Monica Comas Novelist
Journalist
Avid Cook

 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year in my kitchen AND I AM OVERJOYED. That’s right, we’re talking all-caps enthusiasm! My happiness cannot be contained. Let me backtrack.

I’m an avid home cook. Like everyone else on the Eastern Seaboard, we’ve trudged through winter’s limp offerings at the grocery store: lackluster lettuce, barely there broccoli, lifeless herbs. Kale, as usual, was the seasonal stalwart, fairly reliable and usually getable. But, and I say this as an ardent lover of kale, I’m tired of kale. I have no more magic to transform this virtuous green. I simply can’t uplift it any longer.

 

Aaaaaand…

This is the moment in which I find myself every spring, the moment when I cannot possibly eat more kale, when I cannot possibly serve more kale, the moment I need a crisp green salad so desperately I’m, frankly, grumpy (my salad desperation is an ugly thing). It’s at this precise point when my fresh-veggie need is palpable that the clouds part…the sun shines through…and my coveted box of farm fresh produce arrives at my door!

Which is why I am now, this very day, BEYOND EXCITED. Every week I get a present like this! All summer long—and into the fall!—I unwrap my giant box of vegetables feeling like it’s Christmas and Santa Claus lives on an organic farm.

This is my third year as a member of Flocktown Farm’s CSA (CSA stands for community-supported agriculture), and, I say this without a hint of hyperbole, it has made me so happy and revitalized my summer cooking.

 

Just-Picked Joy

Some ingredient beauty shots (because some people take pictures of their children, I take photos of my pup and produce):

 

 

Summer Veggie Makeovers

Sharing a few I’ve done in these early days:

 

 

 

Now, am I someone who’s absolutely jazzed by a simple mesclun salad of just-picked greens that are given the merest kiss of a zippy scape dressing? Yes. Yes, I am. But the beauty of having seasonal ingredients grown with respect for the soil and environment so close to where I live, is that you don’t have to do much at all. The produce is honestly that good. When I’m storing my greens each week, do I sometimes stuff entire leaves of lettuce in my mouth after I’ve washed them just so I can taste something that was so freshly picked? Yes, I do. Do I look like a kitchen goblin when I do this? Again, yes. Sadly, yes.

I know how lucky I am to write an entire blog celebrating vegetables. Don’t think for a moment that I take this for granted.

The farmers (I’m including all the good folks who tend to the farm full-time, as well as the vital seasonal employees who are so crucial) who work tirelessly to grow everything, pick everything, and transport everything, I stand in awe.

With so much gratitude.

And with a full, happy belly.

Thank you!