Calling any vegetable
Jun. 13th, 2006 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustSince today is Tuesday, it's a week since our last organic vegetable box, when we told the nice man that, thank you, it had been fun, but we wouldn't want any more deliveries. And picked up the copy of the County Council's news magazine, Countywide, which had arrived that morning and been ignored, flipped it over and saw same nice man beaming up at us from the cover.
As if I weren't already ambivalent enough about cancelling.
Ah, here's another picture of him, beaming at you from his own web site. It's very local, too, and working towards becoming more organic, and cultivating the walled garden at Croxdale Hall - all this is good. I have no idea how reasonable their prices are: I think I was paying less for their box than I would have paid for the equivalent organic vegetables from the supermarket, but then I think supermarkets charge an outrageous premium for organic vegetables, and with a few exceptions I don't buy them unless they are much reduced.
Also, of course, you don't get to choose what goes into your box. Up to a point, this was not a problem: fewer decisions to make, and the challenge of making the most of this week's selection, neither of these is a bad thing. So we were eating more potatoes than we had previously; but we were enjoying them (the reds which arrived for several weeks at the end of the main crop were excellent, baked in their crusty jackets ar mashed to dry, flavoursome crumbs). I would never have bought savoy cabbage (I love the look of its crinkled leaves, I'd love a winter coat of a fabric that looked like that - but the taste, not so much), but I enjoyed it more than I'd expected.
Gradually, though, I began to feel worn down by the inevitability of the selection. I know, because we talked to our delivery man about this, that they felt torn between the customers who wanted more excitement in their vegetables, and those who wanted less, who didn't like such exotica as aubergines, and didn't know what to do with them. I didn't demand excitement, but I would have liked more variety: during the more than six months we were with the scheme, there may have been two weeks when the box contained no carrots. I could easily compile a menu with carrots in every course (carrot soup, poulet à la berrichonne, carrot cheesecake - and carrots to dip in sour cream for starters, if you like), but I still found it a bit of a struggle at times.
The web site currently lists the box for 29th May:
I'm writing about this at tedious length because I'm trying to convince myself that I've done the right thing (no, I'm sure I have, really...). The question now is, can we find an alternative source of vegetables? So despite having other plans for Thursday morning, we'll have to get ourselves to the Farmers' Market and see what we can do.
ETA: Thanks to everyone for your comments: I'm feeling better about it now.
As for aubergines being exotics: well, maybe they are less established in Britain than in the US - certainly we never got as far as having an anglicised name like "eggplant" for them... More to the point, the north-east is probably the least racially / culturally mixed region of England, if not of Britain. Even so, I was surprised: it suggests that the box deliveries are getting beyond the middle-class eco-aware constituency: which has to be a good thing.
As if I weren't already ambivalent enough about cancelling.
Ah, here's another picture of him, beaming at you from his own web site. It's very local, too, and working towards becoming more organic, and cultivating the walled garden at Croxdale Hall - all this is good. I have no idea how reasonable their prices are: I think I was paying less for their box than I would have paid for the equivalent organic vegetables from the supermarket, but then I think supermarkets charge an outrageous premium for organic vegetables, and with a few exceptions I don't buy them unless they are much reduced.
Also, of course, you don't get to choose what goes into your box. Up to a point, this was not a problem: fewer decisions to make, and the challenge of making the most of this week's selection, neither of these is a bad thing. So we were eating more potatoes than we had previously; but we were enjoying them (the reds which arrived for several weeks at the end of the main crop were excellent, baked in their crusty jackets ar mashed to dry, flavoursome crumbs). I would never have bought savoy cabbage (I love the look of its crinkled leaves, I'd love a winter coat of a fabric that looked like that - but the taste, not so much), but I enjoyed it more than I'd expected.
Gradually, though, I began to feel worn down by the inevitability of the selection. I know, because we talked to our delivery man about this, that they felt torn between the customers who wanted more excitement in their vegetables, and those who wanted less, who didn't like such exotica as aubergines, and didn't know what to do with them. I didn't demand excitement, but I would have liked more variety: during the more than six months we were with the scheme, there may have been two weeks when the box contained no carrots. I could easily compile a menu with carrots in every course (carrot soup, poulet à la berrichonne, carrot cheesecake - and carrots to dip in sour cream for starters, if you like), but I still found it a bit of a struggle at times.
The web site currently lists the box for 29th May:
Eggs, potatoes, red onions, cucumber, lettuce (Thurs), Spring greens (Tues and Wed), banana, oranges, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, carrots...That's the week I finally decided it was over - with all the lovely soft fruits in the greengrocers, why bananas and oranges? There were onions, at least (my other grievance being that more often than not, there were no onions) but we were a Tuesday delivery, so we had spring greens rather than salad. And the potatoes, though they were the first of the new potatoes, were not as tiny and sweet and the first new potatoes should be. So last week we ended the relationship, and took delivery of our final box, which was also much like this list: substituting a beetroot for the oranges, I think, but otherwise much the same.
I'm writing about this at tedious length because I'm trying to convince myself that I've done the right thing (no, I'm sure I have, really...). The question now is, can we find an alternative source of vegetables? So despite having other plans for Thursday morning, we'll have to get ourselves to the Farmers' Market and see what we can do.
ETA: Thanks to everyone for your comments: I'm feeling better about it now.
As for aubergines being exotics: well, maybe they are less established in Britain than in the US - certainly we never got as far as having an anglicised name like "eggplant" for them... More to the point, the north-east is probably the least racially / culturally mixed region of England, if not of Britain. Even so, I was surprised: it suggests that the box deliveries are getting beyond the middle-class eco-aware constituency: which has to be a good thing.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 03:13 am (UTC)We're making small inroads: buying locally-grown natural beef and chicken, I buy the (more expensive) organic milk, yoghurt, and eggs at the market, local honey and fruits in season. Every little bit helps, right?
(It's a little sad imagining that some souls have so little excitement in their lives that they consider an aubergine so dauntingly foreign...!)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 05:33 pm (UTC)There is, as you say, a preponderance of carrots, but I do find ways to use them. Granted I have more time to spread them over, but then, there is also only the one of me, so the maths equals out. And I remember discussing the contents of our various selections, and finding that actually each of us envied the other; I'd be utterly happy with the selection you quote above, which is the one that made you cancel. Different strokes, I guess...
As for "the north-east is probably the least racially / culturally mixed region of England, if not of Britain" - unh? When I have the best Asian foodstore in the country as my cornershop and half a dozen more in easy walking, Chinatown twenty minutes' walk away, Turkish and Afro-Caribbean and...
Granted that Durham is different, but it's hardly representative of the north-east.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 08:24 pm (UTC)And yes, when I say region I mean region: your locality is exceptional, and so, in its own way, is mine. But it's true of the region as a whole, honestly, I'm not making this up.