At some point earlier this year I had one of those moments where I thought I was an organic-vegetable-eating, brown-bread-making, healthy-meal-serving kind of person.
I know, I know… I was clearly out of my mind.
Anyway, I signed up for this organic vegetable delivery service. You know, the kind where they deliver FRESH FROM THE FARM vegetables in a big bin to your doorstep every week.
What’s not to love? We’ll eat FRESH veggies! Organic veggies! From a farm!
Right.
Like so many things, reality is a whole lot less exciting.
Oh, we get the farm-fresh organic veggies delivered to our doorstep, alright. And therein lies the problem. Turns out the vegetables that I actually like, know how to cook, and am willing to eat are few and far between. Carrots, salad, broccoli… well, that’s about it, to be honest.
And I DEFINITELY don’t do things like chard (chard? what kind of a word is CHARD?) or beets or turnips or cabbage or… the list goes on and on.
So every week we get a bin of very organic but not-all-that-appealing vegetables.
It just might end my marriage.
The thing about me is that I’m a vegetable optimist. Oh! Fresh squash! I’ll just bake it and whip up an appealing squash souffle! I think. Riiiiiight.
Jay, on the other hand, has MAJOR ISSUES with throwing away food. You’d think he was raised at a food bank. Every time he finds something rotten in the fridge (which is frequently, I’ll admit) a reddish hue creeps up his neck and to his ears and I KNOW I’m in trouble.
JEN! He shouts in outrage, his red ears smoking, CAN YOU BELIEVE ALL THESE VEGETABLES I’M THROWING AWAY?? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THESE COST??!
Um… like $3…
But that’s not the point. The point is the MORAL INDECENCY of throwing away rotten food.
And so the battle in front of the refrigerator wages on, bitter and bloody. Me unpacking pomegranates and walnuts and spinach and other highly nutritious things that we’ll NEVER eat, and Jay unloading the rotten remains of the food that’s been left untouched, his bitter anger intensifying at the discovery of each brown banana.
These days it’s with nervous anticipation that I open up that big grey bin. Today was especially bad- an oddly-shaped squash, green chard, spinach, an unidentifiable green leafy thing, green onions, hard brown pears… Pretty much the only thing in there that we actually EAT is broccoli and carrots, and we already have a fridge full of those.
How will it end?
It can’t end well.
***
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xo Jen
October 16, 2007 at 7:53 pm
You should try Pioneer Organics if you haven’t already. Before we moved (sniff, sniff) that’s where we had deliver. Each week they sent you a reminder and a list of what they were planning to bring, then you could go online and change it–to things you actually DO like!
October 16, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Okay, I think (and this may be a stretch), but I think those hard brown pears will ripen up after a few days on a warm kitchen counter, and then they’ll be delish! And what to do with the rest? I dunno. Maybe you could donate it to a food bank before J finds out.
October 16, 2007 at 8:45 pm
I’ve always thought vegetable delivery sounded like a great idea….but after reading your post, I better pass. We throw out enough rotten food as it is.
October 16, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Okay, I know your point is that this is a painm etc. But this sounds like a really cool idea! I wanna sign up for something like this.
(By the way, my husband is EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!!!)
October 16, 2007 at 11:16 pm
LOLs, I feel bad throwing away food, too. But sometimes leftovers are so unappealing (especially if they became leftovers due to its, er, unappealing-ness in the first place!). I’ve gotten better at portion sizing for 2, 3 or 4 people, though…it took practice and experimentation, for sure. Actually for a good while I was too afraid to experiment and that month when my mom was out of the country and I had to cook…I made soups of EVERYTHING. LOLs.
October 16, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Christian is the same way. Now, if he finds food of a questionable nature, he just gives me the “Are You Really Going To Eat This?” look, and I smile and it ends up tossed or given to our garbage disposal family. :/ I’d love, especially now, to go on a healthy veggie kick. But I wouldn’t last… I have no willpower in the face of trashy Taco Bell.
October 17, 2007 at 4:40 am
my husband is the exact same way! Good luck finding new ideas for all those veggies.
October 17, 2007 at 5:41 am
We are always throwing out moldy fruit that I MEAN to give the kids for a snack, but since they are in day care 5 days a week, the stuff goes bad before the weekend when I am in charge of snacks. I too have thought about doing the veggie delivery, but I think I might just make a trip to the Farmers Market and get stuff I know we’ll eat. Like pumpkin bread and rock candy…not chard. Maybe you can go to food network online and find some recipes that involve chard???
October 17, 2007 at 5:53 am
I love me some weird veggies, I’ll try posting some of my easy and YUMMY! recipes on my recipe site soon. It’s the least I can do to save your marriage!
October 17, 2007 at 5:56 am
Isn’t chard something that happens to food when you overcook it?
Can you cancel the service?
October 17, 2007 at 6:25 am
Yes, but we mean well, don’t we? Me? I’m sneaking fruits and veggies in when i can. I glad that my girls at least like some veggies like broccoli and peas.
October 17, 2007 at 6:45 am
oh my goodness! There is such a plethora of yummy veggies to eat! The key is knowing how to prepare them so they look good and taste good! You can always search online for ideas, (or email me). Some ideas for this weeks box: slice the squash coat with melted olive oil or butter, sprinkle with salt, pepper and Parmesan and Broil till brown, chop up the green onions and throw into fried rice, make spinach salad, and saute the chard. Oh and call and ask what the mysterious item is. My hubby has always been and meat and potato kind of guy, but when it looks appealing he will try anything!!!
