In our CSA box last week we received a number of items in the “from a little further afield” category. Included were several oranges and a grapefruit from northern Florida. As you can see in the photograph, the fruit has suffered a little damage from all of the unseasonably cold weather we have been enduring for the past month or so in the southeast. I also just recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how orange futures are way up on Wall Street due to the widespread damage to the Florida citrus crops. Upon cutting the oranges open however, you can see that the freeze damage is clearly only superficial – and I have to tell you – these things are tasty! The trouble is not with the quality of the fruit, but rather with our expectations for the fruit to be visually perfect. Most likely all of the citrus that we received would have  been rejected by the chain grocery stores because nobody would buy it, myself included, if I were to be honest. However I have found that over the past year of getting the bulk of our produce from the CSA I have strangely become much less particular about what fruits and veggies look like – in fact we have eaten some down-right bizarre looking things. Somehow over the years I forgot that the beautifully perfect, long lasting, super-sized, styrofoam-flavored melons and tomatoes that I get at Kroger, Publix, and yes, often even at Whole Foods are not really what those fruits tasted like when I was a kid, nor are they even really what they are supposed to taste like at all. Somewhere along the way I have becomed conditioned to be more interested in what my food looks like than what it tastes like. In actuality there are so many regional and varietal variations in how produce looks and tastes of which we are no longer aware simply because of the “standards” set by the supermarket industry. One of the many things that I have learned (or perhaps just re-remembered) is that there are literally thousands of different colors, shapes, sizes, and varieties of fruits and vegetables out there. So it is a tiny thing that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things, but I for one am happy that these great little oranges were not wasted simply because they did not meet some inspector’s  idea of what a “perfect” fruit should look like.  I like to think about the farms and families who benefited from the sale of these little oranges instead of having to throw them away. And if  all that touchy-feely hippy sentimental do-gooder crap is not your bag then think about this instead: the really best thing about supporting locally grown certified USDA organic produce is that you can feel confident in using the whole plant (peels and all) in all kinds of recipes without fear of pesticide or toxin exposure. Manhattans, anyone?