A never-ending vegetable story
I’m sure if you pull up my search history, one of my most frequent Google searches during the move to SF almost three years ago was “Farmer’s Markets in San Francisco.” During that stressful time of my life where I had a persistent eye twitch, the bounty of produce awaiting me was a source of comfort. While there’s nothing like a weekend trip to the Farmer’s Market, last week, I discovered that a local grocery delivery service we use offers CSA boxes from local farms.
On Sunday, a box arrived with our first order. My initial excitement at the sheer amount of vegetation in this box (purple carrots! bok choy! the cutest turnips!) slowly gave way to panic. How the F are Evan and I going to eat all this? And then this emotion was replaced by determination. We WILL eat all of this. This box will not defeat us.
What follows is an account of this journey.
We hit the ground running with a breakfast to use all the greens we’d lopped off the turnips, beets, and radishes. A favorite savory breakfast formula which I think of as mostly a vehicle for hot sauce: polenta and a “hash” of greens, onions, and beans. If you have over 5 opened bottles of hot sauce in your fridge at any given time, this meal is for you. (And if you don’t have over 5 opened bottles of hot sauce in your fridge at any given time, I urge you to rethink your priorities.)
That night’s dinner was a joint effort against the beets, carrots, and spring onions. Evan whole roasted baby carrots with salt and pepper. I made a recipe from a new favorite cookbook, East by Meera Sodha - an electric pink, tangy, Sri Lankan curry. This was the perfect dish to eat while contemplating important questions like: How can a vegetable that tastes like a combination of dirt and candy be so deeply delicious? Is it safe to eat this on my light grey couch while wearing a white sweatshirt?
The next few days are a blur of salads, mostly undocumented. I found one image I don’t recall taking, a photographic masterpiece: a salad of romaine, everything bagel seasoning, toasted sourdough, radish, green onions, and some kraut from the back of the fridge dressed with rice vinegar and olive oil. All against the stunning backdrop of the neighboring grey apartment building and alley below. Is it a commentary on the persistence of the human spirit in dark times, or just a tasty lunch? You be the judge.
The lettuce was not so easily defeated, though. Despite the salads, there was enough remaining on Thursday to require a final push. In a burst of inspiration, Evan suggested lettuce cups. And the best part about these lettuce cups? Not only were they made of lettuce (as you’d expect) they were filled with lettuce, too. Well, bok choy. And scallions and purple spring onions. And carrots. And peanuts. And radishes. And brown rice. And so so so much sriracha.
By the time Saturday night rolled around, our fridge was looking downright empty, save for some cabbages, parsley, spring onions, curly kale, leftover mayocoba beans and butternut squash puree. (Ok, so it wasn’t so empty after all.) I improvised a walnut/parsley/butternut squash/scallion oil sauce thinned with some bean stock. I tossed it with whole wheat pasta, sauteed kale, roasted cabbage, and red pepper flakes. The result was as much a romantic Saturday dinner as it was a celebration of conquered ruffage and an eff you to food waste.
What comes next, I’m ashamed to admit: Still high off our accomplishment, we did the only logical thing: we ordered another box. One that arrived today and contained: 1 bunch of white carrots, 1 bunch of orange carrots, 1 bunch of red beets, 1 bunch of chioggia beets, 1 bunch of leeks, 1 bunch of tokyo turnips, 1 bunch of cherry radish, 1 bunch of red russian kale, 1 pound or savoy and arrowhead cabbage, 1 pound of broccoli, 1 pound of mei qing choi, 1 pound of raddichio and so so much lettuce, dear reader. So much.
Welcome to the vegetable circus. See you next week.
