Transcribed from a conversation with Sally Kadifa, longtime CSA Member.

I already had a relationship with Hidden Villa from my parents and their philanthropic endeavors, kids that’d go to summer camp there, and I took my Girl Scouts out there. Years later when my friend Jen moved out here and was farming there, I asked her what to do at Hidden Villa. She told me about farm share and we signed up. That was 11 years ago, wow!

At the time, I thought, okay, we’re just going to get these nice vegetables, that’s great! But, it really was more of a life-changing experience. I grew up in the Midwest on a Midwestern diet. We didn’t eat a lot of green leafies. We didn’t eat a lot of root vegetables. We just didn’t, you know. I’d never really eaten food that I knew who grew it, and I knew Jen was up there every day harvesting this. 

I don’t want to be over the top here, but the CSA kind of changed my relationship with food.  Eating something that I knew somebody had grown for me, I didn’t want to waste any of it! We didn’t want to waste a single bite of it. We found something to do with all of it. 

Sometimes, I didn’t even know what it was, you know. I was really grateful for those little notes in the CSA newsletter telling us what was in the box and what to do with it. One vegetable in particular, I didn’t know. I had never seen a tomatillo before. I got those in the box, and they came with this recipe for salsa verde. Now I just kind of laugh, but at the time, I had never made salsa, and we made it!  That sort of led to making enchiladas. It opened a lot of doors. Now not only do we enjoy our Hidden Villa produce, but now we shop most weeks at the farmers market. It really, fundamentally changed the way we eat.