Mini vegbox (Nene River Farms)

One of the things we've missed being away from Morris is our weekly (in the summer) box of organic veggies from Easy Bean Farm. There are a lot more organics at the big grocery stores here than in Morris, but the Aldi across the road is pretty low-end and doesn't have much of a fruit/veg selection, regardless of its organic status.

Happily, then, we attended a Green Fair at the Colchester Arts Centre last weekend where we met some fine folks from River Nene Organic Farm. It took me several questions to sort out a few things that were really different than back home, including:

• They're still delivering, and in fact deliver year round. (Most CSA's in Minnesota would have packed it in by now and won't start delivering again until May/June.) The local veggies in the winter will, not surprisingly, lean towards to the root variety, but they're still harvesting things like the cabbage family (brassicas) all winter.

• You don't have to subscribe or make a long-term commitment. Back home CSAs tend to be run on a subscription/Co-op model. Here, though, they post what the boxes will contain on Friday, and we have until Tuesday evening to decide what we want, if anything. Very cool.

• They do home delivery (dead convenient since we don't have a car).

Once I'd manage to dust off and re-arrange my pre- and mis-conceptions, it was clearly looking very spiffy and we signed up for a mini vegbox, which arrived Thursday evening.

This photo has samples of everything in the box (leeks, a swede, onions, potatoes, and mushrooms) except the carrots, which I didn't feel like unwrapping and pose in the box.

As a result of all this organic goodness, WeatherGirl's back in soup production mode, and yesterday made a nice thick soup out of the swede and a delicious leek and potato soup. And Sub-Evil Boy even spiffed up one of his frozen pizzas with some nice organic mushrooms. Nmmmmm...