About 10 years ago my oldest and bestest friend E announced she was moving to the middle of nowhere to live and work on an organic farm. Uh, yeah, right. E had always been into the environment and stuff, but we were from the nation’s capital and attended one of its snobbiest private schools. Granted we didn’t really fit in with the snobs, but still, farming? We didn’t even know anyone whose parents owned a farm. So no one in E’s life new what to make of her new career choice. Now, more than a decade later she is about to get a masters in horticulture (although I like telling people it’s a masters in dirt because her thesis involved dirt and peppers), E is about to start working for one of my favorite local organic farms. It’s about an hour and a half away, which is the closest to DC E has been in a long, long time.
The farm she is going to work for is relatively young; I want to say less than 5 years old. A rich family started it so it has the best of everything. A ton of different ponds, enough land to grow whatever you want in “rich people’s dirt” as E called it. It’s the kind of dirt you just want to roll around in. At least that’s what E said when she described it.
It’s because of E that I love and support my local farmer’s markets. And because I think there are too many chemicals running around in the world and my body I am even happier when a farmer is organic. (Yes, I know, organic is not perfect, look at the spinach scare of last year. Still, at least it’s a naturally made bad thing and not a man made bad thing.) Two summers ago it was not uncommon for me to hit 4-5 different markets a week. I would buy a little here, a little there but rarely use it all. I just couldn’t help myself-the veggies are just so beautiful. It also helped that I could fill a whole morning driving around, listening to NPR, and buying veggies.
That all being said, I don’t eat a ton of veggies and am definitely not veggie crazy. Compared to the food friends, I’m a rookie. Kales and greens don’t excite me much, I don’t know what to do with swiss chard and haven’t a clue of what a cardoon tastes like. I do shell my fava beans, but come on. They are fava beans. They rock. I couldn’t live solely off of vegetables if I had to. But there is something about eating an ear of corn that was picked yesterday that keeps me from eating the shrink-wrapped corn Costco is currently selling. As I continue to learn to eat in kosher land, I think we are going to have to learn more about cooking, seasonally, with more vegetables. For the most part, I don’t have to worry about veggies being kosher (because KG doesn’t) and for that I am grateful.
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