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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Local Food & Local Babies

This summer we've gotten almost all of our produce from our CSA or the farmer's market. It's been absolutely amazing! First of all, it's delicious. Second of all, because of the CSA we always have lots of produce in the house, which has encouraged me to snack on more fruit, and to experiment with recipes and vegetables that I don't ordinarily eat. Finally, it's been an education to learn about which foods are actually in season in my neck of the woods at particular times. I'm such an urban girl, I'm usually completely out of touch with the natural world. I mean, did you know that everyone makes strawberry-rhubarb pie because those fruits are in season at the same time?? (I am sure you did...)

For his part, Jo seemed to enjoy the peaches, but turned down the zucchini outright. He's still not particularly into solids, though (which is not surprising given that he has no teeth, despite the constant teething).

This week the predicted CSA haul is corn, mesclun greens, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, lilac peppers (I've never heard of lilac peppers!), new potatoes, onions, zucchini, sage, plums, apricots, peaches. YUM!

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Last week Jo and Leo had a playdate. Jo just wants to crawl and Leo just wants to walk. Chaos ensued, but also much cuteness. Here they are plotting their escape:


Yesterday, Jo and I got to go hang out with oneofhismoms & wife, Cakie, and the newly hatched Trucker!! OOHM is amazing, doing more errands around our neighborhood than I do now with her 4 week old. And blogging about the meeting before I did, too. I can only echo her commentary about the concentrated cuteness. Trucker is just precious, an old soul with an expressive face and a beautiful shock of hair. Cakie is an excellent big brother. He gave Jo hugs and kisses, and even performed on his guitar (yes, the one in the header), to Jo's delight.

And Jo seems to be learning how to hug! He returned Cakie's hugs, and this morning in yoga class he hugged an 8 month old girl who was admiring his mad crawling skills. (At a few days shy of 8 months, Jo is about to graduate into the toddler class. Oy.) True, a few times his hugs involved grabbing her eyeballs, but he really does seem to have the idea. Too, too sweet.

4 comments:

Melody said...

Peaches and apricots. Yum. Sounds like pie-making time. Maybe Jo would be into gumming some zucchini bread.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that makes me miss our days with the CSA. It all sounds wonderful, and it's great that Jo is getting to try all of these fresh organic foods.

Not quite CSA related, but a few solid food tricks we learned oh so many years back...

1) Avocado. Great source of fatty acids, babies love it, and it makes a great face mask.

2) Canned beans. (Yes, I wrote canned.) They're just the right softness for a new chewer, but have that satisfying pickupableness that kiddos love. We cut them into teensy tinsy pieces at first.

You two are so sweet with him. I'm glad you're all enjoying each other so much.

Anonymous said...

Hooray for local foods and local babies!

Jasper loved avocado when he was a baby but I can't get him to eat it now. Oh well, he eats a lot of other good things.

When he was a baby I read "The New Basics" -- Dr. Cohen suggests limiting the cereals as they don't really provide much nutritionally, especially compared with other foods (like fresh produce). So when Jasper rejected cereal, and who could blame him since they're so bland, I didn't worry about it.

We mushed up whatever we were eating and fed it to him. He wasn't too keen on solids at first but at least he got to try a variety.

I loved doing the CSA last summer. Have a great vacation!

Anonymous said...

i'm jealous. the csa groups around here all have waiting lists!