Boston is kind of like New York but slightly off. In Boston, you can sign up to get a box of organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your home weekly or every other week. It’s like Fresh Direct, but you don’t get to choose. Or like a CSA, except this stuff comes from California and includes items like runty avocados. A large part of what my roommate and I eat is dictated by the folks at Boston Organics. Basically, every other week a box arrives at our doorstep with fruits and veggies and a struggle unfolds. The vegetables try to run our lives, and we try our best to ignore them.

There’s the box–lurking in the corner!

Let’s start from the bottom, shall we? Our last box came a week ago last Wednesday. So, week-and-a-half-old red leaf lettuce. Three weeks old spinach (newer stuff got eaten on Monday). Three weeks old summer squash. Parsley.

Up above, two bags of snow peas—one and three weeks old. What good are snow peas, anyway?! Also half a tomato, sprouts, half an avocado. Salad mix, chicken broth, a chocolate easter bunny, some weird sports drink that was a giveaway at Addie’s canoe race last weekend. She is sporty. I, on the other hand am more enthusiastic about cheese.

Cheddar cheese. Capri Farms goat cheese. Paté de campagne from the Butcher Shop, delicious restaurant and market. Half a cucumber (from the box). Sour cream, mayonnaise, parmesan cheese, dulce de leche—that’s milk caramel for the uninitiated—the dairy theme continues… Leftover orzo risotto, leftover squishy plums and oranges from the big green box. Hummus, and a rum cake—I don’t know where that one came from.

Up top: bacon (times two). Olives saved in a juice container. Heavy cream. Ricotta (skim kind). Two kinds of milk (skim and two percent). Make that three—there’s vanilla soy milk too. Apricot preserves I brought back from Union Square farmers market. Somewhere in there is one of those Ronnybrook Farms mango yogurt drinks I also brought all the way back from New York on the train more than two weeks ago. Flank steak. Prosecco. Grapefruit juice.

No comment on the side pockets—the guards fell off and nothing fits here except for condiments!

And the freezer—Coffee, tortellini, tortillas. Frozen peas. Spinach. Shrimp. There’s some ground beef and chicken in there somewhere. One hot dog. More bacon. Dumplings. Two kinds of vanilla ice cream. And bread! Freezing bread is a very compulsive thing for me (it’s pretty obsessive, too). Buy bread, freeze half, repeat!

All of this old stuff in the fridge made me feel guilty, so I cleaned it out for dinner—steak, orzo risotto, butter, parmesan, spinach, snow peas, parsley, all good and gone! Dinner is served, fridge is empty (and no one got food poisoning).

*Mariana and I used to work together at Art on Paper magazine years ago- we’ve had many a museum date and food outings together. She is currently working on her PhD at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard U. -KA