Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Kale, Melon, Tomatoes, Beets, Purslane, Carrots, Peppers, Apricots, and Donut Peaches

Laziness begets laziness. This is the sort of thing that your mother used to tell you when you were 16 and spent your summer vacation sleeping until 11 AM, then relaxing for the rest of the day on a sun lounger, moving only to refill on lemonade and seek out additional gossip magazines. Just, you know, hypothetically speaking.

Let me tell you, your mother was on to something.

August arrived right on schedule this year, with the past 13 days having been the most phenomenally unproductive since...well...last August. Things are ghostly quiet in the office. The phones are silent, little red voicemail lights have gone dark, and email volume has whittled down to a small fraction of what it usually is. Back on the home front, life has progressed towards complete and total indolence. Of late, there has been a lot of couch time, movie watching, red wine, internet surfing, and sleeping.

And while this happens to be exactly the type of scenario that I dream about when life gets chaotic, a funny thing happens when it actually comes to pass: I don't like who I am. The less I have to do, the less I get done, and what started off as a little extra leisure time ends as full-on torpor.

My new found inertia has got me thinking about adaptation. Last Sunday the New York Times ran a story on a couple who decided to toss away all their possessions and live a simplified, debt-free life. The article talked about "hedonic adaptation," an official-sounding psychological term meaning that once you acquire the nice things you always wanted, you promptly get used to them and they stop seeming so nice anymore. So, you begin wanting even NICER things. This is known to many of us as "being a spoiled brat."

But it's a concept that applies to much more than just wealth. You'll notice that when you start eating too richly (think: a week's vacation in Italy; the entirety of the holiday season), before you know it that indulgent diet becomes merely the new normal. When you're getting 8 hours of sleep a night, you start wanting 10. It also explains why you'll sometimes hear retired people describe their cushy lives as being laced with untold stress and hurry: it's all relative, baby.

Luckily, the concept works in reverse, too. Just out of college many of my friends became i-banking analysts, and I marvelled at how they could possibly put up with a life where 19-hour work days were standard operating procedure. Their answer: "You just get used to it." It's what we do as humans. We adapt.

This is the best argument I've heard for living a life of virtue -- that breaking it is so much fun! If I'm going to adapt to my chosen lifestyle anyway, I'd rather adapt to being too disciplined than being too being lazy, right? If hedonic adaptation is to be believed, we'll all ultimately be happier if we live hectic lives punctuated by the occasional vacation; eat spartanly and indulge in the occasional feast; spend thriftily and every once in a while, blow it out.

You might be wondering how this applies to my CSA box. Well, in my period of sloth, there has not been a lot of cooking, photography, or writing (or working out, or clean laundry, for that matter), so I don't have much to offer you today. Most of what I did in the kitchen over the past week could have been done by a well-trained monkey.

I cut up the green peppers and purslane and mixed them with store bought lettuce and radishes to create a green salad, tossed with lemon-rosemary vinaigrette.



I cut the apricots in half, put them in a roasting pan, sprinkled them with brown sugar, and stuck them under the broiler for 5-10 minutes (until browned and juicy). I used them to top vanilla ice cream, and which would have been a beautiful photo if I had managed to take it.

The beets I roasted, chopped, and mixed with feta, basil, and balsamic vinegar to create a light salad.




The tomatoes got the same treatment as the beets, but weren't photographed.

The kale and carrots went into that kale and white bean stew that I made once before, which I took to work for lunch all week.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Summer Squash, Japanese Eggplant, Napa Cabbage, Fava Beans, The List Goes On And On...

This week I found myself in an unfamiliar position: I was actually prepared to use all of my CSA produce -- I had the dishes all planned out! -- and then a lot of it went bad on me.

Food spoilage was a serious, complex problem over most of the course of human history, but the invention of refrigeration around 100 years ago should have changed all that. We live in the golden age of food preservation (actually, maybe the baroque period?). If we can make milk that's shelf-stable for months, I should be able to keep a cucumber fresh for 7-10 days.

