Carpe what?

Carpe Furca (which roughly translates from Latin to “Seize the Fork”) is my attempt to be clever and sum up the spirit of this blog in a couple words.  While my Latin is weak (more like non-existent) my motivation for starting this blog is not.  My wife and I love food and cooking and have always had a focus on eating healthy while continually broadening our knowledge of food and skills in the kitchen.  As I’m sure you all know well, life gets busy and it can be hard to continually come up with new ideas for what to cook.  It was no different for us, especially after our daughter was born, and eventually we found ourselves in a bit of a rut, buying and cooking the same foods the same way week after week.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs seem to be everywhere nowadays as more and more people show an interest in local foods.  We always liked the idea of trying to be more local in what we ate, and it occurred to me that here was a way to get out of the rut! There’s no choosing what you get from most CSAs, so we’d be getting a variety of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables every week with no choice but to figure out how to use them up.  By joining a CSA, we would be supporting local agriculture while giving ourselves an opportunity to get out of our rut, get into the kitchen and get creative. 

To take advantage of an opportunity, you have to seize the day.

Me?  I’d rather Seize the Fork. 

What to Expect

Every week, I will post the details of that week's produce along with a value comparison of what the same items would have cost at my local supermarket.  I’m doing this to gauge whether joining the CSA was worth it financially after the 30 weeks.  I expect that the supermarket will be less expensive, and I am more than willing to pay a premium to know that everything is freshly picked and local, but I’d rather not end up with produce worth only half of what I paid.

The rest of the posts will be recipes in which I use the produce I get every week.  I won't be inundating you with every side salad I make, but just focus on the more interesting dishes that I put together. As I am not yet experienced enough in cooking to just wing it every night, most recipes will be sourced from elsewhere and then used as is, or (more often) changed slightly to fit my specific tastes or the ingredients that are on hand. Either way I will always endeavor to give proper credit to the source of my inspiration.  Recipes with no source linked, will be my own creation.  All photographs are original works taken by myself.