Knock, knock--Fresh produce calling!

In recent weeks, B and I have been researching community-supported agriculture (CSA). A CSA is a farm that sells shares of itself, and the "shareholders" get a portion of the food that is harvested each week. You have no choice in what you get, and sometimes you have to pick the veggies yourself, but each week you take home a box of organic, locally grown vegetables.

A friend of mine joined a CSA last summer and loved it. She also directed me to a local farm that sells locally grown (I feel weird using that word for animals, but that's the commonly accepted terminology), corn-fed meat. You can specify if you want 5, 10, or 15 pounds of meat, and you have no choice in what you get, but every month, you get an order of ecologically responsible meat.

We're still considering joining the--for lack of a better term--meat share, but we've decided to skip the CSA because we're going to be out of town for a significant portion of one of the harvesting months, and missing 3-4 weeks of food would make the investment significantly less economical. Besides, I eat a lot of fruit, and I was concerned that eating only vegetables would turn me into a sad, green-tinted individual.

Today, I found a great compromise in a company that delivers organic fruits and vegetables. Naturally, they don't deliver to our town (most people don't even know where our town is, so the chances of finding an organic delivery company are slim), but they deliver to the town in which I work. I signed up today and am expecting my first delivery next week. They offer 3 different box sizes, and you can specify your fruit-to-veggie ratio in thirds, halves, or all fruit or all veggies. Some of the produce is locally grown, but they get most of their fruit (except maybe apples) from other states or countries.

The other great part about the company is that they allow you to specify the fruits and veggies that you don't want to receive. For fruits, I opted out of cranberries, lemons, and limes, because I don't like cranberry sauce, and lemons and limes have limited use outside of alcoholic garnishes. I opted out of more veggies than I care to list--I eat them now, but that doesn't mean I have to like all of them.

For next week's delivery, we'll be getting the following:

• 1.5 lbs Bananas
• 2 Cameo Apples
• 1 lb D'Anjou Pears
• 1 Mango
• 2 Minneola Tangelos
• 2 Peaches
• 2 Valencia Oranges
• 1 Avocado
• 1 6oz Bagged Spinach
• 3 ears Bi-Color Corn
• 1 Cucumber
• 1 bulb Fennel
• 1 lb Onions
• 1.5 lbs Russet Potatoes
• 1 lb Salad Tomatoes

Except we won't be getting the fennel because I don't like the fennel flavor and opted out of it. I'm excited to see what we get in its place though. I really hope I like this service--it looks promising and could help us to keep our food costs down while still eating well.