About City Fresh

Apparently, last year I said I couldn't see further extending my involvement with City Fresh and the Food Co-op as I would surely be gone by fall '09. Well, we're still here, Jon's still finishing his PhD, and I'm spiraling down the rabbit hole into full-fledged locavorous identity. As my friend Mati told me, though, anything done with compassion is not wasted, so it's not a terrible thing at all. Which is good, because if not, I might feel some conflict about my continued and increasing work and commitment to these two amazing organizations. No, of course I wouldn't. There's no conflict to be had. There is however, a great deal of frenzy.

The summer has seen countless meetings for the Co-op (where I serve on the board of directors) as its struggle to survive becomes more and more dire. I'm doing my best to organize people to come get involved, and to reinvigorate the community so as to bring us back from the brink, as well as ensure that local foods communities in our area continue to grow and sustain themselves. I've gone so far as to start tossing around ideas about building an umbrella organization to network the varying people and groups in the area working for similar, corresponding, or parallel goals that we might combine our strengths, minimize the risks of our individual weaknesses, and provide broader ongoing support toward our mutual aspirations.

I also became one of the co-managers of our City Fresh stop when our Coventry Fresh Stop manager had to move for her husband's job. So just when I thought I was in the clear, I became fully entrenched. I write pamphlets, organize paperwork, and help manage distribution, set-up, sign-in, tear down, and cash out - which equals about an 8 hour Tuesday every week. All with the kids in tow! Which, as an aside, Bastian turning 4 was a small miracle. Suddenly, he can stick around, not run off, be outside without disappearing the minute I have to run in for the phone or to pee! I can take both of my children with me to a volunteer gig where they play with other kids, talk to other adults, run wild, and avoid destroying things, disrupting people, or causing too much havoc. It's amazing.

So what is this City Fresh thing? It's one of the many area Community Supported Agriculture groups, but unlike other CSAs, we don't buy-in at the beginning of the season (or before). At City Fresh, the buy-in is week-to-week. You pay one price each week for the following week. So we can take weeks off and not lose money. Plus, there are two sizes of a share of the food: a family share supports 3-4 people and a single share 1-2. For each share size, there are two prices: one full price, one low-income. Which means that the goals of City Fresh are broader than simply supporting local farms and families. City Fresh is specifically designed to bring foods to an urban environment to help sustain the low-income communities that exist there. All of our leftover foods are donated to local shelters too, so we feed people across all socio-economic groups with sustainably grown, local, seasonal fruits and vegetables. It's an awesome organization to be involved with and I'm thrilled that my children are able to participate as well.

City Fresh is also single-handedly teaching all of Cleveland what the hell a scape is. If you're wondering, garlic scapes are the stalk of the hardneck garlic plant and can be used in the same way as garlic - chopped up in stirfries, minced and cooked on a pizza, or pulverized to add to pesto. I first heard of them three years ago when we joined City Fresh and got a bundle.City Fresh has also afforded me plenty of opportunity to take photos of vegetables...









There was also one unique opportunity to realize that I could paint much better than I thought. Sebastian took photos of me after helping me get started on the background for our new sign.For hours, my front yard was the site of much arting (though art in itself is not an unusual occurrence here at all).
Finally, while watching Frost/Nixon with Jon late that night, I finished up all my little vegetables.

Cherry-pickin'

At the grandparent's house, we were told to pick cherries. I did so against my will. The kids did so briefly. There wasn't much left uneaten by the birds and bugs.

A Tour of the Garden, with Added Scarecrow

We share our garden with our next door neighbors as they have a bit of yard and we do not. In previous years, we've grown but a very few things in a tiny space beside our front porch as front yard is all we've got. This year, Papa talked Chris and Brad, our twenty-something bio-medical engineering PhD student neighbors, into digging up a bit of their unused back yard to grow good things in the dirt. They were all about it. Thus we have our massive cucumber plants and tangle of home-built trellis on which to grow them.

From the back corner of our house, we look at an angle through the neighbors' driveway towards the garden.Over the driveway, we approach the bit of yard...
Our cucumbers are massive, our tomatoes staked and growing, our pumpkin & squash mishmash threatens to overtake everything, and our beans are already yielding results.Last weekend, while we were visiting the grandparents to celebrate Aunt Natty's graduation, I asked Papa what I should do for Art Day this coming week. He said we should build him a scarecrow (though we have no crows eating our vegetables...yet). When Art Day rolled around, we didn't really do much of anything as the children were interested in merely playing with toys and chasing each other around like crazed monkeys. So I began work on the scarecrow all by myself. By the weekend, I completed it.
Jon's plastic owl also helps ward off unwanteds. Together, the owl, the scarecrow, and our sparkly-loving gnome form an intimidating alliance.
The scarecrow is comprised mostly of trash. His head was a grouping of plastic bags stuffed with a piece of foil overlaying it into an onion net bag.
The left eye is milk jug lid, beads, sparklies, and feathers.
The right eye of milk lid tie, juice lid, beer lid, PBR pin, button, button, rivet, and bead.
The arms are strung-together seedling packs (the threes cut into singular units, handy for stacked arms, strung on excess inherited acrylic yarn).
Bastian and I made the wavy, gay fingers together of plastic beads on wire.


The chest cavity is a salad container filled with artificial organs.
White plastic cutlery forms the ribcage.
The heart is stuffed felt, the lungs pink tulle leftover from our second wedding stuffed into more onion sleeves.
The liver is stuffed fabric (leftover from the teepee my mother made the boys for Christmas 3 years ago), the stomach the same fabric stuff into a garlic sleeve, and the intestines are braided yarn.
The stomach and the intestines are actually connected, via a lovely clump of hot glue. I'm quite fond of that touch, even if no one can see it.
We imagine that the tremendously bright colors will fade over the summer and it's my belief that I'll have to restuff the organs back into the chest cavity. That's what you get for walking around with your organs exposed, I suppose.

Cucumbers in Bloom

Our massive cucumber plants have started sprouting flowers. Aleks pointed them out to me.
He explains all about it:

CSA Season Begins!!!

City Fresh kicked off its season even though it doesn't quite feel like summer yet to me. This year, we're volunteering right off the bat as opposed to last year where we just started helping out when we'd be hanging around for hours on end socializing. And by we, you can assume that I mean that I volunteer whilst the children run about with the other children of locavores.Our fearless leader, Lotte, writes receipts for folks paying for next week.
Tracie and Mike werkin' hard at organizing veggies.
Henry the librarian has all sorts of plans for activities with kids and food demos. This week he hosted story time. My children even listened! Sorta.
It will be another summer of countless veggie pictures.
These are handy since I'm now creating a brochure for our Fresh Stop.
Thyme.
Basil - Aleks' favorite. He's just like my sister Lillian was when she was little: his favorite food is basil pesto on pasta.
Onion stems.
Aleks took our library videos in to return them and decided to sign up for the summer reading program. He didn't get a chance as the librarian was busy with another patron, but he wrote "Aleks" on a random sheet of paper and placed it in the summer reading box. I promised we'd do an official sign-up next week. Which is all very exciting because Aleks is now reading! Not a lot, but enough. It's very, very much a relief for all my nagging doubts.
The full Family Share for the week: bok choy, mixed greens, onions, romaine, spinach, basil, maple syrup, thyme, and cilantro. Small at first, but it grows and grows...