It Was Just One Box

In addition to usually only cooking for myself, I sometimes work late or travel during the week and also want to leave myself open for a last minute get together with friends and sometimes even a date. I never shop for the week, only for the night. As a result I am almost always in the express lane at the market with 10 items or less, and I don’t understand the point of grocery carts.

Knowing this I have never signed up for a CSA or a share in a pig (although I do love me some bacon). I can’t go through all that food before it goes bad. And then I got a Tasting Table e mail with an offer to buy one box from Norwich Meadows Farm with recipes from Michael Anthony (chef from Gramercy Tavern). So I thought to myself “it’s just one box”, find a week when I’m not traveling and don’t have plans and it shouldn’t be an issue.

The box arrived on a Tuesday night filled to the brim with fresh vegetables that looked great and tasted even better (I noshed on a few cherry tomatoes as a bedtime snack). I left the next morning for three days.

The night I came back I dove in and made a plan to use every single veggie in my fridge. And then I had a birthday dinner, and then got invited to brunch, and then I worked late, and then I had a few last minute dinners, and the Irene dropped in. It sounds bad, but I did use all the tomatoes and half the rest of the veggies. It made me so sad to not use all of the beautiful vegetables – it’s amazing what a difference there is in taste when you get something fresh picked. But I should have known better, unless they specified that the box was shoe box size.