The Suburban Herbivore

We canceled our share for last week, as our friends that are splitting it with us were out of town. And this week’s share was fairly light. But I’m requesting a double one next week to make up for the one we missed, so that will be … something. For sure.

Last week we missed out on potatoes, of which there will be more, and red cabbage, which I am happy to be done with. Though I did turn up a fairly decent recipe for coleslaw online recently.

Anyway, we got a cute little watermelon, six tomatoes (!) and more lemon cucumbers, as well as leeks, regular cucumbers, serrano peppers, garlic, and the first of the eggplant. Elysian Fields grows Japanese eggplant, which are smaller, more tender, and not as bitter as the standard Black Beauty eggplant that one typically finds in a grocery store. I really appreciate them, because (1) I just don’t like eggplant that much, so having them be smaller is better, as far as I’m concerned, and (2) they are better for Asian/Indian cooking, which I’m more inclined to do anyway.

In rereading this post, I realized that I keep complaining about the vegetables I don’t like. To counter-balance, let me mention all the ones we got this week that I love: serranos, garlic, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I also love watermelon, which is of course not a vegetable. I don’t actually believe there are any fruits that I don’t like.

I am planning to do a flurry of posts this weekend, including reviews of the two Moosewood cooking classes I attended, and a guest post by my husband about making pickles. Stay tuned…

I am excited to already be getting tomatoes! I have heard in the past that, at least around here, tomatoes don’t show up before July 4. I don’t think I’ve managed to produce them earlier than that, but then, sometimes, I procrastinate a little in my planting. Unfortunately I forgot to include the two Big Beef tomatoes in the photo because they were in a separate paper bag.

This week I also received: one red cabbage, three leeks, six orange and yellow carrots, one bunch of beets, four regular cucumbers (not sure which variety), two lemon cucumbers (I’ll be making a separate post about this), a bag of green beens, and one head of garlic. Definitely some good stuff. From the newsletter that Elise sends, it seems that this is the last week for carrots and beets. I’ll miss the carrots but am soooo ready to say goodbye to the beets.