Vegetable Anxiety Sweeps the Nation

photo credit: GAP Greenmarket via Facebook

It’s CSA season, and the New York Times wants to know, how are you coping with it all?

What should be a beautiful and inspiring sight — your kitchen, overflowing with seasonal produce — is sometimes an intimidating tableau of anxiety. The knobbly piles and dirt-caked bunches are overwhelming. Already the peak-ripe multicolored peppers are developing soft spots; the chard is wilting and the race is on.

Basically, vegetables are a high-pressure reminder of our own mortality. Time is passing! The chard is wilting! Like this radicchio, I too, have past my prime.

And in the face of summer’s sinister bounty, no one is safe:

Vegetable anxiety can strike anyone at this time of year: C.S.A. subscribers, compulsive farm-stand stoppers and even vegetarians.

Given the number of  fresh produce options in Park Slope — the Coop! the farmers’ market! the other farmers’ market! CSAs! gourmet grocery stores! rooftop gardens! — we realize it’s only considerate to ask: how are you all holding up?

But also seriously: any tips for dealing with seven tons of semi-unsolicited lettuce?