Recently on BuffaloRising.com, YUM Editor Christa Seychew posted an article (with a great picture of smiling bologna, I might add) whose discussion morphed into the topic of Community Supported Agriculture. The discussion mentioned a couple of farms that do CSA deliveries in the area, and this prompted me to do a bit of research.
My decision to seek out local produce stems from a few personal biases. First, local produce tastes better. It doesn’t spend days sitting on a truck, it doesn’t need to be picked before ripened in order to keep it from rotting before it arrives at its final destination, and it’s often grown with heirloom seeds on an organic farm. I’m not anti-science, but if a seed can be genetically modified to survive a thorough spraying of Round-Up, I’m not sure I want to eat it.
Second, I don’t like the idea of siphoning money to the Middle East in the form of excess gas consumption just so I can have strawberries trucked in from California in January. Finally, I like my local farmers. I love going to the Elmwood-Bidwell Market on a Saturday morning and browsing the fresh selection of produce. I don’t want these guys and gals to go out of business, so if that means I pay an extra dollar for my leeks, it’s worth it, though produce purchased straight from the farmer is almost always less expensive.
After reading up on some of the local CSAs, I decided to purchase a winter share from Native Offerings, a farm in Little Valley, NY. The winter share offers a range of produce, including squash, potatoes, onions, apples, greens, and various root vegetables from November to March. A mass delivery is made to multiple locations in WNY. I’ve paid up front, and starting in November, I’ll swing by MAP on Grant Street, pick up my produce, and start deciding what to cook for the week.
We’ve been trained to base our meals on what we can find in the grocery store. This winter is going to be a new experiment for me as I’m going to try to cook all of my meals with produce grown locally. It may mean a winter without blueberries and bananas, but I’m hoping I’ll learn to live off what the land in WNY produces. In the meantime, if you need a recipe for squash this November, I’ll be your girl!
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