Eating local

CSA and CSF season has started up again.  Somebody say glory!

Although I am not best pleased with how Port Clyde Fresh Catch is evolving the CSF. 

Two years ago, a share was an entire fish (or many fishes if they were small, like sole), and it came in a big plastic bag with a twist tie and you picked it up from the back of a truck at the farmer’s market.  If you ordered your share pre-filleted, you had the option to also receive the “racks,” the carcasses, which make amazing chowder, and if you’ve never chased your young children with a three-foot cod corpse you haven’t lived. 

Then last year, they did away with the rack option and stopped selling at the farmer’s market. 

This year, a share is two pristine vacuum-sealed bags, neatly labeled and bundled in mesh; pickup is at an upscale gourmet market; and each of the bags has exactly one pound of fish in it – not the same kind of fish, though, so if it takes the entire share to feed your family, you wind up with some interesting juxtapositions (monkfish and Atlantic redfish, for example).

The fish is still excellent, but now it feels far removed from the slightly rough-edged boat-to-table model which we loved. 

Anyway, the season has started, so we’re getting back into the mindset of eating what’s ready when it’s ready and not really knowing from week to week what the menu is going to look like.  Great fun.

Last night’s dinner was roasted scallions from Farmer Tom, rice cooker pilaf, and a cod/haddock medley (courtesy of the new, improved CSF) baked with a vegetable and herb topping. 

Feels like summer.