5 am. The dogs are barking. The van guy is down there at the end of our dirt road. Is he lost? Will he leave? I stumble downstairs mostly naked to catch him. I throw open the door and almost go head over heals over the box on our doorstep. A lovely box full of vegetables.

When Vons came back from strike a couple years ago, they had stiffened up their corporate stature and wouldn't give us their throw away greens for our chickens anymore. For Ilse, this was the last straw. She vowed to start going regularly to the farmer's market to support local famers instead of big Agribusiness. But in LA, The farmer's market is a social affair, especially the big one in Hollywood on Sunday. It's fun but it's hard to get your shopping done bumping into people you know every ten feet.

There was always the specter of the CSA, the Community Sponsored Agriculture box, the grail of fresh produce right off a local farm packed just for you by people with organic dirt under their fingernails. It's embarrassing that we took so long to get around to it. Picking it up at your local food co-op though sounded like too steep a descent into hippiedom, even for us. But having it delivered to your door is another story. And mind you finding our front door is no mean feat. So we give major props to Farm Fresh To You. We elected to get a produce box for around $30 a week. We get the More Fruit Regular Box and it's a mix of seasonal fruits and veggies with a newsletter that has recipes that reference what's in the box. There's a ton of variations and you can change it every week if you want. You do it all online. An added bonus is that when you join a CSA it allows you as a member to take private tours of the farms involved. There's a pumpkin tour in October that sounds great.

More Meenophoto world:
work: www.meenophoto.com
life: www.meenophoto.com/blog