This week on the blog, we're hearing from one of our San Antonio CSA Members, Ivette Irizarry. Ivette is a freelance writer specializing in marketing strategy for small business. Thank you Ivette for your thoughtful reflection on your CSA experience! We appreciate it!

Ivette at her pickup location in San Antonio - Merit Coffee!

 

How I CSA — Over Here In SA

Searching for Community Supported Agriculture near me I found Johnson’s Backyard Garden. Becoming a CSA member has been one of my favorite experiences since I moved to San Antonio, Texas.

After brief stints in NYC and northern California for grad school, the newly-minted Irizarry party of three landed in San Antonio. The classical violinist, the linguist, and the three-week-old baby were ready to take on the new adventure of learning the Tex-Mex cowboy ways of the Lonestar State.

Needless to say, we fell in love. As the bumper sticker puts it, we weren’t born in Texas, but we got here soon as we could!

 

Why join a CSA?

Finally having a backyard —impossible in Manhattan, and cost-prohibitive in California— gave us the opportunity to dig into organic gardening. At that point, I was homeschooling two kiddos and was looking for ways to enrich their education beyond academics.

(For some more cool ideas about homeschooling with JBG check out this post.)

I wanted my children to know where their food came from. But I knew practically NOTHING about how or what to grow in south-central Texas. Growing up in Puerto Rico, both our dads grew food extensively in our backyards. Plus, my dad always kept chickens. But we were raised growing mangos, papaya, taro root, pineapples, plantains, and pigeon peas. Not exactly the main crops in Texas.

Researching local organic farms and gardening methods I came across the concept of Community Supported Agriculture. I had never heard of such a thing! A friend and I fiddled around with a 6’ x 6’ plot in a community garden back in California, but CSAs were new to me.

Then I remembered that my California friend received a small box of organic produce every week. So I researched community supported agriculture in San Antonio. The more I read about it, the more it intrigued me. When I found JBG Organic, I decided to take the plunge. Community Supported Agriculture has so many benefits!

• Eating fresh organic produce that is grown following sustainable practices
• Eating seasonal fruits and veggies at the peak of their taste and nutrition
• Becoming part of a greater community pursuing healthy living
• Supporting the livelihood of local farmers and their employees
• Getting the first pick of the crop, set aside for CSA members

As a bonus, my subscription would help me and my children learn more about what we could potentially grow in our own backyard and when. We were super excited to get started.

 

Getting Your CSA Share Box is So Easy!

At first, when I found JBG Organic and saw they were based in Austin I was a little worried. I know it’s only an hour away, but how would they make this happen? Turns out getting my CSA share is a breeze. All I had to do was select a location near me where my box would be delivered. I chose the Merit Coffee Shop in the Stone Oak area.

On delivery day, I walk into the coffee shop and pick up the box with my name on it. When I am a good CSA member — and remember to do so, I bring reusable shopping bags with me so I can transfer my veggie bounty into the bags and leave the box behind to be reused. But, sometimes I forget (see the picture?). Oops! On those days I take the box home and then bring it back to leave at the shop the next time.

Bring your bags, leave your box. And if you forget your bags, no biggie! Just bring the empty box back with your next pickup.

Beyond Austin and San Antonio, they have pickup locations in Dallas, Houston, and six other cities. No matter where you live you can get fresh organic produce, and compared to most grocery store produce that is being shipped from across the country, or even across the globe, JBG veggies get to you while they’re very fresh!.

 

Every Week a Birthday!

Do you remember the joy of opening up a present on your birthday? Especially when it was a surprise that you didn’t expect. Oh, the wonder! Well, you can capture that feeling every week with a CSA subscription. Okay, okay, so I actually have the every-other-week subscription, but you get it.

You open the box and, SURPRISE!! My favorite is when I find things I have never eaten or even seen before. That happened a lot the first year. It was so cool to pick something up and wonder, “What in the world is this, and how do I eat it?” I was completely unfamiliar with sweet potato greens. Other puzzling finds included amaranth, rutabaga, and romanesco. The battle cry became, “I don’t know what this is but we’re going to eat it!”

 

Eating Seasonally

Before, we were used to finding ALL THE THINGS in the supermarket all year round. But our own backyard gardening experiments, along with our CSA membership introduced us to the concept of eating seasonally. Fruits and veggies that are in season have a much higher nutritional value, and are at the peak of their flavor. Eating locally-grown seasonal produce is also better for the environment since it minimizes the distance the food has to travel to get to us. And it is better for our community because we support the work of our local farmers.

