After attending a fabulous lecture about organic food at a Connecting Women event, I signed up for the Dutch equivalent of Community Supported Agriculture. Thus every week, we have several bags of fresh organic fruit and vegetables delivered to our doorstep by Kievit. I know this sounds rather extravagent for a full time grad student with no time to contribute to the household income and a part time church manager. But I am a master justifier when it comes to making healthy choices that bite into our budget. Here are the points I used to convince my husband:
organic is healthier
we hardly ever eat out
we make 90% of our lattes at home (except for that one I had yesterday on a terrace in the sun as a means of bonding with husband)
they deliver to your doorstep (less trips to the store)
we don’t own a car
Thus, view this extravagance as money that would have gone to lattes and benzine (what they call fuel over here).
And I’m cooking! Delicious, organic meals that make it rather palatable and less depressing to always eat at home. A few weeks ago there was a long stock of rhubarb in our packet. What on earth do I do with this? I thought. I know my mom made rhubarb pie once in a while when it was summer time and she was on vacation from her teaching job, but otherwise, I hadn’t encountered this strange creation in my adulthood, and had never seen it on the shelves of the grocery store.
So I went online. I adapted a recipe for strawberry rhubarb crumble, using stevia in place of the 2 cups of sugar the recipe called for. Our dinner guests loved it. Even the kids ate it.
Every week I look forward to what will be on our porch next and Ezra and Arie Jan are even beginning to eat salads on a weekly basis.
If you live in The Netherlands and you want food that tantalizes your tastebuds, I highly recommend a CSA, and Kievit is a great place to start.
kristininholland 
I love checking in on your posts from time to time. It’s always rewarding. For instance I’m not in the market for a CSA because I’ve got my own garden going and I’ve combined forces with a friend of many decades as we develop a large plot at our community garden. But your recipe caught my eye. I’d never heard of stevia. Now I’ve done some reading about it and plan to pick up a jar to start experimenting in my own cooking. Thanks Kristin! All the best to you and yours always. Doug
Hi Doug. Glad to be of service :). I am of course envious of your large community garden plot, but very happy for you all the same. I am picturing luscious heirloom tomatoes, red bell peppers and deep leafy green heads of kale and chard that are all possible in California. Our garden here is pathetic at best due to a spring that was more like an extension of winter and a summer that has yet to begin in earnest.
Stevia is great. There are a lot of watered down versions–or powdered down versions in this case–with fillers such as glucose or sucrose. Thus the tiny jars you get at the health food stores are well worth the extra cost. The jar I brought from the States has the following ratio: 1/64th of a serving equals 1 teaspoon of sugar. You can imagine it lasts a long time :). The leaves are also quite tasty, but incredibly sweet.
Yep, we Californians love to show off when it comes to climate! Started with 10 varieties of tomatoes but lost 2 to wilt. The others are strong and healthy and the fruit on one is shifting from green, to yellow, to orange – won’t be long until we see red. Peppers and Kale too. Also carrots, red and golden beets, cucumbers, melons of several varieties, peas, beans, and squash (looking forward to a “Pink Banana” I’ve never tried). We’ve got a grafted apple tree with 4 varieties that has fruit ready to pick on one set of branches while the other types are just developing fruit or flowering. A couple of lemon trees of course plus herbs and lots of annuals and perennials. Oh yeah, just remembered the volunteer pumpkin that came from last year’s Halloween festivities; there’s a 12″ and growing green pumpkin on the vine already.
I’d noticed that watching for added extenders in the stevia would be important. Also saw that it’s 600 times as sweet as sugar – the powder I found on line says 1/3 to 1/2 tsp. = 1 cup of sugar. Amazing!
Okay. Beyond envious! Send me pictures please! Yes. Be careful with the stevia!
Read to my office staff, they love it 🙂
Wow! Thanks!
Perfect way to get out of a food rut. I wish someone would deliver a really good book to my doorstep every week. I love having other people make really great choices for me.
Yes! It’s wonderful if I have the time to cook. If not, then it goes downhill fast; those vegetables in the crisper are more guilt inducing than the Catholic church and Jewish mother’s combined. What a risky venture to recommend a book to you, as it demands a “really great choice.” On that note, I loved The Book Thief.
Thanks! I’ll check it out. (Literally, from the library.)