Organics to you...

So for over a year I have been lusting after the organic produce boxes that my friends and relatives in the Portland area have been receiving from a company called Organics To You (www.organicstoyou.org) I belong to a CSA during the growing season and HIGHLY recommend them. I'll try to make a post specific to that later....However, during those cold winter months, local produce is a bit harder to come by. I tried the Pioneer Organics delivery service twice but was not terribly impressed by their quality and they definitely did not make an effort to get local produce (considering that their website, now called spud.com, labels produce from Chile as "local" Hmmmm......) Anyway, after sending a couple emails to the Organic To You contact email and requesting service in Salem, nothing but a standard response that they would let me know if they ever did....THEN, at the Green Sprouts festival in Portland this summer there was an Organics To You booth. The young man at the booth was very receptive to my request to get Salem delivery, telling me who to contact and that they may be able to do a drop point if there were enough interested customers in the Salem area (and he even fed my youngest some delicious grapes from their sample fare!).

Well, to make a long story shorter....after much emailling we got a good group of Salem area residents who are interested in ordering, a drop point location and a start date and TODAY is the first Salem delivery and we are trying out the Fruit box as we are still in the CSA season and don't really need more root veggies, potatoes, greens and winter squash right now! The kids are big fruit eaters, so I am hoping that this will be a nice addition and eliminate a grocery shopping trip.

Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts and a sick child, I think my husband is going to have to pick it up. I was really looking foward to the satisfaction of the actual hand off of the produce bin (as crazy as that sounds, at least it is tangible) Now I have to wait hours to see what is in the darned thing!

ETA: Our fruit box was so nice!! And no excess of plastic clamshells and bags. It was all just nicely put into a cardboard box. We got 2 bags of grapes, a bunch of bananas, apples, 2 kinds of pears, strawberries, a grapefruit, oranges, etc. It all looked great and will definitely encourage us to eat more fruit this week before our next box arrives. Next time I'll take a picture of it. It was so late when we got home all I wanted to do was unpack it and collapse!