Community Supported Agriculture Boxes

CSA box, community supported agriculture, is a weekly delivery of produce from a local farm that I signed up for at the start of the semester. Contents change each week based on what is in season, meaning I've cooked with vegetables I had never heard of, like kohlrabi and hakurei turnips. Because They showed up in my box and I had to figure out what to do with them. Model works by selling shares at the beginning of the growing season, the farmer having guaranteed income before planting and the subscriber sharing both the abundance and the risk of the harvest. At $25 per week the box contains enough produce for about 6 to 8 meals. Quality is noticeably different from the supermarket because the vegetables were picked that morning rather than 2 weeks ago and trucked across the country. Farm sends a weekly newsletter with recipes and notes about what is growing, and reading about the specific field my carrots came from changes my relationship with the food. Forcing seasonal eating is something I value in the CSA model, since I can't get tomatoes in January and that constraint has taught me to cook with root vegetables and greens I'd have ignored otherwise. Community aspect is real too, the pickup point at a local church parking lot where I see the same 20 people every Saturday, trading cooking tips while sorting through the boxes.