Farm Share Redux: 2008

At the beginning of January, we signed up for our 2008 CSA farm share. I'm thrilled, as always, especially since the farm shares seem to sell out faster and faster every year!

We opted into everything again this year- the June through October vegetable share, summer fruit share, and the November + December winter vegetable share. And again this year, the amazing organic produce that we pick will be cheaper and more delicious than anything we can find at our local chain grocery stores. Food is so amazingly expensive around here, and I'm always disappointed at how much you have to spend to get decent produce at places like Whole Foods.



Our meat share has been working out beautifully, too. We opted for no lamb, which drives L just a little nuts, but I just don't love the taste and I have a hard time with the idea of lamb and veal. I figure that we can buy it separately if need be. In any case, we've been enjoying amazingly fresh, flavourful meat from Chestnut Farms, and though I seem to be eating less and less meat in general these days, I feel better knowing exactly where our meat comes from.

A has even given the ground beef (a trusty Marcella Hazan cookbook and 6 lazy hours on the stove turned it into the most amazing bolognese) his stamp of approval, and that's a big deal coming from someone who grew up on a self-sufficient farm!



As you may have noticed, rising food prices and local farms/farmers are gaining momentum in the news, and most people agree that buying local whenever possible is a great solution. Buying local, and even better: local and organic produce can be difficult, if not impossible when you live in the city- especially if you don't have a car, and why would you need one in Boston anyway? At the risk of sounding cliché, I do believe that every little bit helps, so we're happy to do our part wherever we can.



My cookbook collection has slowly grown over the winter holidays, and I've been marking intriguing summer vegetable recipes left and right in cookbooks and the newest issues of Gourmet, Bon Appétit and Saveur.

L and I have eaten just about as many winter vegetables as we can manage, and even though I'm thrilled that I've got some new winter veggie recipes and techniques under my belt after the snowy, long-and-slow-cooking-friendly New England winter, I know that we are both ready for a change.

I'm craving bright colours, luscious strawberries and melons, buttery zucchini and summer squash, and sweet, juicy tomatoes; winter foods are comforting, but I'm tired of white and orange and bits of green here and there. I'm ready for the 2008 harvest season to start!

Meat Share and Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce

Our exciting food-related news of late is that we've now received two month's pickups from our new meat CSA offered (through our Waltham Fields farm share) by Chesnut Farms in Hardwick, Massachusetts. Prices are very reasonable for what you get- a fabulous variety of naturally raised, humanely handled, hormone and chemical-free meats.

If you get to the monthly pickup early enough, you can buy huge beef bones for soup and for your puppers, and for $3/dozen, you can get delicious fresh eggs- the family's young son buys the chicken feed, cares for the chickens, collects the eggs, and any profits made are his to keep. We're thrilled to support local farmers trough this great source of meat and eggs!

Lately, I've had a hard time finding the energy for perusing through and trying out new recipes (much less blogging about cooking). A normal weekday around here is starting to look like this:

Morning: Desperately try to roll out of bed. One of us walks the dog while the other tries to do 18 things at once- get lunches out, take out the trash, start the dishwasher, find mobile phones (and curse because neither are properly charged), rinse snowmelt chemicals and road salt off the dog's paws- to get us both ready for work. L drops me off close to my office, because we are usually almost late and his office, which is next door to mine, is tiny bit more flexible about these things.

Day: Hit the ground running. Work a full, exhausting day.

Evening: Relaxing walk with L and the dog. If possible, get a few chores in- laundry, dishes, vacuuming, grocery shopping, farm share pickup, taxes (which are done!), unload dishwasher, shovel snow in driveway- before either of us are too tired to do any more, which seems to be earlier and earlier these days. A few nights ago, I roasted 5 butternut squash and 3 large acorn squash from the farm. After running everything through the food mill, we ended up with 22 cups (!) of squash for the freezer. Phew.

Dinner: Must be fast and tasty.

Next order of business: fall asleep in 2 minutes maximum.

In the interest of trying out some of the farm share meat in honour of Fat Tuesday, we broiled two tasty, salt-and-pepper-seasoned strip steaks and served them with sautéed wild mushrooms and potato gratin- a simple and good meal, but for some reason, not exactly the flavours I've been craving lately.

Wednesday night, however, we discovered an amazing recipe for Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce- briefly cooked chops drizzled with a velvety, tart mustard sauce flecked with soft, flavourful shallots and spicy cracked pepper. Very quick and extremely lip-smackingly delicious, this recipe is definitely going into my weeknight make-often rotation.

Initially, I wanted to brine the chops but was worried about the chops being overly salty if we started them before we left for work, so I tossed them in a bowl of brine when we got home from work and cooked them two hours later. I don't know if the short brine really helped, but either way, the farm pork chops were incredibly juicy and flavourful. For a satisfyingly crunchy heat, I coated the chops in a healthy dose of fresh, roughly-cracked peppercorns a la steak au poivre. I made the pan sauce with equal parts Kosciusko Spicy Brown Mustard (a staple in this house) and dijon mustard, and I substituted sour cream for cream; while the sauce was a bit tart and overpowering right out of the pan, it was a perfect complement to the savoury chops.

I recommend doubling the sauce recipe- you will be licking your plate clean! I am even tempted to try the sauce on other meats! Clearly, I think everyone should give this recipe a try.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Our yearly CSA farm share comes to an end the last week of October. It seems like not too long ago (5 months, almost exactly) that I was so excited about the first pickup of the season. We'll go back to buying most of our groceries at my favourite store, which isn't a bad thing- the produce is fresh, the selection unusual and varied, and they carry local items whenever possible.

