Ye (not so) scurvy rogues

When we lived in Chicago, we struggled through cold winters, and inevitably by February, we were fighting off the vitamin D deficiencies, we were moody and irritable. We would come home from work, throw on the comfy pjs, and curl up. One brilliant thing, though, that came out of these winter doldrums, that tiny death that overtakes us every year, was an organic foods delivery service Scott found (Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks, if interested, and I noticed that they have substantially grown their box choices now). Each week, we were gifted with a box of bounty. In the winter, it veered toward root veggies and hearty greens. We would get pounds of oranges, apples, and other fruits. It was glorious.

We were forced to figure out just what to do with sunchokes, beets, kale, chard, and other veggies I had not even heard of. I didn't eat beets. My mother had never bought beets. Kale? Asher ate it in a pinch, but not us. I could only handle so many oranges before I was done. And so we got creative. Sunchoke chips, orange marmalade, apple butter, stuffed apples, and on. Spring began to finally break through, and the box came overflowing with green. We had ramps, basil, broccoli, kiwi, wonderfully odd, fragrant mixes of herbs, leafy green things like watercress, and more.


I noticed a while back the delivery truck that would pull up to my neighbors' house each week, leaving boxes on their doorstep. The truck was delivering organics. Well, hot damn. We began looking into it, decided to wait until after the epic holiday trip this year (seriously, 5,000 miles in 2.5 weeks). I ordered while we away so we would receive our first delivery once we returned.

The box was delivered, and it was disappointing. The veggies were wilted, the apples mealy, the bounty not so bountiful. It was sad. The bacon, though, was delicious. So we gave the company the benefit of the doubt and had another box delivered the next week. Chalk the first box up to a post-holiday slump because the next week was good, and it has only continued to get better the longer we are with them. We're using Organics to You now. We order the small bin, which is more than enough for us each week. Our fruit bowl is overflowing, the crisper can't hold everything, and our diet is much improved. Plus, the grocery bill has dropped quite a bit since we aren't visiting the store three or four times a week (we tend to buy by meals rather than one huge grocery run) and buying random items. We are able to get the protein we want (bacon, steaks, salmon, and more) from local fisheries and farms. We're trying out the milk and eggs this week, both from a local dairy. I never check what is coming, so every Tuesday is a bit like vegetable Christmas. Surprise! This week we have spinach! Yay! (five-year-old me would be completely disgusted with the current me for being so excited over vegetables).

Our bin this last week flummoxed me a bit, though. I opened it and sitting at the bottom was a strange celery like bundle and a huge bulb of something dirt colored. Perhaps fennel and celeriac. I checked the site and was spot on, but it was text only so I just guessed as to what name belonged to which vegetable. What I did just check, though, is which is which. I'm glad I didn't grab the bulb thinking it was fennel (as I first supposed). I have no idea what to do with these things. The chard I've figured out (last night was brown rice, topped with sauteed onion, celery, smoked sausage, and rainbow chard--gah, it was good stuff), kale chips are a new favorite snack, potatoes are easy to deal with, celery, onion and leek disappear pretty quickly. The grapefruit (a ton of it) has been slowly consumed and played with: broiled with sugar and vanilla bean, grapefruit curd, sliced and frozen and more. The beets are awaiting a mandolin to be sliced. The apples, kiwi, oranges and pears are obvious (although the Girl Scouts blindsided the healthier options at the moment). But the celeriac? It's huge. Can we eat that much? A friend has it growing wild in his front yard, but he's vegan, and I don't really trust his recipes (sorry, vegans). The fennel seems to be easier. There are lots of recipes with fennel out on Pinterest and various cooking sites. It's a vegetable adventure!