And yet, my refrigerator is where vegetables go to be tortured. Earlier this week some of the squash froze to death and some of it appears to have been suffocated in an unventilated Ziploc bag. The cucumbers died of dehydration. Poor old squash and cucumbers.

I think that most of you can relate. When a new fruit or vegetable comes into one's life, it's not always obvious what should be done to keep it happy. Does one put it in the fridge? If so, in a plastic bag? Or in a brown paper bag on the counter? Should one wash it first? And if one is having this much trouble caring for vegetable matter, how can one expect to have a child?

To make matters worse, my refrigerator is unpredictable and mean-spirited. It is the Mel Gibson of kitchen appliances, cruel and volatile, freezing things at random and without warning. It appears to be particularly bigoted against leafy greens. Mel is currently set at 38 degrees and still manages to freeze things, leading me to believe that either the thermostat is a lie or I remember even less from high school chemistry than I thought.

This week of ruined foodstuffs was a wake up call to get my act together. For information about properly storing produce, I found this cheat sheet - it's not the prettiest, but the information is presented concisely and clearly. Were you even aware that certain troublemaking fruits like apricots and tomatoes must be stored separately from the rest of their fruit and vegetable friends? Neither was I.

I also need to get myself a refrigerator thermometer and figure out what parts of my fridge stay at what temperature, and store things accordingly. I can already see The Viking throwing his face in his hands at this, envisioning a future in which he gets in trouble for putting the blueberries back on the wrong shelf. Sorry, The Viking, but it's the world in which you are about to live.

Without further ado, here's a rundown of how I used my CSA produce:

I sliced the Japanese eggplants and what was left of the squash, brushed them with olive oil, and simply grilled them on a griddle plate on my stove top.



I rescued two cucumbers and used them to make raita, the Indian yogurt, cucumber, and mint sauce. This became a cool, refreshing accompaniment to the grilled vegetables.

The carrots were tossed in with a leftover butterflied lamb shank that I thawed, trussed, and braised on the stove top with tomatoes, lemons, garlic, port, cinnamon, thyme, and bay leaves. I've never cooked lamb this way before and it's worthy of a blog entry of its own - it was sensationally tender and delicately tinged with North African flavors.



The fava beans I blanched and threw together with mint, sliced radishes, sliced red onion, and a honey mustard vinaigrette. I meant to include feta, and that would have been a valuable addition to a salad that ended somewhat too flimsy for its own good.



As previously reported, the Mirabelles became a tart.

As for the Napa Cabbage and Kale...these didn't turn out so well. I braised them in a skillet with garlic and onions and finished them with rice vinegar and raz el hanout. It was a dish that didn't make any sense, and the finished product showed it (it's pictured below with leftover lamb and raita).



This week, only the purslane got left behind. I'll try to do better by it next time around.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Japanese Eggplant, Zucchini, Kale, Fava Beans, Green Beans, Radishes, Apricots, & Sugar Plums

I'm happy to report that there's one upside, at least, to moving ever-deeper into the jaws of summer: the CSA box is finally graduating away from lettuces, skillet greens and garlic and into more inspiring fare. Fava beans! Japanese eggplant! Oh, the possibilities are endless...

That having been said, I still had kale to contend with in this past delivery, and you've already born witness to the sad results. Will the kale never stop coming?? It feels like I'm caught in some kind of cosmic loop where kale will perpetually show up on my doorstep no matter how I try to stop it. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day? It's like that, except instead of Andy McDowell it's kale. Kale, kale, and more kale. Shudder.

Anyway, moving on.

The three firm little Japanese eggplants went into the topping for bruschetta. I sauteed thinly sliced red onions and the eggplant in olive oil, and once they were soft and brown I added a splash of red wine vinegar. I took this off the heat and mixed in cubed mozzarella, shredded basil, salt, and pepper. That all got piled onto grilled bread and topped with prosciutto and a drizzle of olive oil. Trust me when I say that if you start out with all the ingredients named above, it is nearly impossible to end up with something that doesn't taste good.



