You pay $25 for the weekly grocery bag, and get to select your own produce. My weekly haul included a watermelon, okra, clover sprouts, eggplant, cukes, peaches, shitake mushrooms (YUM), fresh herbs (YUM), mustard greens, peppers, and tomatoes.
The market is just adorable. There are homemade breads, fresh cheeses, and produce; everyone is in a good mood; the employees are helpful and happy. The produce quality is excellent - I made an asian chop salad with shitake mushrooms, sprouts, cukes, scallions, and bok choy that was heavenly (lime and peanut dressing), and used fresh herbs on my pizza. I loved the fuzziness of the peaches, too - I find that peach fuzz is inversely proportional to pesticide use, haha.
If you live in New Orleans, make this your Saturday date, preceded by a late wake-up and a leisurely walk to the Maple Street Patisserie for croissants that will make you slap yo' mère.
If you don't live in NOLA I can't very well direct your weekend, but let's just say you're really missing out on the croissants and skitake mushrooms.
Do you have a CSA? Or have you tried one?
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My brother & his wife have done a CSA the last 2 summers and they love it. Their produce is so amazing, they have been so happy w/ the results!
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of bloggers visiting Minneapolis next weekend so I plan on taking them to a cute farmer's market.
Oh and my gluten free heart aches a bit for delicious croissants... GF baking is so dense, there is no way you could achieve a flaky croissant (or not that I have encountered...)
Have not but am going to research CSA "stuff" in my area. Even in the picture the produce looks great (must be near lunch time).... :)
ReplyDeleteI belong to spiralpathfarm.com A coworker and I share a large share and they even deliver it once a week to a local business and we go pick it up and split it. 26 weeks with the option to drive to the farm once a week to pick your own herbs and get extra produce. Comes to about $10 a week $20 a week before we split up the box.
ReplyDeleteI don't belong to a CSA but have considered it. The weekly farmer's market and other local stands are always on my weekly stops though...your salad sounds yummy!
ReplyDeleteI split the Hollygrove box with another couple for several months last winter. At the time, half the box was plenty for me and fiance, but I eat *tons* of veggies these days and I wonder if I could take care of a whole box now... Did you have much leftover at the end of your week?
ReplyDeleteI really liked the idea of Hollygrove, but I got kind of cabbaged out and eventually stopped getting a box. (Winter is a bad time to start getting a veggie box.) Plus my box buddies moved away.
I do go to the farmer's market downtown pretty regularly though because I like being able to pick and choose what I get. Hollygrove is closer to me though, so I should check it out again sometime.
grace, i've lived in new orleans my entire life and i've never been there. thank you so much for posting this. i'm going to go this weekend. :)
ReplyDeleteI saw this funny article on how a single person can use up an entire CSA box and thought of your post. http://markbittman.com/a-single-persons-guide-to-produce
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