Veggies and Votes

To hopefully "produce" the ideal candidate

Today is Primary Election Day in Maryland. I almost didn’t go to the polls, but I’m glad I did. I’ve paid attention to the advertisements and flyers for the various candidates — but I wasn’t noting which office they were running for. It’s hard to keep track sometimes. Here in Maryland, congressional, senatorial, and local board of education races are happening this year.

Call me a bad citizen. It’s okay. I suppose I could “do better.” I know I could’ve spent hours scouring each candidate’s website, attended public events, etc. But I also know which issues are most important to me personally, and I was clear going into the booth today on which candidates’ agendas align with those issues.

So I voted, and that’s all I’m going to say about that here.

Now let’s talk about something we can really dig into: fresh veggies.

This particular Tuesday is Election Day, but every Tuesday from now until the end of October is also CSA Day in our house. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture; it’s a way for consumers to connect directly with local farmers and get a share of their seasonal harvest. Members pay a subscription fee upfront, which helps the farmer cover the costs of running the farm at the beginning of the growing season. In return, members receive a regular box of fresh produce throughout the growing season.

CSA Life: Farmers receive guaranteed income, and we receive fresh vegetables every week.

What we receive depends on what’s in season, and what the farmers have grown. We don’t know what we’re getting every week until we receive an email from the CSA that lists the “predicted contents.”

It’s a radish roulette (especially this early in the season, when there are lots of radishes.)

Photo by philippe collard on Unsplash

When I quit my job at the end of March, one thing that became immediately clear to me — and that I’d only partially anticipated — was that any fixed expenses we could curb should be curbed (for the short term), and any variable expenses we could make fixed should be made fixed. All the better to predict what income I’d need to bring home to replace my former salary.

So far, this has meant reeling in my retail therapy, playing Chopped instead of dining out, and:

Subscription boxes.

The CSA share was a one-time payment at the beginning of the Spring, and it will supply us with fresh vegetables every week through the end of October. So that expense has already been accounted for. “Free” veggies, anyone?

For meat, I’m trying out a subscription to Butcher Box. (Here’s a referral link!) For bread, we subscribe to Wildgrain.

These three subscriptions greatly reduce the variable amount we’ll end up spending on groceries every week. And in a pinch, we can skip a shipment or even cancel.

I’m still waiting for the day they invent a cat subscription box. | Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

Some might argue that subscriptions are more expensive than going to the grocery store (that’s definitely not the case for the CSA, which works out to about $30 a week for more than enough produce), but even if, at the end of all of the calculations and budget-crunches and numerical comparisons, the subscriptions are a little more expensive, they’re also giving me an invaluable perks:

A sense of control in an unpredictable time in my life.

The balance between steady, pre-selected ingredients and “who knows?” CSA-boxes are just what I need to feel stability and flexibility.

And creativity.

Because when you don’t control what vegetables you get, it becomes a little game to figure out how to use them.

This week, our list of predicted contents was as follows:

• Asparagus

• Baby Fennel

• Cilantro

• Green Kale

• Green Leaf Lettuce

• Green Mustard

• Orange Carrots

With that list on hand, I came up with a meal plan for the week, which includes:

• Steak + kale + potatoes

• Pork tenderloin + apple and fennel salad

• Orzo and asparagus salad + air-fryer soft-boiled eggs

Tonight, Joe made the pork tenderloin + apple and fennel salad for dinner while I had my tele-therapy session in the other room.

Both turned out great.

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P.S. I assumed the predicted contents of “green mustard” meant “mustard greens,” and planned for that. We got spinach. :)

Photo by chiara conti on Unsplash