zucchini and the hot and not-so-hot banana peppers and the savoy cabbage that we lovingly soaked in salt water to rid it of farm creatures with no intention of actually EATING IT.  I don’t’ do hot peppers. I am sick of cabbage. The onions I can freeze. The guilt? I will continue to live with it and keep it from overwhelming my summer until the CSA season concludes sometime near November. Next year? I am going to the farmer’s markets instead of the joining the CSA.  I’m longing to live veggie guilt free again. Live and learn and eat cabbage….