[arel]

Thank you.

[tkln]

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, it's a program where you pay a farmer up front in the beginning of the year to help cover their costs, and in return you receive fresh produce, generally on a weekly basis, directly from the farm. Depending on your location (they're available all over the country but it depends on your state), you pay between $300-500 around Feb-March, and the season, at least for us, starts the last week of May and runs through Thanksgiving. Once a week, the farmer delivers the produce to a neighborhood location (usually a community center or church or something like that) and you pick it up...

We've been doing this for a few years and it's amazing. We receive some great produce, and we get SO much that we actually split it with my aunt...we also do a fruit share, and though the fruit is not organic (it's hard to go organic on LI with all the humidity) they use as few pesticides as possible. Through the CSA I've eaten a lot of different vegetables that I normally wouldn't, and it also forces me to eat more veggies!

Here is a link to finding locations throughout the NYC area:
Just Food: CSA in NYC: CSA Locations

Also, not sure if you knew that the Greenmarket in Union Square supplies a lot of restaurants in NYC - a lot of the chefs from high-end (and not so high-end) restaurants shop there. It is actually these chefs and restaurants that are responsible for starting the huge movement of the 'gourmet' farmer, and for supporting the resurgence of the greenmarkets in NYC. I sometimes supplement my CSA with visits to the greenmarket as the market sells a lot more variety of things.

There are a bunch of CSA's in Vermont as well...I've investigated them thoroughly...there are even some that allow you to volunteer on the farm in exchange for some of the share...
Community Supported Agriculture - LocalHarvest

For farm raised meat/eggs/etc, I order from a farm in VT, but there are tons of farms in upstate NY as well. The meat is generally more expensive than what you get in the supermarket, but I know what's in it (no chemicals!), I know where it comes from (not China!) and I know that the animal had a good life on a pasture (well, until the end anyway!). To me that's worth the extra price. You can find farms through this link:
Pastured Products Directory - Eat Wild

I'm a huge supporter of eating local...while I realize it cannot be done year round in many places (including Vermont), I feel we should all do what we can to support the small American farmer.

Okay, I'll get off my box now.

[tkln]

Drat! All that typing and Vter beat me to it!

[vter]

lol. You provided some great info.