Farm News Week 20, 2011

October Nineteenth

Congratulations, you’ve officially become a Locavore! You’ve eaten your way through the Spring, Summer and Fall of an entire Midwestern growing season. You’ve learned how to identify the appropriate season in which certain vegetables are grown. You’ve finally warmed up to zucchini, gotten creative with a bag of tomatoes and tried at least one new funky veggie that you may have never boughten at the grocery store. You’re not only eating seasonally, you’ve improved your cooking skills, expanded your recipe selection horizons and found that maybe you DO like to eat kale this one certain way after all. Pumpkins ready for CSA packing

In my opinion, the smallest changes and expansions in your diet that may seem inconsequential to you are what is propelling this local food movement forward. If the only thing that’s different about your diet now than what it was in May is that now you know that you like to eat kohlrabi and dip or that now you put spinach in your lasagna, then I am satisfied. These small changes that you’re making in your life are impacting the people that you feed, the people you share recipe ideas with and let’s not forget, your own personal health.

Local and fresh food (forget organic) is literally and metaphorically “gaining ground”. New Farmer’s Markets, CSA Farms, community gardens and even small family farms are popping up all over the country. The availability of local foods from meat to vegetable is becoming more important to all of us. While not entirely ready to forfeit our cup of coffee or our bags of oranges, we are at least becoming more aware of their foreign nature and what is involved in bringing these foods to our tables.

In the center of my heart lies the true sustainability of the idea. It’s not just about the “20% growth of the organic industry”, or even whether or not “organic food can feed the world”. Long before the economy of local foods lies the community of it. Without the community surrounding food, there would be no economy to support it. It’s really about a super tasty cup of locally roasted fresh coffee and knowing the names of the kind folks who roasted it. It’s about knowing the names of the folks who raised your half cow this summer and that the cows were on fresh grass all season and remembering this while you’re grilling with your neighbors. It’s also about eating some really, really good soft cheese and pears that you picked up at the farmer’s market on Saturday and knowing the name and face of the family that made and grew them.

I care even less about what we eat than why we eat. When we learn to eat with the knowledge that three times a day we can vote for something that we believe in. We can eat because we love to share our home-made recipes with friends. We eat because we want to preserve farmland, save the endangered family farm, prevent monocropping, and nurture the preservation of heirloom seed varieties. At the Small Family Farm we are eternally thankful for your support of our small family farm. We’re thankful for your e-mails, cards, showing up for our potlucks, your worker-share hours or simply your modest increase in vegetable consumption. Thank you for a wonderful 2011 growing season. We look forward to growing with you next year!

Sooo…What’s in the Box???Monday morning worker shares cleaning leeks in the field

Pie Pumpkins!- Gorgeous little pie pumpkins for making home-made pumpkin pie with! Cut a lid out of the top, scoop the seeds out, put a little water or milk inside and bake with the lid on the pumpkin for 45min-1 hour at 350.

Green Cabbage- Cute, small little green cabbages. They barely matured in time for our final CSA delivery, but perfect little cabbages for all!

Brussel Sprouts- The stalks of brussels were so long, we had to crack most of them in half to fit them in the box. Snap them off the stalk, peel back a couple of the outer layers and steam or pan fry until cooked through.

Rutabega- Yep, a rutabaga! These are great boiled and mashed with potatoes, cubed in a stew or soup or roasted with other roots in a roasted root veggie dish. The greens on the rutabaga are also edible like turnip greens.

Sweet Bell Peppers- A few sweet peppers for everyone again this week. Only once before have we had sweet peppers all the way into our Week 20 boxes. What a fabulous pepper year!

Chile Pepper- A small, cute little red chile for cooking with your fall soups.

Bulk Beets- These beets will keep in the fridge in a plastic bag to preserve moisture for over a month or so.

Leeks– Beautiful white leeks. Leeks are in the same family as onions. You can eat the entire leek from the roots to the greens and cook it like you would cook onions.

Broccoli- At least two heads of broccoli for everyone. That warm week in the 80’s set all the broccolis to go off at once! We had a major bumper crop of broccoli this week!

Cilantro- Yum. Wish we had this four weeks ago during the heavy tomato season. Better late than never, eh?

Fresh Cut Leaf Lettuce- A few of the leaves are a bit frosted on, but a small giving of cut lettuce leaves for a fall salad.

Spinach- Yum, a half pound of spinach goes a long way! It should keep in the fridge for at least a week or so.