Farm Fresh to You

Achievement of the day: the perfect photo taken with my new camera. Look at how sharp it is!

Citrus is in season again! Citrus trees go nuts a few times a year in California, which means people start practically giving away oranges for free. Completely inundated with citrus, I cut up an orange, small grapefruit, blood orange (delicious, if you've never tried it), pink lady apple, and added a handful of black grapes. It's going to be my work snack tomorrow, and I'm already salivating in anticipation. Good eats don't have to be complicated, and the pink juice from the blood orange is gorgeous.

I'm really glad that in San Francisco I have the option of joining the food delivery program at Farm Fresh to You (aka. Capay Farms). Basically, someone delivers a large box of seasonal produce and fruit to my doorstep every Wednesday. They have small and large box options, and you can choose whether you want delivery weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. It's great for a lot of reasons:

• I don't have to carry fifteen pounds of food home from the market.
• It forces me to eat a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables.
• It provides built in variety.
• The food is picked a few days before it reaches my doorstep instead of sitting around for weeks in a warehouse or supermarket.
• The food is seasonal, meaning I won't inadvertently pay a lot for something that's not in season and had to travel three thousand miles to get to me (think globally, eat locally! Why pay for the gas needed to deliver your food from Chile when you can buy delicious cheap food from the Central Valley?)
• I'm not a stickler for the whole organic thing, but these fruits and vegetables do taste better than most. Everything but the grapes in my salad was from the farm, and I just added a teaspoon of orange blossom honey as a treat.
• It costs $30 for about fifteen pounds of food, but it's worth it when you consider that everything in the box is expensive at the market anyway. They don't give you a box of iceberg lettuce. I got chard, collard greens, blood oranges, leeks, and a bunch of other things that usually cost over $2/lb in San Francisco. I'll twist a great little quote I saw on the Pinnacle Fitness website: "It's not about saving ten bucks, it's about gaining ten years." I feel better when I eat a variety of good foods, meaning I'm happier and have more of the energy will power needed to take care of myself by exercising and not eating junk food.
• It's easier to cook when you have great produce, because everything tastes better even if I cook them very simply (steamed, roasted, in a light stir fry, in soup, etc.)
• It costs me $3 and two hours every weekend to go to the supermarket on the bus and buy flavorless vegetables. I'd rather have a bag of Farm Fresh to You blood oranges.

In my continuing efforts to become Bree Van de Kamp, I recently finished this food-related sewing project. A woman is nothing if she's not multi-talented. How else can we prove that we're better than men (rimshot!)? My friend Jo was so happy about her new adorable striped placemats that when I saw this pink fabric at Britex I knew I had to make her a set of matching napkins. Now she can hostess in style next time people come over for dinner!