The CSA Begins!

**A draft post I found from about a year ago.**

Remember how I always talk about eating locally?  It's usually how I explain my travel exception from being vegetarian.  (It's also how I attempt to defuse the tension when someone offers me a piece of chicken, and I explain that I don't eat meat, and they start apologizing profusely.  Why do they do this?  They were being nice, and offering me food...).

Now, it is time for me to eat my words.  Literally.  (Ho ho ho...aaaand that's a groaner.  Sorry.)  My CSA from Rocklands Farm has begun!  I'm excited to incorporate more of what is local and seasonal into my diet, and see where it takes me.  I used to spend hours looking at recipes, and then just buying whatever I needed from the co-op, if the fruit stand or the farmers' market didn't have all the ingredients.  It's still a little frightening to jump out and run with my own inspiration (how do I know it will be good if a famous food blogger hasn't vetted it?), but with work, hours of recipe meditation are not in the cards.  Now, I just have to show up in the kitchen and see what happens (and it really hasn't been a challenge so far- greens, gorgeous greens, more eggs than I know what to do with, and a few other odds and ends like thyme and broccoli rabe).

Eating local (or trying - who knows where those mung beans came from) and the chance to meet David Lebovitz!!! led me away from de-stingering nettles to the Dupont Circle Farmers' Market.  While working up the courage to go up and talk to the man, I toured the market several times, and ended up with goat cheese (two kinds, I know), fingerling sweet potatoes, Fuji and Gold Rush apples, midnight and golden beets, and a giant bag of sweet, young carrots.  It was hard to resist the ciders, the yogurts, the pickles, the heads of lettuce, the rhubarb...  You have a CSA, Kemper!

Last night, I made a 101 Cookbooks-esque meal of French green lentils, shredded radish, carrots, arugula, cotija, a wine-poached egg, and some greens I don't even know the name of.  Let's see where tonight takes me.