Hey there,
Your bakery baker sounds amazing! Thinking about both of our senses of admiration and dread with regard to being super-green livers, I wonder where his energy for those efforts comes from – guilt, optimism, a sense of responsibility, frugality? I know I’m mostly motivated by fear of an impending environmental apocalypse and guilt about my contribution to it. I feel that I have no excuse. But I sometimes make myself crazy: I’ve got this one cardboard egg carton I know I can re-fill with eggs from a big egg basket at my local fancy-pants grocery, and I holding myself to only buying those (no more recycling the plastic cage-free-egg containers!) . . . but I’ve gone without eggs for two weeks now as a consequence.
And as for the peer pressure, what kind of community is sustained by guilt or holier-than-thou attitudes? I don’t mean to say that anyone is imposing those feelings on us, but when the “survival” behaviors like food shopping get moralized, suddenly I feel like I’m buying elephant tusks. When I commit – when I decide that yes, it’s disgusting that my plastic carrot bags end up in landfills – I’ve created a new ethical line which I fear crossing. If you just decide that you agree with the principles, how can you justify not living by them all the time? Oy vey.
At any rate, what are you up to with those mustard greens? And the eggplant?
It’s been a week or so that I’ve been meaning to tell you about my fava bean experience! 
I bought a small bunch, not knowing what they were exactly. I looked them up and saw that I could eat them raw (I tried one – yum) or do the complicated prep process of removing their shells and their skins. I did my first parboil! I mixed them with some cut asparagus pieces that I sauteed in olive oil. Added lemon, parmesan, and salt and pepper, and it was the most delicious, labor-intensive five bites of vegetable ever. I want to get some more to try other recipes. Only one odd thing, which is that I think they may have given me a slight upset stomach and caused me to burp a lot – but it’s hard to confirm causality.
I did another little improvisation two nights ago, ripping up some (huge!) collard green leaves and sauteeing them with broccoli, sausage, and tomato to eat over some mixed wild rice. It was pretty awesome. I think I could probably do something more exotic with the collard greens, but I was scrambling.
Still torn up over the CSA! I just calculated that for about $32 a week, I could get shares of fruits, veggies, and cheeses. What do you think? I think I surely spend that much and more now on food, and this would give me so much I’d only need to supplement with some grains and eggs, right? (And ice cream.) It could be a fun and healthy experiment–not to mention eliminate my weekly hour in the grocery store. But maybe that’s committing too much in advance. Just do veggies? Or should I commit to being really involved in my community garden and getting a good veggie supply from that?
Big springtime hug,
Carolyn
Dear Daikon 