What I Just Read: Farm City

I'm always so sad when I get to the end of a book that I've been enjoying. I slow down my pace of reading the final few pages, not wanting the book to end. It's been a while since I read a book like that, but tonight I got to experience that again as I finished Farm City by Novella Carpenter. As I said in my Facebook update, who knew that a book about squatter backyard farming in the Oakland ghetto could be so interesting? (I almost called it engaging, bit I'm not sure if it's correct to describe a book as engaging?)

Anyway, lately I seem to be reading books written by Bay Area people (last week I finished Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon), or books having to to with food (like Cleaved by Julie Powell). I liked the Chabon book, but I did not really enjoy Cleaved. I think that as a happy newlywed, I just can't relate to the story of a woman who has an extramarital affair and stays with her husband, who knows about it and starts having affairs himself. The parts about her apprenticing at a butcher shop in upstate NY were OK - there are some interesting and likeable characters at the shop - but my eyes did glaze over as she went on and on and on and on about meat and butchery. Even the latter part of the book where she travels was not that interesting. I found myself feeling the same disdain for the author that I felt when I read Eat, Pray, Love. And she was so likeable in Julie and Julia! Somehow I don't think they're going to make a movie starring Amy Adams out of this.

So back to Farm City: it does make me look at the semi-accessible backyard of our building in a new way. But shoot, I've always had a black thumb...maybe I'll have to settle for encouraging Dave to start up his window herb garden again.

Help, we're trapped in our CSA box!

A couple of months ago, Sweetie and I started getting a CSA box (community supported agriculture, for everyone who doesn't read stuff like The Omnivore's Dilemma). He always wanted to get one, and I've always been curious about them myself (since I think of myself as a person who would do something like subscribe to a CSA box). People I know who get them rave about them - the quality of the produce, plus the fact that you're challenged to find ways to use some vegetables that you've never even heard of before and wouldn't think to buy for yourself.

Anyway, we discovered a new-ish cafe in the Marina that serves excellent salads and sandwiches, and lo and behold, when we found out that they did a CSA box service, we signed right up. It comes every other Wednesday. Unlike other CSA programs, they don't deliver to your home - you have to go to the restaurant to pick it up. And that was totally fine with us - I think we secretly love going to the Marina because we get to take that lovely shortcut through the Presidio.

We were thrilled with our first box. It came with the loveliest flowers, which we never expected.

Our enthusiasm kept up for the next few boxes. But then, the novelty wore off and we found that maybe we don't need a bi-weekly CSA box. The produce is fine, but Sweetie LOVES going to Farmer's Markets - he's at one right now - so sometimes we just have more food than we need or can use. I'm not sure about our usage rate of the boxes we've been getting - what we use vs. what we toss - because I confess, I do think of it as "his" box, so I rarely do anything with the veggies myself (though he'd be thrilled if I did). So maybe a CSA box isn't for us right now, especially on a regular basis.

The problem? The woman who runs the cafe is SO nice and sweet to us, we don't have the heart to quit. After our recent box pick-up I found myself suggesting all these excuses ("Tell her that we're going to be out of town a lot!") that we could give her for quitting. We just feel guilty for some reason. This totally feels like it could be the plot of one of those Seinfeld re-runs that I've started watching again - us giving her some madcap excuse, getting caught, and then ending up being banned from the cafe for life: "No Chinese Chicken Salad for you!".

I'm sure we'll find a way to break it to her gently. Until then, I guess we're just going to have to keep eating our veggies.

Cherries, Part Deux

So apparently when you have a lot of cherries, the best way to store them is in the fridge in a loose plastic bag. And each day you should go through them and pick out the ones that are getting too ripe, since if they burst that can just ruin your whole batch. So that's what we did tonight.

I don't think I'm going to pick black cherries next year. They're really at their best the same day you pick them. Just over 24 hours later, they were already starting to turn too ripe.

In his cherry research, Sweetie found that you can pickle them, though I don't know why anyone would want to do that.

Pictures! Cherries truly are one of the prettiest fruits.

Cherries

We went cherry picking yesterday! It was so fun. We drove out to the East Far East Bay, to Brentwood, which is on the other side of Mt. Diablo (side note: this means that now any time Sweetie makes reference to Brentwood, I can't say "I don't know what that is", which is my catchphrase when it comes to most towns in Contra Costa County). Sweetie picked the farm and he chose well, because this was a place where they pruned the trees so they stayed low so there were no ladders involved.

I loved it! I could have stayed out there all day. Like many things, I attribute this to my Polish peasant genes, since up until one generation ago my people were farming people.

Cherries! The pictures don't do them justice, but they were so beautiful, shining in the sun. I totally want to go to more U-Pick places now.