I think I forgot to order food. I'm not quite sure what happened.
I know a little bit of what happened, which was pretty cool. A colleague asked me to order some stuff for her, and I must have put in her order quickly and some staples for me, and then forgot to go back and order more.
The cool part is, yeah, I think this is a great system and I want more people to do it. We were discussing going to the pick-up site during a meeting, and afterwards an intern came up to me and said, "I want in," so maybe I'll order him some stuff and maybe this thing will spread.
So this week, I got milk from Maplehofe Dairy. I finally clicked on the right size, so we'll have milk all week. Also, I'm off coffee, so we go through milk more slowly. I'm not off coffee for any good reason, just got out of the habit and don't see why I'd go back. I'm on tea, so it's not like I'm off caffeine.
I got plenty of salad from Rineer Family Farms and eggs from L&L Farms, but here's the really good news, I got awesome cheese. I used to buy Hillacres Pride cheese, and their butter, at the farm market in the summer, and then it showed up on the buying club list last time, and I jumped at it.
Oddly enough, between when I placed that order and when we picked it up, Sous Chef Brian had made a trip to Whole Foods and found it there and brought some home. How exciting, the best cheese, and in a supermarket! And then he told me how much it cost. Twice what I get it for at the farm market and the buying club. So no more supermarket cheese.
A note on food snobbery and such... The other day someone said to me, "You live in South Philly, you must shop at the Shop Rite and the Acme*," and I was like, "Yeah, I live in South Philly," but it wasn't the right time to say, "I really try not to do much shopping at supermarkets," and sure, I'd have an easy answer if the South Philly Food Co-op was already open, but I couldn't launch into stories of CSAs and buying clubs right then.
It's a tough balance, because I want people to know about this, and think that the more of us who do it, the more likely it will be that more folks can afford it, but at the same time, you can't go around telling everyone you meet that their food isn't up to your standards. I think it's important to remember that while some of us are getting local salad in the winter and fresh, orange-yolked eggs, other people don't have access to this stuff, and lots of people don't even have access to the supermarket version. I've said this sort of thing before, but perhaps not often enough.
*But he pronounced it like South Philly people do, or like people do when they're making fun on South Philly people, "Ack A Me"
