MISS JO AND JEFF HAVE A FARM BOX subscription, which for $30 gets a week’s worth of organically grown veggies, fruit, herbs and a dozen free-range eggs.
The bounty is delivered Wednesdays to a neighbor’s garage— a drop-off point for Eatwell Farms, one of several farms in the San Francisco Bay Area selling directly to consumers. Eatwell is a couple-hour drive east in the Sacramento River valley where top soil’s an amazing 35-feet deep.
The veggies are picked the day before and eggs come straight from hen houses in an organic alfalfa pasture where the ladies have free range. For flavor and nutrition, the box is tops. Planning meals around its contents is also a constant cooking lesson, like learning what to do with Jerusalem artichokes and why sliced, young radishes on bread with butter really are satisfying. Aside from buying hot peppers and limes on Mission Street, or mushrooms and bananas at the supermarket, the box is Miss Jo and Jeff’s main source of produce.
Photo by Miss Jo: Jeff uses organic eggs from the farm box to make pasta, dried on a clothes rack and inspected by Rudy Kazootie.
A MISS JO POEM FOR THE COOK, inspired by the sweet smell of tonight’s dinner:
Ode To The Pizza In Our Oven
Our future is being painted
In tomato sauce
One pie at a time
By Babbo
In the kitchen
Of our crooked house on a San Francisco hill.