Blog de Puree

We picked up our first share of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) produce from Arrowhead Family Farm in Newburyport, Mass today and consequently cooked our first, delicious meal from locally grown food.

A bird’s eye view of the Arrowhead Family Farm along the
Merrimack River in Newburyport, Mass.

Take that big chain markets and national (and international) food distribution conglomerates who spend stupid money on resources, pollute the Earth and provide sub-quality food! (I mean c’mon, how pathetic is it that Stop & Shop and Shaws markets provide apples from Washington State in the fall when they are literally falling off the trees here in New England!)

(Green tirade over, Randye reminded me of a wonderful quote from Nigella Lawson in her book “How to Eat” where she states, “Don’t believe everything you’re told about the greater good of eating foods only when they are in season. The purists may be right, but being right isn’t everything. If you live in the Tuscan Hills, you may find different lovely things to eat every month of the year, but for us it would mean having to subsist half the time on a diet of tubers and cabbage, so why shouldn’t we be grateful that we live in the age of jet-transport and extensive culinary imports? (Nigella lives in England and the same applies to New England.)) (Check out her books on her website. And buy them!)

It was early in the season for New England, so the bounty was a bit light, but we picked up one pound of rhubarb, a pint of strawberries, a head of red lettuce, a head of dark green lettuce, and a generous bunch of sweet pea shoots. We could have gotten chives, but our personal garden runneth over with them. The added bonus of our pickup was that my 8+ month-old son was able to meet and pet a friendly Hereford cow named Delilah who is a resident at Arrowhead Farm. (Young boys + animals = smiles. Usually.)

This week’s bounty.

So, tonight’s meal was a light and delightful, Vietnamese inspired shrimp and rice noodle salad with the CSA lettuces and pea shoots, some leftover parsley from a previous market purchase, plus fresh mint and chives from our own herb garden, rice noodles, frozen shrimp and a chili lime dressing that Randye adapted from a spring roll dipping sauce recipe. To wash down the meal, we imbibed in a sweet, buttery Gewurztraminer wine from Gundlach Bundschu (2003 vintage).

Not bad for coming home at 5:15 p.m. and sitting down to eat at 6:00.