Rachel Zoe Insler

CSA Saves the Day

[Hey, this is Adam The Amateur Gourmet. I’m on vacation in Barcelona, Spain and while I’m gone I’ve asked some awesome people to fill in for me. Today we continue New York City Business Owner Day with Rachel Zoe Insler, owner of the amazing Bespoke Chocolates in the East Village (remember my visit?). Rachel’s got lots to say about CSAs, so let’s let her get to it. Take it away, Rachel!]

I haven’t yet bought a single vegetable at the Greenmarket this summer, but I’ve been eating the freshest local produce around, supporting New York-area farmers and spending less at the grocery store each week. Daily meals at Blue Hill at Stone Barns? That would be nice, but actually, I’m just a lucky member of the Stanton Street CSA.

Thanks to my CSA (which stands for Community Supported Agriculture), I am saving time, saving money, discovering new foods, feeling better than ever about what I am eating, and gaining a deepening connection to my food and my community. Does any of that sound good to you? I’ll admit that participating in a CSA is not for the right choice for everyone, but, if like many of Adam’s readers, you like to cook and you are marginally culinarily adventurous, I believe that you (yes, you) could benefit greatly from considering membership in your neighborhood CSA next season.

Bespoke Chocolates

Food people are my kind of people. That’s why so many of the people I’ve met since I started food blogging have become good friends: they’re generous, they’re insightful, they’re creative, they’re smart and they have good taste. So friendship was clearly in the stars when a longtime reader named Rachel Zoe Insler informed me that she’d opened up a chocolate shop in New York called Bespoke Chocolates. I promised Rachel that I’d be in right away to sample her wares and then totally flaked out; I did include Bespoke in my NY Scavenger Hunt, but I never scavenged there myself because, frankly, I didn’t understand where it was!

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