On to the green beans. FYI, the word "green bean" is simply a general term for many different types of bean. These guys were long, fat, and slightly leathery, so I think they were pole beans. Recipes do not abound for the pole bean, but I thought the only way to get them tender enough to eat would be to stew them. I did this the Southern way, in salt pork broth. I put a dutch oven over medium-high heat, added a ham hock, and let that give off most of its fat. I then added some finely chopped onion and a pint of water. I let that simmer loosely covered for half an hour, then added the beans (topped, tailed, and cut into 1" lengths) and left them partially covered at a low simmer for 90 minutes. The beans came out tender and with a distinctly smoky, briney, pork-tastic flavor.



The fava beans and a few radishes became a salad (dressed with sage, chives, lemon juice, and walnut pesto) atop slices of prosciutto. It was light, fresh, and flavorful, and very quick to throw together. The recipe can be found in Tom Colicchio's Think Like A Chef.



For the zucchini, I used a recipe from this month's Fine Cooking, which can be found here. The general idea is to saute zucchini and a little bit of red onion, toss it in a Middle Eastern spice blend (I traded za'atar for Ras El Hanout, but the effect is the same), and top with chick peas that you've crisped up by coating them in cornstarch and pan frying them in olive oil.



Now here's an interesting one: did you know that radishes could be roasted? Because they can! And they taste more or less like turnips, which is not really what I expected. I found a recipe for roasted radishes by Gerard Craft (a superstar chef from St. Louis and former Food & Wine Best New Chef) on the Food & Wine website -- the key with this is to make sure you get a good sear on the radishes, to give them that caramelized flavor. Speaking of "searing," be very careful when dealing with with cast iron skillets and 500 degree ovens. A cast iron skillet gets very hot and stays that way for a long time, as I learned the hard way last night when I absent-mindedly grabbed for its handle...suffice it to say that I spent a couple of hours last night with my left hand submerged in vodka (an old Swedish burn remedy).



Aaaannnddd that's all she wrote. Oh -- if you're wondering what happened to the fruits, those were all hoarded by the The Viking and eaten as snacks.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Cherries, Greens, Lettuces, Garlics, Beets, & Spring Red Onions

This past week has been one particularly full of upsets and surprises in the world of sports. In the World Cup, England didn't make it past the Round of 16, having been asked by zie Germans on Sunday to pack up their three-piece suits and go home. Over at Wimbledon, two little-known men stretched their first round match to over 11 hours and almost 180 games; one of those leggy blonde Russian model-slash-tennis-players vanquished Venus Williams in the quarterfinals; and just a few hours ago, a person I have never even heard of dissed and dismissed Roger Federer in four sets.

Likewise, this past week I astounded myself (and maybe The Viking a little bit too) by using everything that the CSA man delivered to me last Tuesday night -- despite many dinners out, despite too much work, despite utter weariness of Swiss chard, which has begun to haunt me in my dreams. Would I call this an athletic feat? Probably not. But getting all those fruits and vegetables into food form in a seven day period took intense concentration, discipline, and training. The results weren't always pretty, but I got the job done.

[Ed Note: If you think that this sports analogy was an awkward and terrible way to begin a blog post mostly about beets and leafy greens, you are correct. I just really wanted to mention that FEDERER LOST to some rando! In 4 sets! What's up with the world?!]

I don't have a lot of time to elaborate today, but I did want to give a brief recap of where this week's produce went (with promises to be more entertaining tomorrow):

We got exactly five beets in this week's CSA delivery, none of which were larger than a lime. I turned them into an appetizer for Monday night's dinner (a two course dinner on a weeknight = a rarity, by the way). I wrapped the beets in tin foil and roasted them at 375 for half an hour, then let them cool, peeled the skins off, and sliced them thin. I topped that with shards of cold Crottin goat cheese, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and walnut oil, and a sprinkling of chopped basil, kosher salt, and pepper. The outcome was terrific, and I plan on making this again when we have company (and a more sizeable delivery of beets).



Of the cherries that look so gorgeous up above, most went directly into The Viking's mouth, who spat their pits into a bowl like machine gun fire. The cherries that I could rescue from his gaping maw became that sad clafouti that I told you about.

