Savor Tooth has been in hibernation the past 6 months or so because I’ve been trying to figure out what direction I want to take. The savory cookie angle has been super fun – and I don’t think it’s fully over – but it also has been hard to make space for experimental baking in my current day-to-day. So, I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike. And it has finally arrived – in the form of my local CSA. 

For those unfamiliar with this acronym, CSA stands for community supported agriculture. CSA programs allow individuals and families to buy food straight from the source. Every week,  members pick up a box or bag of fruit/veg/you-name-it from a centralized location in their neighborhood and they’ll be able to tell you exactly what farm(s) or producer(s) it came from. Sounds great? Yes, though there are two caveats: 

1. A CSA share is a commitment. If you sign up, you are signed up for the entire season – a season can last months. You will pay upfront for every week in that season, regardless of whether or not you pick up. (With that said, a CSA is typically very cost-effective, so even if you miss one or two weeks, you typically will still come out on top.) 
2. You get what you get. Because CSA programs partner with local producers, you are limited to what they produce. This varies by season and by location. As a result, CSAs can get a bad rap – you’ll hear stories of back-to-back weeks of mostly lettuce or winding up with more rhubarb than any family could possibly eat. 

I first encountered a CSA last summer when a member of our local running club sent out a request in the group chat. They were going on vacation and wouldn’t be able to pick up their CSA share, but they didn’t want the food to go to waste. Would anyone be interested in picking it up and enjoying it in their stead? My partner expressed our interest – who doesn’t want free produce? – and that weekend walked over to the pick-up location, popular local joint Habana Outpost. We were amazed at the quality, variety, and volume of produce. It was a veritable bounty: swiss chard, apricots and plums, shishito peppers, shallots, kale, an entire watermelon! The next time someone in our run club posted, offering up their weekly CSA share for this or that reason, we leapt at the opportunity. 

Now obviously it is easy to be enthusiastic about a CSA when you are the opportunistic one-off-picker-upper. It’s novel, temporary, and free. Being a CSA shareholder, however, is another story. That’s when the caveats kick in – you are in it for the long haul and you can’t get off the bus. Still, our experience was so positive that we decided to take the leap and sign up for the 2025 season of our local CSA, Greene Harvest. 

The Greene Harvest CSA runs for 25 weeks, starting in mid-June. It offers a weekly selection of produce and eggs, along with other seasonal/monthly add-ons (bread, honey, flowers, heirloom tomatoes, beef). We paid $815 for a weekly share of organic vegetables and local fruit as well as a dozen eggs. This comes out to $32.60 per week, with $4.80 of that going towards eggs (an important reference point in our current egg-price-obsessed society). 

I may be wildly out of touch thanks to the astronomic prices at our local grocery store (I’m lucky if I can get out of there for less than $50), but our CSA share feels like a good value, even if we factor in the handful of weeks we may miss due to vacation or Saturday pick-up negligence (hey, it happens to the best of us). But, good value or not, I made a promise to myself that the produce we received would NOT go to waste. I would make sure to do everything in my power to get creative and make do with whatever showed up in our weekly allotment, even if it was only lettuce or way too much rhubarb. 

Which brings us to now. We are four weeks into our CSA season and I have found a new source of inspiration. Every Friday we are emailed a list of everything that will be in our weekly share and I get to work and scour my favorite websites and cookbooks to craft a menu that will use up our ingredients. The result? We’ve ordered less take-out and eaten more veggies. I’ve learned how to prepare ingredients that I wouldn’t ordinarily buy like garlic scapes and swiss chard and straight neck squash. I’m more cognizant of food waste and found ways to prevent it by making things that can be frozen and saved for a rainy day. I’m factoring in feasibility by choosing recipes that are easy enough to tackle on a weeknight, even after a long day at work. I feel more connected with my community. This weekend, I picked up our share while walking my dog and it was incredibly wholesome to see all the people in my neighborhood doing the same thing on a Saturday morning. 

One of the major things that has held me back from continuing with Savor Tooth Snacks has been a feeling of disconnect with the current state of the world. It felt insincere and ignorant to keep baking cookies in the midst of political disarray, genocide, and climate disasters (to name a few of the many, many issues facing our country and world). To give myself, and everyone, some credit, you can and need to find outlets to create space from those feelings of anxiety and fear. Still, it has been hard to motivate myself and harder still to write about it. Food connects us and today connection is hard to find because of how divisive the world has become. 

So, I’ve been finding ways to build connections and foster community. Every Friday I run with my neighborhood run club and after, we stop for coffee and pastries at a cafe across the street. I’m finding ways to cultivate change in my city, paying attention to local elections and canvassing for a candidate who believes in his city and whom I am beyond excited to support (hot girls for Zohran iykyk). I’m learning more about the farms upstate that grow the fruits and veggies I eat each week. I’m inviting my friends over to dinner and cooking a meal to share with them. These are the little things that energize me and bring me a little hope. I’m optimistic this is the start of a virtuous cycle.  

This season on Savor Tooth Snacks, I’ll be sharing my experience with my local CSA – the things I make, the people I meet, and what I learn along the way. Stay tuned!