October 17, 2007 at 7:14 am
Ohh, I almost signed up for an organic fresh veggie delivery thing through my son’s school. I’ll check into it a bit more now and make sure it’s stuff we’ll eat. If you need a good, easy recipe for squash, fresh green beans, spinach salad that I swear you’ll eat, or eggplant (also, you will eat this…), let me know.
My husband has the thing about us not eating stuff we’ve bought too.
October 17, 2007 at 8:27 am
Can you not change what they send to you? Chard? WTF?
October 17, 2007 at 8:34 am
Oh, honey! If I were in your shoes I would be doing a happy dance! I understand not knowing what to do with veggies, but then comes the fun part of finding out what I CAN do with them. If I had fresh veggies delivered to me each week it would save me a trip to the grocery store. Yes, it would. Everything else can be bought in bulk and frozen, but veggies…oh, honey!
October 17, 2007 at 9:18 am
Oh man now I feel even worse, all you veggie-loving ladies and your Martha Stewart ways! Just kidding. And now for the DEEPEST DARKEST AND DIRTIEST secret of all… the company I use DOES let me customize my order. I just forget. Like EVERY time. I have only myself to blame. Sigh.
October 17, 2007 at 9:44 am
Veggie smoothies!
(You could add a banana to make it taste good and funny ;)
October 17, 2007 at 9:56 am
I may need this companies name. I hate hate hate going out to the farm to pick my fresh organic veggies. But I hate hate hate the waxy, pesticide coated ones at the store too. It’s a no win situation.
October 17, 2007 at 10:15 am
my hubby HATES throwing out food…despises it, in fact!
i didn’t even know veggie delivery services existed…i wonder if there are any here in Ottawa! i’m all for organic produce, i also tend to be picky-to-the-point-of-neurosis when it comes to produce…especially things like tomatoes…they have to be just right!
October 17, 2007 at 10:41 am
Just a suggestions, but I have never found a vegetable that didn’t taste good sauted in butter and soy sauce (the greens) or roasted with olive oil and salt (root veggies). I know we’re weird, but we really like greens at our house (kale is our favorite, and every time we buy it at the grocery store it takes the checkout person about ten whole minutes to find the little code for it) but we like chard too.
Okay, now that I think about it, I don’t think you can cook cabbage in either of the ways I suggested. Lots of coleslaw?
And before you think I really am one of those organic healthy food people, I should tell you I am eating cheez doodles. right. now.
October 17, 2007 at 11:13 am
May i say, RIGHT ON sista.
Chuck ‘em, we’ve all got too much clutter in our lives already.
October 17, 2007 at 11:23 am
Chard? Dude, I think I dated a guy whose last name was Chard. Didn’t know it was a veggie. But, wait, he was rather vegetable in nature…
I digress. I’m right there with you. I have all these good food intentions, I get healthy/stuff to cook from scratch things and I get unmotivated after a couple of days. Ty-man fusses over the money and then it’s back to Kroger or Publix for pre-packaged quick stuff. I’m so lame…
October 17, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I’m a weirdo – I actually like the idea and we would likely eat most of it or give stuff we don’t eat to friends/neighbors/co-workers
Is there anyway to choose or check what your getting? I think that’s a little strange and wasteful that the farm thinks everybody eats it all
October 17, 2007 at 1:07 pm
A vegetable optimist! Love it! I think I am the same! I get all excited about going to Whole Foods, determined to be a super veggie girl, and I always end up buying like cookies or something (“healthy” cookies, but cookies nonetheless). I wish I could whip up something yummy from any veggie. But I can’t!
Jane, Pinks & Blues
October 17, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Before Child No. 1 arrived, I was going to feed her only homemade organic baby food.
Tonight’s menu: Sloppy Joes, canned corn and banana slices.
October 17, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Well I’ll be durned,it sounded delightful to me too.
Somehow my vegan sister makes fresh organic veggies seem so incredibly wonderful…but yeah in reality not so sure what to do with turnips and Chard.
October 17, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Oy – you made me laugh with this. Vegetable optimist! Snort!
I do that all the time with acorn squash. I picture my kids eating it while I read aloud from Little House on the Prairie.
Freakin’ reality.
October 17, 2007 at 3:16 pm
That is too funny! I have fallen victim to this same grand idea…only to let entirely too much food rot, uneaten!
Just last week I defrosted an expensive roast and waited too long to cook it. I felt a little ill when I simply threw out over $10 worth of meat!
I am such a waster!
October 19, 2007 at 9:48 am
Chard is gross. My Baba makes soup out of it, and it tastes like vomit and bile. No joke. It’s an old country thing. Yaktastic!
October 21, 2007 at 12:22 pm
That is a very cool service, I wish we had that here in Newport News. Maybe we do …. I should go search!
Pioneer Organics says no go on delivery for my area, but I’ll look for something else.
I hate throwing away food too. What about giving the things you don’t think you’ll eat to a neighbor!? I was just thinking I could totally split a delivery with my neighbor every week and she’d love it.
And um, chard sounds gross. Whoever named that veggie must have fallen off the turnip truck.
Okay I found one ….
http://www.doortodoororganics.com/
researching a little more before I order, looking for testimonials etc. I didn’t even know services like this existed so thanks a bunch for posting about it!
January 30, 2008 at 1:31 pm
carrots, broccolit and iceberg lettuce – great that’s all you like!! Thanks to you and the millions of others like you that’s all there is in a typical grocery store. READ A COOKBOOK &#$*(@&%
Jessica Seinfeld, FoodTV online – anything. Did you know broccolini, broccoli rabe have more nutrients – ever heard of them? Kale and chard have the higher levels of calcium than milk!!
You live in Seattle -vegan heaven – talk to a vegetarian!
And eat more varieties of vegetables!!