Fáilte!

The people we choose to share our ups and downs with in life are our best friends, our confidants.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Our Farm Share

In the past couple years we have had friends who have participated in local CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture), and on weeks that they were out of town we would pick it up for them so it didn't go to waste. It always seemed like something we wanted to do, one of those eat-more-greens-and-be-healthier ideas we wanted to get into, but this year we finally took the plunge.

We joined Penn's Corner Farm Alliance for the 24 week share, so we will get fresh produce from local farms until mid-November! Consider this our great cooking challenge haha. It is fabulous to get every week, however, neither of us have ever eaten SO many greens...sometimes it feels like the kale or chard will never end. One of the things that we hoped it would do (challenge us to cook different dishes or use different vegetables) it has certainly accomplished, however at this point I'm not sure if we're happy or not about it haha. We are getting items that I've never seen before, much less cooked with so it's forcing us to get creative in the kitchen, and we've had some great successes, but others........not so much.

Although, we definitely get high quality ripe produce so that is awesome. Many times at our local grocery store the produce is picked too early to be ripe when you buy it and it ends in disappointment and tears. Well maybe only for me. One thing that we have found to be neat that we didn't expect was the cheeses and random items we get in our share. I assume we get them when they don't have enough ripe or different produce items to go into the shares so they supplement with other items they have like cheeses or maple syrup. Overall it's been a blast, and if our only complaint is we're getting too many greens - in the scheme of things that may not be a bad thing. We are bravely looking forward to the next ten weeks we have coming our way!

Monday, August 26, 2013

The Kindle!

As a big supporter of bound books, I must make a confession (which will have David saying, "I knew it!") Before I go on, understand that I love the feel of a book in my hands, the way the pages rustle, the heft of a nice hardcover, the feeling of the written word just sitting in my lap - I love it. Having said that it will probably not come as a surprise that for years now I have scoffed at the use of e-readers, preferring to cart around my books with me when I traveled to visit family and friends. Years of resistance I have put up (my stubborness knows no bounds apparently haha), until this year when my loving family members came together for my birthday and all contributed to get me my kindle paper white. Such a nice thought, so I of course felt I needed to give it a fair shake.

Holy kindle! I love it, I love it, I LOVE IT. I'm not so proud that I can't admit that it is a wonderful idea after all. The ease of use, convenience in travel, and instant access to SO many types of books makes it unrivaled. Don't get me mwrong, I still love my paper books, but when I'm lazy and don't want to walk to the library (which is a lot depending on the weather), wait for a book to be transported to my branch, or just to save some space in my suitcase - this is the route to take :) I have been tearing through books on it, making the rate of which I am reading books before look like I didn't know how to read before. I cannot believe how much I love this thing, so THANK YOU to all who went in on this gift for me!

..... and yes David, this does mean that you were right haha :D