Sunday, February 8, 2009

Co-operation


Crunchy Domestic Goddess has a post up about how much she loves her newly-discovered organic food co-op. Well, count us in, too. We don't belong to the same one, but we just recently started ordering from Quail Cove, an organic farm and natural foods warehouse on the Eastern shore of Virginia, and we couldn't be happier with it!

Living in Iowa City (and for Matt, prior to that Stevens Point and Madison, WI) we always had the advantage of a local brick-and-mortar co-op (or two). We were disappointed to find that there's no such thing anywhere near us in northern Virginia (or DC or Maryland, for that matter). Our choices for organic and natural foods are pretty much limited to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. In the case of the first, the selection is pretty limited and there's really no bulk buying available at all; in the case of the latter, the selection isn't always as good as you'd think, and of course everything costs an arm and a leg.

We were delighted to find that the prices at Quail Cove are very reasonable, and there's a drop-off site just 3 miles from our house. It's nice to do most of our shopping for the month all at one fell swoop, and pretty much just run out weekly for fresh produce.

Here was our last month's order:

Organic Russet Potatoes 5 pounds = $4.29
Organic Yellow Onions 3 pounds = $8.91
Organic Garlic Bulb = $7.50
Organic Turnips 1 lb = $1.49
5 lb Organic Orange Sweet Potatoes= $5.00
2 lb Organic Fuji Apples = $3.98
1 lb Natural Vital Wheat Gluten= $2.89
5 lb Organic White Whole Wheat King Arthur Flour= $5.90
5 lb Organic Yellow Corn Meal = $4.50
Mozzarella Cheese Block 6 pounds = $23.94
5 lb Organic Unbleached Flour= $7.80
5 lb Bunker Hill Raw Milk Cheddar = $27.45
1 lb Parmesan Block = $8.89
1 lb Bulk Organic Light Brown Sugar = $1.99

By far our favorite thing was the CHEESE. We ended up with a total of 12 pounds of cheese (mozzarella, parmesan, and raw mild cheddar), and not only were they delicious beyond what we're used to buying in the grocery store, shredding them up yielded close to 30 cups of cheese, with plenty leftover for slicing and snacks. I think it could easily last us another month after this one if we go lightly with it, and it's nice to have such high-quality product without any of the preservatives or additives you usually get with shredded cheese. The flour is also much fresher than what we're used to--the next best thing to being able to grind it ourselves.

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