A: CSA is not for everyone. If you don’t like to cook that often, if you’re averse to most vegetables, if you’re really a meat-and-potatoes type of person, then a CSA is not really for you. That’s my first advice.
CSAs are for people who really enjoy vegetables or want to start eating more vegetables. They like to be a little bit creative with their cooking, or at least they like to be in the kitchen to cook because they’re cooking from scratch. You have to have an open mind because you’re receiving vegetables that you might not buy in the store.
A CSA is great for someone who looks at a box of ingredients and is like, ‘OK, what can I make with what I have now?’ versus someone who is thinking, ‘This is what I feel like eating tonight, so I’m going to look for a recipe and then go buy the groceries based on the recipe.’
There are people who cook from recipes and then people who just look at ingredients and are like, ‘What can I make from it?’
–Linda Ly, a graphic designer-turned-blogger who recently published her first book, “The CSA Cookbook” (March 2015). –Stefanie Gans
BOOK BONUS
Vegetables are much more than their flesh. Linda Ly suggests looking for twofers, or produce with leaves still attached, like beets, radishes, turnips and carrots. If you grow your own peas, you can eat the shoots, sprouts and flowers, same with beans and squash.
(August 2015)
