Milestones and the Ma'o CSA

My food history is marked by milestones. I don't always recognize them in the moment, but looking back, certain events helped shape who I am. Among the earliest of these milestones were the regular Sunday dinners at grandma's house. The family all sat down around one big table for an old style "meat and potatoes" meal. Those communal dinners taught me the power of food to bring people together.

Another milestone came at sixteen when I baked my first apple pie from scratch because, "there's never anything good to eat in this house." The kitchen was a complete mess by the time I was done, but the pie was a tasty stroke of beginner's luck. My love of cooking was born.

The next milestone was not just messy but bloody, as I hunted a wild boar through the brush of northern Michigan. It was important that I understand the true cost of eating meat, to know where it really comes from. I needed to pull the trigger myself... or give up meat entirely. We used all 300 pounds of that beast, nose to tail.

Far from the brush, a leisurely dinner at the French Laundry blew open my mind to the creative possibilities of food. That meal for two cost as much as an entire month's rent at the time, and was worth every penny. Food can be fun!

And then there was the milestone when Junko and I first joined a CSA, Trillium Haven Farm. In a nutshell, Community Support Agriculture (CSA), is an arrangement where members pre-purchase fractions of a farm's harvest, usually on a monthly or yearly basis. The farm uses those payments to finance operations, and in return supplies each member with a weekly box of produce. When the harvest is poor, the box will be light. When times are good, it overflows. On average, members receive a diverse stream of fresh, organic produce at far less than market rates.

We joined Trillium Haven because we thought it would save us money while encouraging us to eat more fruits and veggies. What we didn't realize is how profoundly the experience would change us. It's cliche, but there is something almost spiritual about knowing the people that have toiled and sweated for your food. This is "buy local" on steroids. A community gathers around the CSA, brought together by our weekly deliveries. I can ask questions and swap recipe ideas not just with the farmers but with other members.

Each new weekly box provided a playful challenge, "how the heck do we use all this before it spoils?" Meals became a game of combining often novels ingredients in new and creative ways. We were eating better and having fun. When we moved to Oahu almost six years ago, we knew we'd want to connect with a new CSA community, but never found the right fit... until now.

Maʻo Organic Farms has launched a beta test of their own CSA. After much begging and pleading, we secured a spot midway through the trial run. Check out our first box, pictured below, weighed in at 11.5 lbs. It was loaded with carrots, two kinds of beats, basil, cilantro, parsley, endive, fennel, green onion, a bag of mesclun salad mix, pak choi, tat soi, lemons and oranges.

My first Maʻo CSA delivery

Our second box a week later swapped out a few items, but added arugula, two kinds of eggplant, kale, komatsuna, purplette onions, radishes, tangerines and turnips.

During the beta test, boxes run $30/week. That's about the total I might spend on produce during a good week, for less volume. This box is superior in every respect: it's all organic, tastes better, and hasn't been shipped across an ocean.

So far I'm quite impressed with the professionalism of the Mʻo operation. (Good farmers don't always run smooth CSA operations. The skillsets are different.) After-work pickup at centrally located V-Lounge is easy, with staff from the farm present to talk story and answer questions. Each box was neatly packed with a sheet listing the contents, offering a word from the farm, and providing a few recipes for the box contents.

Because the items are all freshly picked, even delicate herbs last the entire week between deliveries. In the first two weeks, I've been able to use everything in the boxes before it spoiled. I'm still making up my mind about the particular mix of items. The breadth and variety are nice, but the amount of each item is just enough to prepare a single dish. I wonder if sometimes it'd be preferable to have less variety but more quantity of each. I'd like to see a few more boxes before I'll know for certain.

Overall, I'm loving being part of the Maʻo beta run. CSA membership is been the natural progression and coming together of my food past -- the love of cooking, the creativity of food, the importance of knowing where our food originates, the power of food to bring people together -- while appealing to our frugality and a desire to eat well.

Maʻo will be opening up CSA membership wider in early 2010. Please contact me if you think you might be interested and I'll be happy to put you in touch with the coordinator.

Update January 7th: the Honolulu Weekly has a good article as the CSA opens more membership spots.