Preserving History

Thursdays are fast becoming my favourite day of the week around here - it's CSA day! I managed to get the veggie fairies who brought me oodles of root-tastic vegetables last fall to put me on their spring/summer roster, and each Thursday I come home to a big box of picked-that-day-organic-any-more-local-and-it-would-actually-be-my-own-garden fabulosity.

(Can you tell that greens make me giddy?)

I've learned from past weekly produce deliveries that you've really got to work to stay on top of it, and the most important thing to do is process as much as you can before it goes into the fridge. Cut the leaves off, bag it properly, pop it into a glassful of water, that sort of thing.

So I'm cutting the tops off the beets and I see those beet leaves lying there and I think, mmmm, leaf soup. It's what we called sommer borscht in my house. And I want to make some Right. Now.

But then I remember I made garlic scape soup for supper last night. And I see those fresh beets and the dill just crying to be made into beet borscht. And I remember that it's eightyjillion degrees outside, and soup might not be the best choice for supper, anyway.

Freeze it! I thought, cutting up the leaves. Then I thought, hmm, might as well throw some dill in there, since I'll need it anyway with the soup. Then I spied the green onion tops peeking out of the veggie box.

And realized I had all this:

And as I chopped and put it into a bag, breathing deeply the freshness and the goodness, I became my grandmother.