Now, full disclosure, we are not seasonal Nazis in the Irizarry household. We do also buy some produce that is not local or in season here in Texas but we have certainly changed the way we eat to be mostly seasonal. The convenience of having the produce delivered regularly makes it a no brainer. I don’t have to keep track of what is in season. It just comes to me. And we are always looking for ways we can preserve some of that produce (canning, freezing, drying) so we can use it out of season.

The best thing is that what grows together goes together. So it is a lot of fun to open up our CSA share box and start to figure out flavor combinations using multiple items.

 

Expanding Tastebuds and Creativity

Our CSA membership has opened our eyes (and mouths) to new possibilities in what we eat. And we have enjoyed finding creative ways to use Texas produce adapted into dishes from our own cultural heritage.

I grew up in Puerto Rico, a tropical island in the Caribbean that is politically a US Territory. As part of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, its culture and cuisine are very different from what we experience in Texas. It is also very distinct from the more familiar Mexican cuisine we know and love in the Lonestar state. Our food is closer to that found in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, with heavy influences from Spain and the African regions of the slaves they brought to the island.

The key for us has been not to get hung up on strict authenticity so we can let our Texas produce shine when we give it a Caribbean treatment. It makes for really fun food adventures. I’ll share a couple of them with you.

The foundation of most cuisines is based on a specific combination of aromatics. In Puerto Rico, we call that ‘sofrito.’ Puerto Rican sofrito uses mostly common veggies and herbs. The one distinctive herb that is not widely grown in Texas is recao, also known as culantro or spiny cilantro. I mean, if farmer Brenton would like to start growing it… hint, hint, big wink, puppy eyes, pleading look. — In the meantime, we substitute delicious JBG cilantro. (But, seriously, farmer Brenton, I can hook you up with some seeds)

 

TexiRican Sofrito

• 1 large onion (or 2 small)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1 sweet pepper (any kind that came in the share)
• 1 tsp. dried oregano (or 2 tsp. fresh)
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil or your choice of liquid oil (optional)
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Put everything in a blender or food processor. Or, if you prefer, you can finely mince everything. I like to freeze my sofrito in an ice cube tray and then put the cubes in a bag in the freezer. Any time I need sofrito I just grab a cube or two. Cilantro and peppers don’t always overlap in season here in Texas, so one of those is sometimes coming out of the freezer or supermarket when we make this.

Here is what I made with my frozen TexiRican sofrito and some beautiful swiss chard that came in a recent CSA share.

 

Acelgas Guisadas

Ivette's Acelgas Guisadas is a perfect recipe for any green that shows up in your CSA box - kale, collards, spinach, or even summer staples like amaranth or sweet potato greens. Photos by Ivette!

Puerto Rican Stewed Swiss Chard *Recipe adapted from Cocine a Gusto the classic Puerto Rican cookbook I inherited from my mother… but that’s a whole-nother blog...

 

• 1 bunch swiss chard (or any other sturdy green you found in the box: collard, turnip, beet, kale, etc.)
• 1 Tbsp. oil of your choice
• 1 onion, diced (or in the size and shape of your choice)
• 1 pepper, diced (or in the size and shape of your choice)
• 2 oz. ham, bacon, smoked meat or meat substitute of choice (optional)
• 2 Tbsp. TexiRican Sofrito (1 cube)
• 2 tomatoes, chopped (fresh or canned)
• 1 cup water or broth
• 1 tsp. Salt, or to taste

Wash the greens. Chop at the point where the stem begins. Dice the stems, then chop the leaves. Keep separate. Warm the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onion, pepper and meat (if using). When the veggies are soft and starting to brown, add the sofrito and cook for about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and the chopped stems of the greens. Cook for a few minutes until tomatoes are soft and stems are tender. Add the chopped leaves, cover and lover the heat to low. Add a little bit of water or broth and allow to stew for a few minutes.

My mom’s cookbook says to serve while it’s hot, and to add 3 beaten eggs. Honestly, this would be great over rice, with pasta, over mashed potatoes, on grits, inside your favorite tortilla or flatbread, on a piece of crusty sourdough. Basically, have greens, add carbs.

Instead of mixing in the scrambled eggs, I chose to serve them alongside, with a couple of Export Sodas, a Puerto Rican staple saltine cracker. ¡Qué rico!

What have YOU learned since you started eating seasonally? Have you joined the JBG CSA? What is stopping you? I would love to know. Leave me your comments below.