first-year CSA (recipe: pork noodle soup with baby bok choy)

After Jeremy took his class to Live Power Farm on a field trip and fell head over heels for the Decaturs and their amazing food, he's been pushing for us to sign up for their CSA. (You can read a profile of Gloria Decatur in the book Farmer Jane.) We finally managed to make it happen several months ago, before we moved and our finances took a nose-dive. Needless to say, I'm very grateful that we have these baskets of vegetables to pick up every week now. Things are poised to improve massively soon, but for now we're just hanging on by our fingernails.

At first, I'll admit, I was unimpressed by the CSA. A few sprouts of spinach, the odd handful of peas, a bunch of radishes...? For what we paid, this didn't seem like much. But friends assured me it would get better, and that's putting it mildly. This week's basket carried a gigantic head of broccoli, a bunch of radishes and beets, a huge number of green beans, endless handfuls of chard, spinach, and braising greens, summer squash, cucumber, and lettuce.

Last week I picked up a basket for a friend who was out of town, and to my delight I found that she also receives blueberries. What can I say about those blueberries? I have never liked blueberries. Frozen, they're at least edible, but I never buy fresh blueberries from the grocery store, no matter how cheap they get. Mushy, flavorless, or with a sickly-sweet, one-dimensional flavor... no thanks. But these blueberries were a revelation.

If you ever get the chance to taste a real blueberry, picked locally and at the height of the season, you absolutely must – the flavor is incomparable. I'd put blueberries in that same category of Never Eat This From a Grocery Store, along with tomatoes, fresh peas, apricots, and oh-so many other wonderful foods whose flavors are destroyed by conventional growing methods.

This baby bok choy is also from our CSA basket, but most grocery stores carry it as well, and it's affordable as most greens are. This soup is one of my favorites, making use of several ingredients that I love. Pastured pork is comparatively expensive, but this soup is a good example of how to manage that cost – stretching it with vegetables and other nourishing ingredients. I use mung bean noodles, which are gluten-free and very cheap, but you can use any sort of rice or wheat noodles that you like.

Pork Noodle Soup with Baby Bok Choy

½ lb. pastured pork sirloin, sliced into thin strips

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 T. ginger, peeled and minced

2 T. fermented soy sauce

2 T. nam pla (fish sauce)

juice of 2 limes

4 c. chicken or vegetable broth

6 baby bok choy, ends trimmed, quartered lengthwise

6 oz. mung bean noodles

3 scallions, sliced on a bias

handful of cilantro, minced

Combine the pork with the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, nam pla, and lime juice. Marinate the pork for 15 minutes.

Put the noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot water.

Heat 2 T. lard or coconut oil in a soup pot over medium. Add the pork, along with the marinade, and stir until browned evenly on all sides, about 10 minutes. Add the broth and bring to a low boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the bok choy and simmer for another 3-5 minutes, until the bok choy is tender.

Drain the noodles and divide them into the bottoms of four bowls. Ladle the soup on top, and sprinkle with scallions and cilantro. Serve soy sauce, nam pla, and chile-garlic paste at the table. Enjoy!