CSA/Amgen

I didn't know what a CSA was until a couple of weeks ago. Well, that's not completely true. I've heard about CSA's but didn't know what they were called. It was more like idle rumor. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. I pay a farm money, the farm drops off a box of veggies. There is no choice in the veggies, they give me what is ripe and what they picked off the farm.

In the past, I had been hesitant about doing something like this. That's a lot of veggies for one person (the box is supposed to feed 2-4 people for one week) and I'm not known for my creativity when it comes to cooking. Planning meals for veggies I've never heard off (Ive never considered making a meal out of celery root) sounds difficult. I am particularly fond of sandwiches, thank you.

But then I made the mistake of reading and learning new things (doing that makes me an elitist, don't you know). I read Michael Pollan's book "In Defense of Food" and I'm currently working on his "Omnivore's Dilemma." Good books, both of them. They aren't on the required reading list for my friends (that is going to be "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" as soon as I finish). They are scary in some ways and really makes me want to eat better. One thing I've learned is I want to eat real food from a real farm - not processed crap or artichokes brought in from Peru. I want food that hasn't been processed to the nth degree and I want variety. Considering this, I've decided to give a CSA a try. Fully Belly farms is the one I picked and I've asked them to deliver every other week, in hopes I will be able to finish all of the food the give me.

Sat was my first delivery. Tonight I ate braised winter greens, with dino kale, and couscous. Actually, it was pretty good. I'm thinking of making a soup with the potatoes, celery root, carrots, and leeks. I'm not quite sure what to do with the rutabaga and I'm still deciding on the spinach. Luckily, I can just eat the oranges without thinking.

I've paid for three more boxes, so for the next two months I will be trying some recipes and hoping I don't let anything go to waste. This may be a pretty cool thing...or I may get tired of kale.

On another note... This weekend the Amgen Tour of California started with the Prologue in Sacramento. My jobs were to greet people at the airport and be a course marshal during the race. The whole experience was awesome. I didn't meet any team members at the airport, they all came in earlier in the week, but I did meet quite a few interesting members of the crew. I had no idea how many people were needed to pull off an event like this. 800 people move from site to site. That includes the teams and crews, set up and tear down people, merchandisers, photographers, timers, refs (I met the chief ref, Josee, she's very cool.) etc. Lots and lots of people put this thing on.

During the race, the riders went by one-by-one. The Sacramento bit was a 3.9k time trial - each rider had to do it by themselves (they work in teams for the longer distances). I got to see every rider go by, and there were some big names in this race....all because Lance was back. I have a great picture of Lance and Levi riding by in a warm up run. It's beautiful. Mind you, I'm not a big Lance fan, I've heard he is an arrogant jerk who couldn't be monogamous if he tried and he doesn't, but there is no arguing with the way he rides a bike. These guys are just gorgeous when riding. They are smooth, fast, and focused. Lance happens to be one of the best whether you like him or not (but he better let Levi win this one). Watching him is an incredible experience.

The best part was when I almost ran in to Lance. Not on purpose! The whole thing was over and I was done for the day. I got there at 8:30 in the morning and left at 4. I was walking back to my bike and crossed L street. I didn't look where I was going. People were milling about since the street was closed and the festival was going on. I just walked and almost walked in front of two guys running with a biker in between them. I had to stop short to keep from running into them and almost fell backwards. They were so close, I could have reached out and touched the biker, who happened to be, guess who, Lance. There were people following him, screaming his name, so I figured out who he was pretty quickly. Luckily I didn't hit him, I would have hated to be known as the volunteer who ran into Lance, hurt him, and kept him from racing.

But something worse happened to him, his time trial bike was stolen during the night! It's a darn expensive, one of a kind, bike (over 10,000). Before I had even heard about the theft, I watched a 5 minute video on how his bike was built (so I'm getting a little obsessive about the sport). I can guarantee you, that bike is definitely one of a kind. My biggest fear is AEG won't bring the race back to Sacramento after this experience. No body wants to piss off Lance.

Otherwise the Sacramento bit of the tour was wonderful filled with good weather and 1000's of fans. The Davis to Santa Rosa part was a rainy, windy, and cold. Tomorrow is the best part, Sausalito to Santa Cruz and they are going over the Golden Gate Bridge. That's right, they are closing down the bridge for this. Isn't that amazing? This tour is awesome.

My biggest excitement is that I'm buying my first nice road bike and have narrowed my choice down to three models, probably 2. I need to go and test ride them, which won't happen in bad weather. They are all about 10 -15 times lighter then my mountain bike, aluminum frame with a carbon fork, and great parts. It's very exciting to buy a bike. My body is built more for a bike then any other sporting equipment I can think of. It requires strong thighs and calves and guess what I have. ;-). I want to start riding now and am having trouble waiting for the test rides. Patience...patience. But there's no arguing, biking is just darn cool.