One of the big benefits of living in Egypt is the fantastic seasonal fruits and veggies available all year long. Because Egypt has such a mild (read coolish to scorching) climate there are multiple growing seasons. So some sort of tropical fruit or veggie is always in season. I can't really say it is all organic, but it is pretty good.
Since we moved to our Little America neighbourhood though, our local grocery store has been fleecing us on fruits and veggies, many of which are actually imported (Washington apples and Dole bananas, for example). And the local store doesn't always keep the cheaper, local stuff in stock, like the small Egyptian mini-bananas that are really tasty. And did I mention their prices are outrageous??
So after much contemplation, and after our friend G tried it out, we have signed up for a weekly fruit and veggie service called the Veg Box. For just under $25, they will deliver a large crate of high quality fruits and veggies to your house once a week, and for an extra fee you can also get fresh boneless chicken and ground beef. We can tell them what we want and don't want, but the box will be different each week. We tried it out this week and it is awesome.
We got cabbage, cauliflower, romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, spinach, carrots and garlic for our vegetables. Plus fresh cilantro. And we also got apples, bananas, little oranges called tarabantina here (not sure what they are in english, but similar to mandarins), big naval oranges and tomatoes. It was a lot of food, and it was really hig quality. Plus none of the produce was bruised or damaged, and it was all pretty clean. The only thing is the fruit is not lasting us all week, as we have a voracious banana consumer (maya) and another voracious orange eater (mike). So next week we might ask them to go heavier on the fruits and lighter on the lettuce...
The cool thing is it is saving us time. We arranged the delivery to come on Sunday afternoon when we are at work but our housekeeper is at our house. So we no longer have to run to the store all the time to get produce, and we don't have to pay insane expat grocery prices. And we (or Mike) is cooking more interesting things.
So yesterday Mike made chili with the excellent ground beef we got. And today we had a fresh spinach and feta chicken stir fry over rice. Yum!
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5 comments:
Just listened to a big NPR story on Cairo's "Black Cloud" - hope you and your veggies are staying cloud-free:-)
Wow, that is fabulous! I would kill for a service like that here in South Bend. And that's saying a lot, since we're vegetarians :). Post a picture of the next shipment so we can drool all over our computer screens, please.
I bet the little oranges are what we call clementines here. They're very sweet--similar to navel oranges, but certainly have a special tang to them./ LCK
Yum! Sounds great. Let us know how it goes.
By the way, if you are looking for less expensive produce--B tells us that stuff in her part of town is way less than here. So she often buys stuff there on her way to work.
Yeah, that's CSA! Community Supported Agriculture! We do that here, in Madison, WI! crazy.
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