If this were any other Sunday, I would roll over, look at the clock, and say “9:40?! I’ve wasted half of my day!”

But this Sunday is different because yesterday was Luke’s birthday picnic, where we drank and ate and played bocce and horseshoes and Vietnamese shuttlecock (which the Internet tells me is called đá cầu) for eight hours. I am fine with sleeping until 9:40 today, just as I’m fine with not doing anything else with my day.

Okay, anything else except take Courtney’s share of the CSA to her. Because WE GOT OUR FIRST CSA BOX YESTERDAY!  Graham and I showed up at the market around noon, told the people my name, and got a haul of basil, spinach, baby dill, baby bok choy, carrots, artichokes, sugar snap peas, fava beans, radishes, garlic scapes, and raspberries. On one hand, it was picked just the day before and only traveled 75 miles from farm to my house. On the other hand, everything is organic (that’s part of why we picked the program we did), so it doesn’t have a superb shelf life. This means that aside from the raspberries (which I already used to make hand pies for Luke’s party) and the sugar snaps (which lose their power almost immediately but Graham has already professed an interest in destroying them like candy), I’m going to have to make all of this within 3-7 days, max. The artichokes and carrots can last for 7. Everything else is more urgent.

So tonight, I’ll crust the favas with some coarse salt and Graham will grill them until they char on the outside and steam on the inside (Rachel’s suggestion that she got from a visit to Japan, so good that I want them in my mouth now), and I think we’re doing some miso soup with the bok choy, scapes, and probably basil. I’m using some of the dill for my smoked salmon bagel this morning, and I guess I could do some radishes, butter, and bread for an appetizer tomorrow as a prelude to something that uses a ton of spinach.

The growing season is later in the Pacific Northwest, so it won’t be until later in the summer that we get the kinds of things that hold up well to pickling and canning, and since no one has a chest freezer (although if shit gets crazy I am 100% willing to buy one if we can keep it in Luke and Courtney’s basement since there is no goddamn room in this house), freezing things will have to be a last resort.

This is one of the reasons I wanted a CSA, actually. Of course, the main reasons were that Courtney and I were both interested in organic produce that hadn’t burned a fuckton of fossil fuels to arrive in our kitchens. But also, I wanted to know what it was like to eat even more seasonally than I already do (as I don’t buy strictly summer foods – tomatoes, strawberries, etc. – in the winter because my dad was a produce man and I know better, okay?), as well as how to use the stuff that’s available in my area even though I might not have much experience with it. I wanted to sign myself up for some kind of accountability, the kind that makes me understand that yes, I could wait until the spinach gets slimy and throw it away because I guess it only comes out to like $1.95 a bunch, but I could also use it first and be responsible (and healthy!) about it, because I’m getting it directly from the farmers who put it in the ground, raised it up, and then harvested it in order to put it in a box for me. Because sure, the spinach comes out to only $1.95 a bunch, but a CSA helps to fund part of a farm’s growing season, which is a huge step in supporting a major local economy.

I can’t wait to see what the future boxes bring and what I can learn from them. Also I’ll be eating a ton of vegetables, so I’ll be super regular until the program stops in mid-November. So that’s something.

(In case you were baffled by the “squeeeeee!” tone today, just know that there is no way I can even write about the George Zimmerman verdict. Not without smashing things. Not yet.)