Monday, September 30, 2013

What in the world am I doing up here?


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This week I finshed the first month of work in Boston.  I haven't explained much about the work ahead of me for the next year, but now that I know more about it I'll explain. My job here involves helping the Presbyterian Church in Burlington, MA with their food missions and the Boston Faith and Justice Network in their daily routine.  The church is always collecting food for the local food pantry, and regularly volunteers at a local soup kitchen, but also has a unique food outreach as a pick up site for the Farmer Dave's CSA customers. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculutre, it is the idea that the community members or customers purchase shares of the farm harvest at the beginning of the season, and pick up their weekly share of the food throughout the season as it arrives.  Every Monday, the Farmer Dave's truck delivers food freshly picked that morning already portioned out in boxes for the CSA members.  Farmer Dave's is a large farm that has 19 different locations for people to pick up their CSA shares of which the Church in Burlington is one.  Every Monday I help the Burlington Church member volunteers unload the food and get it ready for the members to pick up.  I am getting to know the members and assisting them with any questions or confusion they have.

It's a pretty well run operation because the farmer is guaranteed to have people take the food, and the customers can pick up fresh produce for the week in one location.  My fellow YAV housemates and I actually purchased a fruit share and a vegetable share for the rest of the summer.  Since we've committed to eat only local food until January, the CSA helps us find local food in one location.  I've also enjoyed learning to cook with these fresh ingredients.  My favorite was making pumpkin bread from a real pumpkin, and not a can of pumpkin.  It just felt good to be able to do that.  I would encourage you readers to look into CSA farms in your area and consider purchasing a membership either this fall, winter, or next year for some of the best produce in your area.  The Church benefits from this CSA as an opportunity to use their space to meet a need of the community.  We church volunteers will be working with the members who pick up food to see how we might expand the selection of groceries available at their pick up.  And to seek out ways to expand the outreach to the community as a church.

This type of work in a church environment will be a very interesting way for me to understand a bridge between a faith community and the local food movement.  If any of you readers have thoughts on how purchasing local food relates to God's mission please post them in the comments section or send me an E-mail, as this is a topic I am exploring for the year.

On a side note about CSA's, I was an intern with the CSA at Nu-Beginning Farm in Greenville, VA in the Shenandoah valley until May 2013.  CSA farming is a relatively new term and concept in the agricultural world, especially in the Shenandoah Valley (my homeland)--a place where those letters used to stand for Confederate States of America and these letters are found on Civil War history memorabilia at the many battlefield museums.  As all things relate to food, I am talking about Virginia, a historically abundant agricultural region also known as the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy" providing over half of the food (especially grains) to the southern soldiers during the Civil War.  And almost all of the civil war battles in that part of Virginia were fought on farmland, pastures and crop fields along the valley.  Much could be said about that war and the C.S.A. forming as a way of farmers deciding for themselves the way they'd grow food and what they'd grow (not how or what the government mandated), but now CSA's like Farmer Dave's and NuBeginning put that power of control over your food closer to you with that relationship.  Get to know your farmers! A CSA is a great way to do that.

When I'm not helping the church with this, the other half of my job is with the Boston Faith and Justice Network (BFJN).  One of my activities with Ryan at BFJN is writing on their blog.  I'll explain more about my work there on a later post on this site, but as a preview until next time, you can read my blog posts on the BFJN tumblr page.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Eating Local Without a Car


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Saturday was the first official "day off" for Libby and I since we arrived in Boston.  We had a mental list of places to go to see on days of like chatting with MIT professors about solar cookers, or hanging out with some witches in Salem, having some tea at the harbor, or maybe just taking more pictures at Walden Pond to send to our English Major/ Nature Writing friends.  That was my list at least.  Instead, Libby and I took some time to try and stock up on some local food for the winter, since we've been challenged to eat only local food until the end of January, and then live off of SNAP benefits for the following six months.

With the end of September approaching and hints of cold winter nights visiting outside our windows, we began to fear the days far ahead in January when we will miss the abundance of local tomatoes, raspberries, blueberries and peaches of the New England fall harvest.  So after several hours of internet research Libby and I made a plan to visit two farms to check out their farm stands and pick-your-own selections to bring back lots of fruit for making jam, canning, and freezing for the winter.  We had it all planned out on when, where, and what trains and buses to take, and prepared to bring bushel upon bushel of second hand tomatoes, blueberries and raspberries back with us.

However, when I double checked the bus schedule I found that the purple line train to the farm in Lincoln, (near Concord) would be closed for construction every Saturday until Nov. 17.  That put a damper on our trip. So as an alternate plan we left at 12:25 for a pick-your-own raspberry farm only 5 miles away which became an hour and a half bus/train/bus ride plus a 20 minute walk.  Then after picking through the organic berries to separate the ones with the invasive Asian fruit fly larvae and those without, we purchased about a quart and a half of good raspberries.  Then after a bee sting and another 30 minute walk back to the road we caught the bus by the grace of God just in time to get us back to the stop for the next farm with 30 minutes to spare and a 25 minute walk, which became a jog because we feared arriving late.  We made it to the second farm to be their last customers for the day, however the prices were so big we only bought several green peppers, an eggplant and some garlic--much less than we had hoped for. 

On the way out Libby and I walked through the closed and locked gate and sat down to eat a bite of lunch at 5:00 pm.  We reflected on the day.  The farm stands at the farm were not any cheaper than the farmer's market as we thought.  In fact they were much more expensive.  Markets would be more accessible in the city as well and have more selection, but still cost slightly more than we would like, but that's because we are paying closer to what it's worth without any government subsidized pricing.  The local food does have value to it being fresher, closer to the farm, and it comes with the face and story of the farmer.  We also realized how important it would be to have a car for this type of thing, but also how much traveling our food has to do to get to us.  Here's a mental activity for you.  Look at the food you had for your last meal and just think how far and how many different places you'd have to go to in order to get all the ingredients for that meal.  Now go gather those ingredients on your own, and take public transit.  That's how complex the system is that we are working with.  If you didn't stop to thank God, or at least the grocery store for getting it to you, then you should.  Hopefully in our work here we can learn more time-efficient ways to get our own food, and better ways of providing this food to those who have even less than we do right now.