Joe_and_Maple_Tree

Farm News Week 17, 2014

September Twenty-Fourth

The journey of eating from a CSA box for one complete season is truly an experience to be had.  Not only from a CSA box, but within the seasons while honoring our regional offerings.  I find the experience to be emotional and spiritual and ethical.  I’ve become a hopeless locavore, devoutly loyal to seasonal foods.  Food isn’t just calories and starches and sugars and proteins, it’s a place and a season too.Joe_and_Maple_TreeJoe Picking Spinach with the changing Maple Tree watching over him.

Perhaps this reflection is most moving for me as I watch tomatoes go out of season.  They leave me like an old friend who came for a visit.  I want the sweet peppers to last forever.  And finally as I have just learned to love and appreciate eggplant for the first time, it is saying goodbye to me.  I work hard to put my old tomatoes friends in jars for our winter sauce knowing it won’t be the same as eating fresh tomatoes in August.  I watch Apples come into season and I want to eat squash at every meal.  I’m excited for the new arrivals like the seasonal celeriac root and the cool season spinach that has come back to us after a summer’s rest. 

In a time where we have huge grocery stores with every possible fruit and vegetable available to us in all seasons of the year, it can be desensitizing.  We’ve all forgotten when the season of the cucumber is and we don’t understand why there can’t be sweet corn and spinach every week of the year all year long.  We’re not used to not getting what we want when we want it.  In fact it is a deep comfort to us to know that we can have whatever we want whenever we want it.  But increasingly, I grow dis-comforted by the grocery store shelves and aisles with endless options and choices.  Perhaps I need more boundaries in my life to make me feel safe and whole. 

I am hopeful that your CSA box has encouraged you to buy less food from the grocery store this year.  I’m hopeful that the food dollars you spent locally this summer on your CSA box strengthened your seasonal identification for each vegetable and that you have learned and are learning to appreciate the rotation of crops that mature within their appropriate term.  And that by learning to go without our perishable, beloved strawberries makes them all the more precious and delicate and scrumptious for when we do get to indulge in their season.

I feel sadness to watch some of my favorite summer vegetables leave for an excruciating 9 more months.  I feel excitement to watch my old friends like leeks and sweet potatoes coming down the road.  I even feel somewhat bored with swiss chard after being so loyal and consistent to me all summer long.  I feel appreciative of other farmers who grow crops that I don’t grow in this area like apples, pears, milk, beef and nuts.  I feel happy to know these farmer’s names and to give them some of my money for their crops. 

The season, local food eating experience is an enriching and empowering one for me.  I feel like I’m doing my family, my body and my community an honorable service.  I feel blessed to have you, all of our community of CSA members, as part of this experience and who make this entire farming operation possible.  Because the CSA makes up over 90% of our farm business, you are every as bit important to the sustainability of this farm as my passion is for it.  So thank you for eating local food and loving it. 

Sooo…What’s in the Box???

Buttercup Squash–  These are a blueish colored squash with a thick, orange flesh.  This squash can bake up on the dry side if you don’t use plenty of water at the bottom of the pan when baking it.  We also like to add plenty of butter once it’s cooked.  Since the buttercup squash is so thick, it seems to pair well with some good butter and cream recipes. 

Carrots-  More of these meaty, sweet carrots for snacking and cooking. spinachpickinThe Monday morning Spinach harvesting crew! An absolutely beautiful morning to be outside picking spinach!

Yukon Gold or Red Norland Potatoes–  Most members received Golds until we ran out of what we had harvested for them, we supplemented Red Potaotes when we ran out of those.  You’ll notice again that we don’t wash our potatoes.  This is for a few reasons.  1)  We don’t have any kind of mechanization for washing them.  2)  Because we don’t have any mechanization for washing them they would get more damaged during washing and it would take more labor hours to wash them than what we have.  3)  We’re happy to just wash them as we eat them and they keep better in storage unwashed. 

Celeriac Root-  These are the huge, ugly roots in your box that look a little like a brain or some kind of monster.  We left the greens on top of them because you can use the greens to flavor and add greenery to your soups or stews.  The greens and stalks are edible, somewhat like our summer celery was.  We like to peel the Celeriac Roots and boil and mash them with potatoes and eat ‘Celeriac Mashed Potatoes’.  You can also peel them, dice them up small and add Celeriac to Chicken Noodle soup (or any kind of soup really) in place of celery and/or potatoes.  The Celeriacs are exceptionally large this year!

Broccoli or Cauliflower or Romanesco–  A nice head of broccoli or cauliflower or Romanesco for everyone again this week. 

White Kohlrabi–  Our Fall Kohlrabis look amazing!  They’re so crunchy and succulent with all of the rain that we’ve been getting.  We’re happy to have them back for the Fall!  Just peel your kohlrabi and snack!  Remember that you can use the greens like kale in your cooking!

Sweet Pepper–  Sadly, our sweet pepper production is down from the shorter days and the cooler nights.  They’re not turning colors as quickly as we had hoped.  We will pick the peppers that are left on the plants green and give you green peppers towards the end of the season if a threat of frost arrives.  We’re hoping to leave them on the plants to sweeten up as long as we can because we think sweet, colored peppers are more fun and delicious than green ones!

Hot Peppers–  A jalapeno and a cayenne for everyone again this week. 

Yellow Onion-  A great onion year!  Looking forward to Leeks for next week!

Arugula-  This is the bunch of greens with the red rubber band around it.  Arugula is a bitter green that adds a fun flavor to salads or wilted on top of pizza, sautéed with bacon or wilted and tossed with pasta.  So many really fun recipes out there for Arugula, have fun with this green!  More for next week as well! 

Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach–  A nice giving of .62lbs of Spinach per member this week.  This ended up being a nice bag for everyone.  We did wash the Spinach, but we picked it on Monday after some heavy rains over the weekend.  Heavy rains mean more soil splashed up and into the cracks of the savoyed (crinkly) leaves.  We recommend washing your spinach again this week. 

Recipes

Mashed Potatoes with Celeriac Root

Celeriac Potato Hash Browns with Jalapeno and Cheddar

Spinach Linguine with Walnut Arugula Pesto

Grilled Pizza with Fontina and Arugula