Some of the Swiss chard went into my lunches this week. But I find that no matter how much Swiss chard you use, the next time you open your fridge the same amount seems to be waiting for you. Luckily all of this pressure to use leafy greens has taught me a thing or two about disposing of large quantities of them (and spring onions and garlic, too). Just chop them all up and saute them! Really, I cooked Swiss chard, kale, and beet greens according to the method described here, adding a splash of white wine vinegar at the end to give them a little tang. They wilt down to almost nothing, and I served them with roast pork and new potatoes.




And finally the lettuces. Lettuces tend to speak for themselves. I ripped them up and dressed them with a vinaigrette of garlic scapes, Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, and olive oil, and served them with roasted new potatoes and broiled sockeye salmon.

Qu'est Que C'est Dans Ma Boite Du CSA? Kale, Swiss Chard, Lettuces, Radishes, Carrots, Spring Garlic, & Garlic Scapes

Another Wednesday, another batch of sad vegetables languishing in my crisper drawer. I didn't get a chance to do much cooking these past days (too much World Cup, too many Real Housewives reruns, too little culinary ambition), and as a result was again unable to make the most of my CSA delivery. Whimper.

I'm becoming slightly worried that this CSA produce is going to function much in the same way as my New Yorker subscription, which exists to sit around the house and make me feel bad about myself, reminding me of the person that I could be: someone who reads contemporary short fiction and doesn't let good food go to waste.

But, let's start with the high points.

Kale and carrots went into this gorgeous white bean & kale soup. It's Dan Barber's recipe (courtesy of Bon Appetit, available here), and I have to say that it seemed suspiciously healthy when I first encountered it. I worried that it might turn out to be one of those things that personal trainers and trophy wives eat and rave about but that really tastes like sawdust mixed with dishwater.



It does not. It's tangy and light and delicious. The key here is the Sherry vinegar added in at the end -- if you don't have Sherry vinegar on hand, do not skip this step. You can use white wine vinegar instead. Also, make sure to give the stock and white wine plenty of time to reduce down to make a concentrated broth, even if you exceed the timing marked in the recipe.

The Viking and I ate the soup with some disappointing store bought bread. The whole meal happened to be vegan, for those of you who go in for that sort of thing. For those that don't: I'd suggest frying bacon or pancetta in with the shallots at the beginning for a heartier soup.

The next night, I made a pasta dish from the Swiss chard, garlic scapes, and spring garlic, and served it with with pork cutlets in a cider-mustard sauce.



For the pasta dish, I separated the leaves and stems of the Swiss chard, chopping them separately. Then I sliced and sauteed garlic scapes and spring garlic (white parts only) in olive oil. I added in the sliced stems and a little water, letting them soften and then adding the leaves and little bit more water. Then I added almost 2 cups of chopped San Marzano tomatoes. That all got mixed together with a pound of penne and 1/2 cup Parmesan. As a side note, do yourself a favor and buy high quality pasta -- something other than Ronzoni, De Cecco, and Barilla if you can find it. It has more texture and flavor, and really makes all the difference.

I digress. I suppose I shouldn't spend any more effort trying to distract you from the issue at hand, which is of course the big bag of lettuces and radishes left in my fridge. I briefly considered eating a side salad with my double espresso this morning, but ultimately decided against it. They're still sitting in the fridge wilting right now, probably wishing that they were delivered to someone who really appreciated them.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est Dans Ma Boite De CSA? Greens, Garlic Scapes, Spring Garlic, Radishes, Spearmint, and Bok Choy

My first week of CSA membership did not go as smoothly as hoped. Like so many overblown culinary ambitions -- the croquembouche I thought I'd "throw together" for a holiday party, my first naive tries at salt-roasted salmon, the ridiculous notion of making agnolotti at 2 AM after way, way too many mojitos -- 100% utilization of my CSA delivery was not meant to be this time around.

The vegetable delivery came in a container about the size of a file box, and included a big fistful of mixed greens (mizuna, swiss chard, and green chard, by my account), an armful of lettuces, and modest quantitites of spearmint, bok choy, spring garlic, garlic scapes, and radishes.

