Guess who got a ride to a Farmers Market last week! So happy.
I'm lucky in that I can get most of my groceries delivered from WalMart, but one thing I really miss is a steady source of fresh, seasonal, often local, produce.
I signed up for Misfits Market deliveries back when they were first getting started, I think in 2020. I liked a lot of things about the concept, ordered produce and other groceries regularly, and despite not-infrequent quality issues, stuck with them as they grew and experimented with features. I enjoyed the challenge of the delivery day food-prep extravaganza, necessary when a person with a tiny fridge is faced with a whole carton of produce. And I ordered other groceries, like the only commercially produced naan that I really like and have never found anywhere else. When another blogger posted positive reviews of Misfits and celebrated that delivery was getting cheaper, I thought, great, they are rolling this out and soon the reduced cost will reach me here in the hinterlands! Instead, I was suddenly hit with
increased charges for delivery. So...some customers were being charged more to subsidize the free or cheaper services now offered to others? This seemed so counter to the ethos of the company that I stopped ordering from them and wrote to the company president to express my disappointment. He asked me to contact someone else in the company for assistance. Why? Was I going to get a Squeaky Wheel reward of special treatment that other customers would then have to subsidize? Not a solution I wished to participate in. The whole thing left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I later looked at a couple of alternative delivery and CSA plans, but nothing really fit my one-person needs. So I shifted to simply having more frozen and canned vegetables and fruit delivered from WalMart, which has worked out very well. And stocking up when I have the chance to visit an Aldi or other market in person. And of course trading between gardeners when possible. Because there is nothing like fresh.
So getting to a farmers market last Thursday was quite a treat, and I'm just finishing the last of the Silver Queen corn and the strawberries, working my way through the nectarines and apples, and getting ready to tackle the cabbage and cantaloupe. This is more fresh produce than I've had in the house at one time in ages, which is what made me think about Misfits.
And now it's raining again, so I will postpone cleaning a barn and carting the bedding out to one of the garden areas. That's a job for a cool but not rainy day. Maybe I'll bake something instead. With apples. Or nectarines.
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