Box #8: Our friendly neighborhood pickup site

We pick up our CSA veggies from a neighborhood home that acts as a pickup site. Sometimes a food co-op is a pickup site, and I've even heard of CSAs that deliver right to individual households for a fee. You and your box mates should consider the pickup procedure when you're choosing a farm.

When we first were considering CSAs, I was bummed that the co-op we frequent doesn't host any CSA pickups. It would be really convenient to grab our farm's veggies along with all our other food, and we'd know exactly what to buy to compliment the box.

As it turns out, visiting our pickup site has become one of our favorite parts of the week. Picking up the CSA reminds me a little of Election Day, because it's one of the few times you interact with a gathering of neighbors. Julie and Sean offer their quirky, welcoming backyard (with chalkboard, picnic table, garden, U.S. Constitution and antique reference books) as a distribution hub for dozens of households.

Everyone you meet there has at least one thing in common with you, so you talk about the veggies and trade recipes. Smart members bring their own bags so they don't have to schlep the box home and back. Sean taught us how to collapse the boxes with a "gouge the eyes" technique on the bottom flaps.

According to our farm's Web site, pickup site hosts get deeply discounted boxes. Becoming a host might help defray the daunting upfront payment for a CSA. I think hosts also might end up with extra veggies when members flake out on picking up their boxes.

Here's what we got: iceberg lettuce, green savoy cabbage, carrots, Italian flat-leaf parsley, broccoli, yellow summer squash, zucchini, arugula, gypsy frying peppers, the last of the delicious fresh garlic, radishes, green and purple beans, sweet onion and basil.

This is one of those boxes that made me sure we should get a whole share next year. I'd really like to roast that whole cabbage, slice that whole zucchini and fry it with corn meal, and not split up that adorable family of radishes or that cute pair of peppers.

But, so it goes. Each week we get out the scale and the knife and carefully form two equal piles, even if it means cutting a head of garlic in half. This takes a little patience, but it results in each household getting a lot of variety. I've known other box mates who divide veggies based on preference and avoid cutting things up. That's something you'll have to work out with your box mates if you share a share. Here's how our table looks every Thursday night: