Um. Can you guys try not to put the corn on the cob on top of the baby spinach next time? I swear, Wilson Farm has the worst grocery baggers on the planet (I’ve lost track of how many peaches, plums and nectarines they’ve ruined), and apparently the same people are putting the CSA shares into the baskets.
We finally got a decent amount of tomatoes. For a few weeks, we’d been getting 2 a week. This week we got 16. Donald is a little disappointed that we still got the same massive amount of zucchini and summer squash, though. And lettuce is back, after a lovely 2-week lettuce hiatus. I’m sort of disappointed that heirloom tomatoes are in full swing, and we only got the most basic, boring tomatoes they grow at Wilson Farm. But I can sort of understand. The heirloom ones tend to be more susceptible to splitting and cracking, especially around the stem, and once that happens they go bad pretty quickly. If we got 16 large heirloom tomatoes, we’d have to eat nothing but for a couple of days so that they didn’t rot before we got to them. And then we’d have no tomatoes left for the rest of the week. Also, even basic, boring tomatoes are pretty tasty in August, when they’re locally grown (not the tasteless ones that they pick green in California and blow ethylene gas over to sort of ripen them before they put them out on the shelf in your Massachusetts grocery store).
For dinner tonight, I made Mediterranean couscous salad (with tomatoes and zucchini, as well as other vegetables), tomato and mozzarella salad with basil, and boiled corn on the cob (with lime-cilantro butter). Fresh local raspberries from our CSA share for dessert (even though Donald was eyeing the new cherries I’d bought; I told him we had to eat the raspberries first, though, because they’re more perishable). Everything was yummy, though Donald opted out of the couscous salad because of the measly 1 cup of diced zucchini I’d added, and had leftover pork tenderloin with figs from last night instead.
Thanks for letting us know that we should be doing a better job bagging groceries and packing the CSA shares. We’ve instructed all our baggers to handle sensitive stone fruits with care, but will remind them how important it is to do so. We’ll also pass along the packing feedback to our farm team that helps pack your CSA. If you ever end up with bruised fruit as a result of our bagging, please see the head of our Front End, Michelle, on your next visit and we’ll quickly replace any item.
Thanks for your feedback.
Peter at Wilson Farm
Hi Peter,
Thank you for stopping by and commenting. I’m sure that the grocery baggers are just trying to do a good job of bagging our groceries as quickly as possible, and that if they weren’t quite as fast, people would complain about that, too. But I’ve discussed this issue with friends who shop at Wilson Farm, and they’ve agreed with me that the Wilson Farm baggers seem to be rougher on their produce than the baggers at other stores.
I do really like that the team packing the CSA shares has started using twist ties on the bags instead of just sealing up the double ziploc. It was very difficult to open the zipped-up bags sometimes.
All the staff involved in handing out the CSA shares have been extremely helpful and friendly, and very conscientious about helping me get the basket into my shopping cart without squishing whatever’s already in there, even offering to help carry it to my car on occasion (I declined, but it was very thoughtful of them to offer). And, as I’ve said elsewhere on my blog, the quality of the Wilson Farm-grown produce is better than anything I’ve seen for sale anywhere else in Boston.