Earlier this week, I texted Courtney:

“First CSA e-mail of the yeeeeaaaarrrr!”

She replied:

“I almost forwarded it to you so I could say ‘YEAH!!!!’”

This is about as well as either of us could convey our sentiments, although if I had a non-emoji way of expressing that I wanted to chew my way through the entire summer starting NOW, I would have.

Obviously, we’re very excited about the start of this year’s CSA. Although Courtney is camping out of town and can’t accompany me on the first pickup tomorrow, I am all stocked up on bags for the Sunday ritual of splitting our wares down the middle (at least until we get something I can’t stand like cilantro or cucumbers because Courtney can just have all of that) and, in my house, anyway, figuring out how to store everything with like ingredients so nothing goes to waste. It’s just easier to keep the bok choy in the same bag with the basil and cabbage if all of it’s going into the same dish. There you go. That’s my tip. Somebody give me a cooking show. My knife skills are better than half of the jokers on TV now, anyway.

In addition to local, organic, non-GMO produce tasting better and being more nutritionally and economically valuable, it doesn’t last for two weeks in the vegetable crisper the way Wal-Mart produce does, so you’ve got a lot less time to figure out what to do with it before it transforms into a slightly fermented slime (on the other hand, are we absolutely sure that spinach wine isn’t a thing yet?).

Luckily, I’ve continued to write those weekly menus since our last CSA ended, so I’m already on top of a meal plan for our first pickup:

Ignore Saturday (today). Graham and I went out for burgers on Thursday and I just fell asleep last night, so those meals from last week’s menu have turned into me eating like a queen for lunch and dinner today, plus there’s the Ballard Seafood and Beer Fest going on this weekend and Nick and I are supposed to wander down there and enjoy this 90-degree heat while everyone else in Seattle complains (okay, I get it, most Seattleites don’t have air-conditioning…but do we really need a severe heat advisory, especially when the humidity levels here are somewhere near zero, you gigantic pussies?).

The heat is supposed to stick around until Tuesday, so everything I’m making uses as little oven and stovetop cooking as possible. Salads are the key here, which is not only a thing Younger Me would never thought she’d say but also it’s helpful that Bastille Day is this Monday which makes this week’s menu feel French as shit.

I’m just thankful that I know what to do with fava beans now. And cabbage. And even beets, which I’ve been doing a lot better with since last year, when I could only dice them as finely as possible before disguising them in a sauce. While I know that we’ve got a few more weeks of lettuces and basil to go, I’m more excited than daunted about how to use it all up this year and hey, um, friends, I would be totally open to trading some of the copious and obscenely fragrant field basil for, I dunno, some drinks sometime? No need to let produce or alcohol go to waste. At least until spinach wine becomes a thing. Let’s work something out.