The lettuces were a quick win -- I washed them, tore them up, and tossed them with a vinaigrette of tarragon, white wine vinegar, mustard, and olive oil.



Sliced radishes added peppery bite to a salad of white beans, dill, cherry tomatoes, and red onion, all mixed together with olive oil and lemon juice. This salad is highly recommended, as it's delicious and accomplishes the cheap/quick/healthy trifecta.



Spring garlic, which is a lot like a scallion but with a garlicky aftertaste, was chopped, sauteed with pancetta, and used to fill an omelette.



No sooner had I made my little dig about bok choy than it showed up on my doorstep, demanding to be transformed into something fabulous. The obvious choice here is an Asian stir fry, but I had hoped to think outside the box. I ended up making a Provencal stir fry...which was not really so imaginative at all, but tasted great all the same. I minced and sauteed garlic scapes (little green hoses with a pungent onion and garlic flavor - very cool) with a bay leaf, fresh thyme leaves, and strips of orange zest, adding in chopped bok choy, tomatoes, olives, and parsley.



And what of the mixed greens and spearmint? They met their end in a garbage bin, for no good reason other than that I wasn't sure off the top of my head how to prepare them and lacked the time and energy to figure it out.

So there you have it. That's what became of my first CSA delivery. I aspire to do better next time; I will endeavor to eat all my vegetables.

Dinner For 1: Cheddar, Spring Garlic & Pancetta Omelette Bliss

I just want to take a moment to draw your attention to how unbeatable an omelette is when you're cooking for one: it's super cheap, nutritious, quick, and easy, and magically transforms things like sad little nubs of cheese and random, wilty produce into a warm, gooey pocket of awesome.

Tonight, I used spring garlic (which is similar to scallions) from my weekly CSA delivery, along with leftover cheddar and pancetta. My omelette recipe can be found here. Add a cold beer, and dinner doesn't get much better than that.

In Which We Join A CSA

Friends! I am back from vaca, well-rested, ever so slightly tanned, and demonstrably in one piece.

Soon I'll regail you with stories from North Africa: tales of the Viking's nanny, Berber whisky, our new friend Mohammad Ali, and the totalitarian cumin regime that Morocco calls a cuisine (kidding, kidding, I loved it).

But in the meantime I have an exciting announcement. We signed up for a CSA!

What's a CSA, you may ask? It's community supported agriculture, which means joining a hipster cult. You pay a local farmer a lump sum up-front, and get in return a box of assorted foodstuffs each week (we found a CSA that delivers to one's door, although most do not). Ours lasts 22 weeks and we bought a vegetable share and a fruit share. You can find CSAs for eggs, cheese, and meat as well.

CSAs have lots of community benefits: they cut out of the middle man of a grocery store, support local businesses, and paying for your share of the harvest up front means that you the eater share with the farmer the risks and rewards of that crazy thing we call agriculture. If you thought that carbonating your own water made you feel self-righteous, just you wait. Joining a CSA will practically demolish the towering pillar of your yuppie guilt.

For instance, now I am able to convince myself that I'm kind of growing my own food, because I own a part of a local farm. Sort of. My terrace agricultural scheme is providing me with loads of home-grown herbs, but it looks like this year's fruit and veg harvest is going to consist of approximately three tomatoes, ten broad beans, and seven strawberries. So while I live in New York, at least, a CSA is as good as it gets.

Plus, I'm intrigued by the Iron Chefesque challenge of having vegetables forced upon me and needing to think up ways to use them - especially the vegetables that I always avoid at the farmer's market. Like Bok Choy. There simply must be something delicious you can do with Boy Choy, and I hope I'll be forced to figure it out.

Deliveries for the season start next Wednesday, and will be the inspiration for a new weekly feature: Qu'est-ce que c'est dans ma boite de CSA? (or, "What's that in my CSA box?"), in which I will share with you what's in each week's mystery CSA delivery and how I plan to cook it. Those of you playing along at home can buy your veggies at a farmer's market or grocery store.

I see lots of ratatouille in the Viking's future.