So I knew before I moved to the windy city that I wanted to join a Chicago CSA. Community Supported Agriculture is basically an alternative form of marketing food (usually veggies, but increasingly fruit, flowers, dairy and meat too) that cuts out the supermarket or farmers market. Traditionally the members (buyers) of a CSA would pay for an entire season, at the beginning of the season, so the farm can pay for seeds, labor, supplies, maintenance etc throughout the season knowing that they are financially secure. It’s a lovely mutually beneficial relationship between eater and grower, that reconnects people to their food, people to each other, and everyone to the land. Yay!

So I checked out Local Harvest, a great site that directs people in any city in the USA to the various local food options in their area. I found a whole lot of CSAs in Chicagoland that exist during the summer season, but I need some winter food! Although temperatures will be frigid and it will be snowy, cold season farming is a growing trend in the Midwest. Season extension is one of the main foci of the Student Organic Farm at Michigan State University (the incubator for my interest and passion for sustainable agriculture), and there are a number of farms in this area that use a variety of techniques to provide food all winter long.

But very few farms deliver their winter goodies to CSA members. Then I found Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks. It isn’t a traditional CSA, it’s more like a CSAmalgam — Irv and Shelly basically coordinate a number of farms in the area, organize it into their website, and deliver all over the Chicago area. So I found three friends, and we decided to get a weekly family box of produce. Saturday we got our first shipment of delicious local organic food! Here we are, each of us holding up our favorite item from the week:

They also sent us a little sheet of all the veggies and fruit that we recieved. Each item has a name, a farm it’s from, and some cooking ideas. We split up the big box o food, and I ended up getting Baby Bok Choi and Brussel Sprouts (Full Harvest Farm, Hartford, WI), Honey Crisp Apples (Lehman Orchards, Niles, MI), Red Leaf Lettuce (Genesis Growers, St. Anne, IL), and Crimini Mushrooms (River Valley Ranch, Burlington, WI). Here is my share of the items, for a total of $11:

So from this week forth, I will only be going to the 61st Street Farmers Market and Hyde Park Produce to supplement my CSA share. Hoorah for good food!

Greetings! I am thrilled to be one of the bloggers for Sustainable Farmer, and in fact this is my first blogsperience so I have that first-day-of-school anticipation and excitement too! Let me get this ball rolling by introducing myself:

At the Berkeley Farmers Market

I’m a 22 year old living in Hyde Park, on the South side of Chicago. I was born and raised in the Midwest, and darn proud of it! My dad comes from a farming family in the Midwest, and my mom comes from an Iranian family, so I was lucky to be raised on mostly homecooked Persian meals and fresh herbs from the garden. Food is the stongest tie I have to my Persian heritage, and I am proud to say that I’ve learned countless recipes and techniques from my mom and her family. Beyond my mom and dad, I need to give some shoutouts to my mentors and friends at MSU!

Yet until I entered the RISE program at Michigan State University, I was never really conscious of the complex path between farms and my belly. With the guidance of Laurie Thorp, my passionate and wise adviser and mentor, I joined a student group called the Ecological Food and Farm Stewardship. Through EFFS, I started volunteering on MSU’s Student Organic Farm, helped set up MSU’s first on-campus Organic Farm Stand, co-organized dozens of events, and met a new community. The group of people involved with the student group and the SOF included students, faculty, researchers, CSA members, and hundreds of kids and adults who come to the farm each year for hands-on education.

Mountain of salad greens for CSA

During the summer of 2006 I did an intensive internship at SOF, working hard every day in the fields and hoophouses, going on trips to other farms and sustainable institutions, leading kids on tours at the farm, and eating the fruits of our labor. Big shoutouts to Corie Pierce, Jeremy Moghtader and Jay Tomczak for having unique and complementary styles that helped push us as interns, but gave me a far deeper educational experience than I’ve ever had in a classroom. Never before had I felt so connected to a community, to the land, and to the food I was eating. My experiences at SOF continue to impact my life profoundly, and I have watched the farm change and evolve just as my life has blossomed with more purpose and energy. I shall write more about the SOF, the inspirational people involved, and all their exciting projects in coming posts!

So I finished up my Honors Bachelor of Science at MSU in Environmental Policy from the IDS department - this major allowed me to structure my own curriculum and focus on what mattered most to me. My cognate (MSU’s fancy word for minor) was in Anthropology, which allowed me to look at the human side of environmental policy, particularly in sustainable agriculture issues. My anthropology mentor Laura DeLind helped me sift through the complexities of how CULTURE fits into AGRICULTURE. She also helped me find a fitting way to round off my bachelors, by spending my last semester in France studying various aspects of sustainable food production. Jim Bingen leads the program, and helped me in countless ways with his guidance and research expertise. I stayed in France for the remaining two months of summer 2007, traveling and wwoofing on various organic farms in the Southwest and East sides of the country. It’s amazing how quickly you can learn a language if you live with French families! And amazing how quickly you can forget if you don’t make an effort to study after leaving france:P

The view from my room…my first wwoof experience!

From August 2007-May 2008 I lived in Trinidad and Tobago, where I researched the networks and policies around organic agriculture through a US Fulbright Grant. I will write more in future posts, but this was my first research experience, and my first truly independent taste of life. Thousands of miles away from home, I spent my days reading up on history, meeting with groups of farmers and marketers, helping organize various events with an organic shop, and making a handful of very close friends. Two of my close friends are bloggers themselves, Gillian and Elspeth, and both of these strong women infinitely enriched my experiences in T&T. I was interviewed for a podcast that Fulbright does, and I presented some of my research at the Caribbean Food Crops Society’s annual meeting. Living in the Caribbean for a year impacted my life in ways I hadn’t expected, and I’ll certainly be posting more on this later!

Prepared local organic lunch at Sun Eaters Organics

Earlier this summer my travels took me up to California for a few weeks, then up to Oregon and later to Seattle and nearby Vashon Island. My boyfriend Matt and I made the trip by train, and throughout the month we visited dozens of places working through various means towards a more sustainable future for agriculture, energy, the environment and human well-being. I brought a video camera with me and I’m finishing up some editing this week, so you can look forward to some visual bites in the near future!

Last week I started the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, an intense nine-month whirlwind of theory, methods, and research where each student constructs their own unique program. I’m focusing on Anthropology, Caribbean studies, and -of course- food and agriculture. Living in Hyde Park for only a month now, I’m already falling in love with this community and finding my niche in the city. I’ve been going to a farmers market every week at 52nd and Harpers, and I’m planning on visiting the Experimental Station to check out their urban garden, farmers market, other projects and all the people who are helping make this happen. Learning about shooting and editing documentary films is another goal for the year. Fire Escape Films, a student group at U Chicago, seems to offer the perfect venue for this endeavor. My first project is already in the works, but I’ll leave you wondering about this for now:o)

I’m off to class now, but hopefully this is a good snapshot of where I’m coming from. When you come to read my blog, you can expect a mix of news about food and agriculture and my experiences with sustainable food. I also want to declare a new word to enter the foodie lexicon - YARDEN - it’s a home/kitchen garden in your yard. I’ve seen (and eaten from) plenty.

Enjoy the last weeks of warm weather everyone! I’m looking forward to autumn colors and biking in scarves and mittens:o)