CSA

In the absence of being able to farm one's own food, the idea of community supported agriculture has always held appeal for me. The way it works is that you subscribe with a farmer sometime in the winter for a set amount of money, and then throughout the growing season, you get weekly deliveries (or pickups) of produce from them. It's a great way to eat locally (and often organically) and to try items that you might not be predisposed to buy on your own. So why haven't I joined one yet? The main reason is that we often travel in the summer, which amounts to missing about a month's worth of deliveries. If it weren't for that, I'd probably get past my other hangups about CSAs and just join one--even if only for a year. Those other hangups are:
1) being a bit of a control freak about what I'm cooking; I like some predictability in meal planning
2) being afraid of not making good use of my deliveries (either because of the quantities, or just the weirdness, of the items in question)
3) worrying that I won't actually be getting items I find useful, and having to spend a lot more on produce outside of my CSA investment
But like I said, all of these concerns I would be willing to put to the test, if it weren't for the travel issue.
Now, a friend of mine who is a devout CSAer is doing some travelling this week, and asked if I'd like her produce for the week. So I got really offended and told her I wasn't waiting for people to feed me, and how dare she assume that I had nothing better to do than to go collect her unwanted veggies. Actually, that's not how that really went---I was thrilled. It was a good way for me to just dabble in the CSA culture ever so lightly. I tagged along with her last week when she went to do a pickup then, and I'll be doing a pickup today. Here are my favourite items that we got to try from last week's batch:

Adirondack blue potatoes -- the same substance that makes blueberries so good for you is what gives these potatoes their colour

Fennel bulb -- I know that fennel isn't extremely exotic by most standards, but in our household, it is. It was one of those "what the heck do I do with this?" items, but I'm so glad this creature found its way into our home! Here's what became of it:

Fennel salad! And we really, really liked it. So much, in fact, that I will probably start buying the occasional fennel bulb just to make this salad again. Here's the recipe:
* 1 fennel bulb (I had two very small ones) - shaved paper thin on a mandoline
* 1 tbsp lime juice
* 2 tbsp olive oil
* 1/4 tsp thyme
* 1 tbsp parsley
* 2 tbsp parmesan
* 1 tsp pesto (I used the Classico stuff)
It was such a refreshing summer salad. I can't wait to make it again. Now I'm looking forward to what "challenges" this afternoon's batch will present.
Do any of you CSA? Do you love/hate it?