This week is the last one for Summer Shares and Salad Shares. Winter Shares start October 19. We still have a few winter shares available – please visit our website to sign up.
Also, next year’s shares are now available for sign up. By signing up now, you not only help with our flood relief efforts, you also make our planning for 2008 that much easier. Plus, you know you’ve gotten one of our limited supply of shares before they sell out!
In the fall of the year, I am sometimes so struck by the wonder of it all that I just sit down in the field and let myself be filled with awe. Where else is the soil so sweet? Where else is the lining of the horizon at dusk so blue? Where else does Mars shine so brightly, or the Big Dipper come so close to the hills? Where else does the creek burble with quite the same grace, soft sounds floating up and over the fields?
As the leaves turn color, worries wash away like leaves on the water. What’s done is done, and the time left is so short, it cannot be stretched. We will complete the work at hand, winter will close in, and that will be the end of another season.
The farming year, like the school year, a marathon, or the World Series, exists as a discreet unit. Threads stretch out in each direction—spinach and garlic planted in the fall for next year’s harvest, planning and seed orders beginning before everything is put to bed for the winter—but each year’s season has its distinct boundaries, the point at which we say, “ah, 2007, that was a year to remember.”
In the fall of the year, we breathe deeply and feel grateful the little time we’ve been given on this Earth to live on and to work the land. It is an honor and a privilege to provide food for you and your family. Thank you.
Thank you to everybody who came out last Saturday to help with the fall farm work. A great crew helped harvest 4,000 pounds of beets and 1,000 pounds of carrots (some of which are in this week’s CSA boxes and at this week’s Farmers Market stand), which freed Chris and Kim up to attend to some critical recovery business this week and next.
Thank you also to everybody who donated to our flood relief fund. The money you provided will go a long ways in helping to smooth out this fall and the damage done in the August rains.
When I spoke to a friend about the problems we were having dealing with the effects of the flooding, he encouraged me to ask our CSA members and market customers for help and feel the love. The help has been great. The love has meant even more.
Kim will be running the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. If you are out cheering friends and relatives – or just want to cheer Kim on! – watch for her around the 8:45 minutes per mile pace. You can find a route map here, and Kim’s pace chart here. Her bib number is F4307. I (Chris) am staying home with the kids, so any help you can provide in cheering Kim on will be appreciated! Plus, it’s kind of fun and exciting. How many organic farmers do you know who run marathons?
Fall is certainly the season of brassicas, the family that encompasses broccoli, kale, cabbage, turnips, and so many other good things to eat. We have two succession plantings of Broccoli coming in one on top of the other right now, producing an abundance of the immature flowers that make up the broccoli heads.
Cabbage, like Kale, is actually a member of the same species as broccoli, but they’ve been selected for different traits so thoroughly that although they can readily cross pollinate (and produce viable seed) they look nothing like one another. This week’s Savoy Cabbage has a light texture and delicious flavor, well-suited to uses both raw and cooked. Store in a bag in your crisper drawer. If you only use half at a time, save the rest the same way; it will keep for several weeks.
Light and Lively Slaw
The Dressing
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons minced cilantro
salt to taste
The Slaw
3 cups thinly sliced savoy cabbage
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh onion
1 small beet, grated (raw beet)
1 large carrot, grated
1Tablespoon sesame seeds
In a bowl combine all the dressing ingredients. Set aside. Combine the cabbage, onion, carrot, beet, and sesame seeds in a medium bowl. Toss the dressing with the slaw ingredients. Wait 10 minutes for flavors to blend and serve.
We’ve lost a lot of Carrots to the wet weather, but the ones we do have – harvested on Saturday by an enthusiastic volunteer crew – taste pretty darn good. We were grateful for dry weather on Saturday, which made the picking – and the washing – much easier than we have become accustomed to.
Green, leafy Kale’s leaves thicken and sweeten as the weather grows colder, and fall kale tastes almost nothing like the leaves produced in August’s heat. The leaves taste great sautéed simply with a little oil, or steamed until thoroughly wilted, but our favorite unusual treatment for kale follows:
Crispy Kale
1 bunch kale
salt
Preheat the oven to 375. Stem and chop a bunch of kale. Put the kale on an oiled cookie tray, spreading it out evenly. Sprinkle with salt. Bake for 10 minutes, tossing once or twice during that time. If you wish, top with parmesan, then bake for 10 to 15 minutes longer, tossing occasionally, until it is crisp. The kale will shrink and soften then it will begin to turn crisp. Remove from oven and let cool on the tray.
On Wednesday, we discovered that a crop of Cilantro that should have matured over three weeks ago had finally come in, and looked just great. The cool fall weather actually sweetens the leaves of this herb, which makes a nice addition to many dishes in the place of parsley.
The great flavor of this year’s Acorn Squash continues to amaze us, and we enjoyed this spicy treat one cool evening recently.
Roasted Spicy Squash
1 medium winter squash
2 teaspoons oregano
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon dried hot pepper flakes
salt
pepper
1 clove garlic
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 Tablespoon cilantro
Preheat oven to 400. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Cut lengthwise into 1 inch wedges. Put into a bowl. Put all the dry herbs and spices, into a mortar and pestle and grind them up. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add chopped garlic clove and olive oil to the spice blend. Toss the squash with this blend to coat evenly. Place the squash skin sides down on a baking sheet. Roast for 30 min. until tender. Remove from oven and top with cilantro.
Yellow Onions may feel boring after all of the exciting onions we’ve had around this year, but they are still the essential onion. Store them in a cool, dry place, preferably in the dark.
Flat, red Cipollini Onions make a nice addition to any roast meat dish, and taste fantastic on their own. Because of their great flavor and small size, I occasionally chop them up for morning omelets.
