Valley Bounty: CSA Shares

Though it’ll still be a little while before the season for local vegetables is really underway — as the persistent snowfall seems almost manically determined to remind us — the time is upon us to think about signing up for a share of the summer harvest from your favorite local farm. Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is a great way to buy local veggies at a discount and to form a closer connection with a local farm. We are actually not far from the birthplace of the CSA: The CSA Garden at Great Barrington, now called Indian Line Farm, was one of the first farms to offer a modern CSA share, making it something of a western Mass invention.

In recent years, many CSA farms have introduced more flexibility for members to take home what they like each week, rather than sticking with the pre-packed box model. Still, I think part of the fun of a CSA is figuring out what to make with something I have little or no experience cooking with. Remember, Google is the largest cookbook ever written; you can use it and your CSA share to expand your culinary horizons.

Valley Bounty is written by Brian Snell of CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture)