Mr. Carrot

Day 224

It was the last week of the season for our CSA box, a weekly share of locally grown organic produce which I wrote about in The One Knife Kitchen.  I’m not even sure how the farm made it to the last week of November in Colorado, but they did. It was a heroic agricultural effort, we received root vegetables, kale and even some hearty herbs well past what I would consider prime growing season.

It has been a bittersweet week as the cold and shorter days bring an end to our summer bounty.  It is like a small death each Fall  when we mourn the end of the harvest.

That last comment is what a better, perfect version of me should be saying.  It is how I imagine I should feel. Instead I’m breathing this huge metaphorical  sigh of relief.

FINALLY

I always start the growing season off strong.  I find creative uses for all the old favorites and the slightly unusual offerings that show up in the box.   But, by the end of the growing season, I am tired of finding new uses for kale and butternut squash is starting to stack up around my ears.

I need a break from creating meals around oddities like this Yugoslavian finger squash.

Sea Creature? Giant Microbe? Dinner?

As strange as it looks, it tastes worse.  Or maybe worse isn’t the right word…it tastes like nothing.  If it didn’t have some volume, you wouldn’t even know you had anything in your mouth.   Since, I could barely stomach it, I didn’t even care that my kids refused the traditional no-thank-you-bite.

Then there was this:

My kids called it the “scary hairy” vegetable.  I had no idea what it was, perhaps some farm hands clever prank?   The general consensus was that it was celery root.  Although that is the first one I have ever seen that looks like it had a beard.   I gave it to a neighbor who was too polite (or horrified) to turn it down.

In spite of my irreverent comments,  I don’t regret participating in the program this year.  The pros definitely outweigh the cons.  But, I really had gotten to the point where I needed a break.  But, then I got an unexpected pick me up.

 

Mr. Carrot arrived in our last box of the season.

 

Who says mother nature doesn’t have a sense of humor?

And, now you know why I was writing a seemingly unrelated post about vegetables on a blog which is supposed to chronicle our reduced consumption.

It is because some things–are too good not to share.

Happy Friday