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Good food and earthquakes

My Good Food Box

Have you heard of the Good Food Box program? It’s kind of a produce shopping collective, and it’s open to everybody in Ottawa. I believe they have this program in cities all across Canada.

“We are a non-profit community-based initiative bringing neighbours together to buy a variety of delicious and nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices. Our goal is to purchase food that is in season and is grown as close to home as possible.

It works like a large buying club with centralized buying and coordination. And it’s open to everyone – with no membership fees.”

I got my first box yesterday. They suggest a small $10 box for one or two person families, but I went for the medium box ($15), because of the birds.

For $15 I got a bag of spinach, a bag of potatoes, a bag of onions, a bag of carrots, celery, a turnip, an avocado, a sweet potato, a broccoli, five apples, five oranges, four bananas, and a grapefruit. It even came with a newsletter that featured spinach recipes. I made wilted spinach with lemon and pine nuts last night. Today I’m making a big fat beef stew. I need to cook up a storm to ensure this stuff doesn’t all end up in my green bin.

Speaking of green bins, today is Green Bin Day in my neighbourhood, AND it’s St. Patrick’s Day. That only happens once every 42 years.

Did you feel the earthquake yesterday? I was sitting on the couch with my laptop on my lap, and Duncan was curled up on the Zoom Blanket and Kazoo was hanging out on the shelf in the front hall closet, which is his new fort. Suddenly things started rattling. Duncan and I both looked up and around, and then it stopped. Duncan was traumatized by the last earthquake, because he was all alone and furniture fell over and things crashed to the floor all around him and he fled to the basement, where he cowered for hours until I got home. So he has a traumatic earthquake history. But he was pretty cool about this one. After it ended he kept a wary eye out for another minute or two, and then put his head down and went back to sleep.

Speaking of earthquakes, we went to a Buddhist chanting meeting for Japan last night. We chanted for an hour. This is what we chanted: Nam myoho renge kyo. This is what it sounds like:

5 comments to Good food and earthquakes

  • The earthquake was very subtle – I felt the rumble but immediately dismissed it as either a big truck going by or a blast from the nearby quarry. I was at work, in the Orleans area. My partner was in the west end (baseline/prince of wales) and didn’t notice anything.

  • That food box looks fantastic. We used to get something similar from another company but we gave it up because it seemed expensive for what we got. This one looks much better.
    And no, I didn’t feel this earthquake at all. Not like the last one.

  • deb

    That looks like a lot more than $15’s worth.

  • lucy

    I didn’t notice the earth tremor at all. I was downtown at UOttawa. I was surprised to hear about it on the news at the end of the day.

    I hadn’t heard about the Good Food Box. I’m looking at the website now and I think I might sign up for a box too. My household is not as big as yours (no birds), but I might need a big box and maybe add a fruit bag. My kid would eat your 5 apples and 5 bananas in about 2 days. I would have to work on convincing him to start eating potatoes though. And we would still need our supply of grapes and zucchini, which I don’t see mentioned on the website.

  • TechWood

    The good food box has been available out here for at least 5 years or so. The CHC’s I work with really try and promote it. Couldn’t ask for more value when it comes to what you get in it.