Scraping the bottom of an organic, local barrel

When I came home on Tuesday with our farm share, it was a heavy load-- by far the most we'd received all summer.

And with the close of Shabbat, other than a random assortment of chili peppers and three small unidentifiable summer squash, it's all gone. I found a recipe that involves chili peppers and chocolate; since we began this adventure, Lys has been willing to try any recipe I've come up with. We've given the old college try to well-disguised god-forbids and chatzilim (eggplant), but I think she's going to draw the line at chili peppers and chocolate.

So what have I learned this week? It's been a great one for a number of reasons. Food just tastes better to me when I know it just came out the ground, for one thing. I'm no scientist or nutrition expert or flavor tester. I'm not sure I can quantify or qualify it, but I can just taste the difference between a tomato that has been on a jet and one that hasn't. Don't ask me how. Perhaps it's all psychological, but even if it is, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Tomatoes with no frequent flyer miles taste like wind and sun to me, much more so than ones that were fed peanuts on their flight. Cucumbers that only have earth to be washed off before munching taste different than ones that need the wax removed.

And making a menu around what's been grown up the block instead of going down the block to the grocery store with my mind already made up--there's something so richly spiritual about it. When we say the blessing before a meal whose ingredients we know haven't come too far, literally or figuratively, from their source, I feel closer to The Source of our blessings. There's something about it that just feels like this was the way things were meant to be. Don't get me wrong: I love fresh strawberries in December as much as anyone. But when I do go to the supermarket this days, I am thinking more about the providence of the food, and whether it's what I am meant to be eating right now. And when the applesplumsorangesstrawberriesorwhatever has a sticker that says Costa Rica or some other far-flung place, I tend to put it back in favor of something--almost anything-- that was grown closer to home. And it feels good.

I can't wait till Tuesday. And if you ask me what I'll do when the growing season is well and truly over around here, the answer is, I don't know. It'll be an honestly sad day for me.