But of course, it's not quite the same as bringing home crisp radishes still dusted with good black earth, lime-green tomatillos bursting out of their husks, firm-skinned baby zucchini, and flavourful tomatoes still warm from the sun.

As is the risk with any CSA, there were some hardships this year. Hungry woodchucks severely damaged the summer squash, cucumbers, watermelons and fennel, though the farm staff did their best to dissuade them with portable fences to physically keep them out, and low-strung flash tape interspersed with tiny pinwheels to scare them away.

Boston had the second driest August in 130 years, forcing daily irrigation, with special attention paid to the cover crops (oats, peas, winter rye and hairy vetch) that make the soil fertile again for next year's crops. Unlike the productive year before, we brought home just one small watermelon and no strawberries- the berry plants were completely destroyed by a late frost.

On the other hand, we made new friends and delighted in seeing familiar faces at our weekly pickups. The farm produced enough food to support families of shareholders and hunger relief programs alike. We were able to try some neat new heirloom varieties, and we've discovered new ways to prepare vegetables (never a bad thing). The apples and plums are thriving, and our fruit share has given us enough to make quarts of preserves; I've learned a lot about the basics of preserving fruits and vegetables. And this year we were offered winter CSA shares, which means that we'll bring home potatoes, garlic, winter squash, onions, and greens once in November, and once in December.

The farm managers decided to try something new, and if enough shareholders sign up, we will be able to purchase a monthly meat CSA share from Chestnut Farms when the new year begins. My excitement about this might sound strange to people who know me: I'm just not a big meat eater. Unlike L, I don't crave meat, though we both have reservations about the way many meat animals are raised and slaughtered. To tell you the truth, I could happily live without meat. L, on the other hand, would be miserable.

Planning and cooking separate meals is just not something that either of us have the energy for, so we compromise by purchasing organic meat that we are certain is raised and processed humanely; since this can get expensive really quickly, we simply eat less of it. The meat CSA is a great chance for us to support local farmers and buy meat that we feel good about.

All in all, I'd say it's been a really great year for the farm, and I can't wait for the 2008 harvest to start again next May!

Surprise at the Farm

Well, it turns out I was wrong. We got a lot of vegetables at our first farm pickup today, and they all look tasty!

We came home with two very full paper bags of red and green lettuce, arugula, mizuna greens, spinach, bok choi, kohlrabi (white and red), white Japanese radishes:



sugar snap peas:



and herbs (from left to right: oregano, flowering allium/chives, savory) :



We had some pizza dough in the fridge that desperately needed to be eaten, so for dinner tonight we decided on pizzas with tomato sauce, cheese (provolone, mozzarella, parmesan, romano), and arugula. I've rolled out the storebought dough and let it rest, and now L and I are off to load it up and put our pizzas in the oven (500'F for 10-12 minutes, until the cheeses are bubbly and the crust edges golden). Yum!

Community Supported Agriculture

During the last week of May, I received an e-mail with the news I've waited all spring to hear:

First CSA Pickups at the farm are:
Tuesday, June 12, 3-7:30 PM
Thursday, June 14, 3-7:30 PM
Sunday, June 17, 3-7:30 PM

Forget the summer solstice. To me, the day our farm share pickups begin is the real first day of summer.

L & I joined the Waltham Fields Community Farm in January of 2005, and I've never looked at vegetables the same way since. As you may have guessed, I am terribly excited about our first pickup. There probably won't be a huge amount- not compared to the heavy bags of vegetables and fruit we take home as the summer progresses- but there will be something, and I know it will be tasty.

The dog will be excited, too. He loves romping around the farm, especially when there are escaped carrots and tomatoes to be found in the long grass leading up to the vegetable rows. One pickup day last year, the Farm Manager (Amanda) gave him some carrots to munch on. He was happy as a clam, and I'm sure he hasn't forgotten it.

Wondering what this CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) business is? According to our farm's website, "CSA refers to a model of farming in which farmers sell harvest shares (vegetables, flowers, meat, etc.) directly to people in the local community. It was adopted in America from Japanese and European models, largely as a response to the disappearance of the small farm. CSA represents a shared commitment - shareholders commit to the farm for the season, providing farmers with a secure customer base, and farmers commit to doing their utmost to provide their shareholders with the best-quality, most nutritious food around. This direct connection between farmer and consumers bypasses middlemen (e.g., marketers, long distance shippers), benefits the farmer by increasing farm revenue, benefits the environment by decreasing packaging and pollution, and benefits consumers by providing fresh, high-quality produce at competitive prices."

The pitfalls of this system? Well, you are subject to the weather and yearly harvest, which is always a mildly scary thought. What if it's cold until July and frost hits early in the fall? What if it rains for 3 months straight and everything rots? What if something goes wrong and the garlic doesn't sprout (this is one of the worst tragedies that I can imagine)? I suppose anything could happen, but when you throw hard-working, agriculturally-savvy farm staff into the mix, you're pretty much guaranteed success.

The benefits? Fresh, organic, locally-grown produce for, at the very least, 20 weeks every year. The opportunity to pick your own food- literally- with in-the-field tastings encouraged along the way. The chance to try some cool new things that you'd be hard pressed to find in most stores (mizuna greens, anyone?). Not to mention the nutritional benefits of food that hasn't been shipped 600 miles, artificially ripened, and waxed to eerie, superficial perfection. And best of all, we've found that the weekly cost is actually cheaper than buying the same things at any of the grocery stores near us.

In addition, Waltham Fields operates a Hunger Relief Program, multiple Education Programs, and a Farmland Preservation operation. How good can it get?!

Want to find a CSA in your area? I've included some links below, but I am sure that there are more resources out there. Happy hunting!

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml