First CSA Pickup

I had my first CSA pickup over the weekend! Basically, a few months ago I wrote a check to Hearty Roots Farm (in Tivoli, NY) and now I pick up whatever they're growing every other Saturday morning. This week was a lot of leafy greens: arugula, spinach, kale and butter lettuce, along with green garlic, radishes and broccoli. I cooked up the broccoli last night with some of the garlic, and on Sunday I took my first stab at making kale chips.

Unfortunately, I misread two teaspoons of olive oil as two tablespoons, and they were quite the greasy bunch. Tasty, but not too crunchy. They kale was pretty plentiful though and I should have a chance to take another shot at it, so I'll post the recipe when I have it down.

On the financial front, the CSA membership breaks down to about $23-24 per pickup, which seems pricey when I think about it that way. So I decided to check out the prices of the same items at my local natural foods market, and I was pretty surprised to see that I would be paying more if I bought them all there (assuming I bought organic, the conventional produce was cheaper.)

1 bag of spinach: $3.99
2 bags of kale: $2.99 each
1 box of arugula: $4.99
1 head of lettuce: $2.49
2 heads of broccoli: $3.99 each (sheesh!)
1 bunch of radishes: $.99 (non-organic)
They didn't have green garlic, but scallions were $.50/bunch (non-organic)

Total: $26.92

Ok, so the difference isn't that huge, and granted, I probably wouldn't buy this much leafy greenery in one trip to the store, but it's also interesting to get it all home and be forced to try seasonal things I wouldn't ordinarily buy, plus there's the whole supporting local farms aspect. And the whole idea is that there will be more actual vegetables later in the summer when they're in season. Mmm...vegetables.