One month into the pandemic “stay at home” experience, and deft with Instacart grocery deliveries, I heard about The Produce Box out of Raleigh, NC – home deliveries of fresh produce from around the Carolinas every week. Familiarity returns –Â memories of my weekly outings to the farmers market. I was blissful about the prospect – not only for the products but the chance to learn about the regional food producing culture from home.
The first delivery in early May definitely caught my attention – it came with a poem that described the pandemic landscape quite poignantly.
It read in part (credit to Anna Richards of 2020 Consulting):
“They ran to the groceries, they filled up their carts,
They emptied the Tops and Price Chopper and Walmart,
They panicked and fought and then panicked some more,
Then they rushed to their homes and they locked all the doors.
The food will be gone!….
….The food was still coming, though they’d emptied the shelves,
The farms kept it coming, though they struggled themselves…
…And the people thought of something they hadn’t before.
Maybe food, they thought, doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe farmers, perhaps, means a little more.”co
I stocked up with cauliflower, two artisan cheeses from Prodigal Farms, “Carolina Trail Mix” granola from Huntington Co. Provisions, blueberries and romaine lettuces.
We have been noticing about how our gratitude for the land is growing in the pandemic. We’re at home more, we’re cooking more, we’re looking out for our neighbors more and trying to support our local businesses. The closure (temporarily) of farmers markets is another killer, for them and us. Supporting The Produce Box and similar ventures is one way to help keep the economy going. Happily farmers and nurseries are considered “essential services” and can proceed with planting and harvesting the land.
Now I am preparing for planting my first “kitchen garden” – herbs in one corner, perennials along another border, mint over by the fence in pots. The red clay is tilled with nourishing black soil, and we make one or two trips a week to different nurseries to select the contents. By now, my sister’s ample gardens are producing – cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and squash – and I am digging out my cherished cookbooks and “veggie-first” recipes from Deborah Madison. Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby, Jane Brody, Peggy Knickerbocker and Alice Waters.
It’s June and the farmers’ markets are back open! People are reticent but we venture to the parking lots of Mt. Holly, N.C. and Ft. Mill, S.C. I buy freshly crafted herb-flavored olive oils and ranch-raised turkey thighs and chicken legs. So much is coming my way I make my first ever tomato jam from the mounds of fat purplish Brandywine heirlooms and bake personal-size fig, honey and feta pizzas. I freeze basil and fill small Ball jars with oven-dried tarragon and oregano. I whip a batch of blueberry muffins and learn that overripe bananas can be frozen for use in banana bread. I develop a more refined understanding of regional seasonality and the three-week to two-month harvest windows of the Carolinas Piedmont – unlike the longer seasons in northern California where the weather is more constant over an expanded period of time.
My freezer is full! My pantry is full! I take a handful of mint to my neighbor and crocks of gazpacho and of cucumber and mint yogurt soup to my sister. I make a parsley and garlic pesto for salmon and basil pesto for pasta and grilled vegetables. I check the weekly Produce Box menu. The melons are about to come in! I note in Southern Living several chilled fruity drinks to prepare for the 90-degree afternoons. At The Peach Stand, a 12-minute drive south, I learn how to properly ripen a peck of sun-yellow peaches (2-3 days on a paper towel on my kitchen counter).
Yes! Yes! This is better than the store and farmers, yes, yes, farmers, do mean a little more. In fact, they mean much much more.
