Thursday, June 19, 2008

My First Time

Lately there has been a lot of press about the sky high prices of food…gas…heating oil…everything. I like to think that there is a sliver lining of this tough prices. The lining may be that more people have started to look closer to home for their resources.

CSA’s (community supported agriculture) has been in the news a lot lately. CSAs are when a small farm sells a share of their bounty to a number of families. This fee is usually due at the beginning of the season.

The money collected helps small farms who may have been struggling to buy seeds, pay for their farming help and generally run the farm. On the consumer end, food prices can be cheaper, produce is fresh, you are supporting the local economy and contributing very few emissions from lack of transport.

Today I picked-up the family’s first share of the 19 week season over at Wild Carrot Farm.
The kids and I walked into the barn and were immediately greeted by two friendly farmers. Debbie and Carlen (like George she said) shook my hand and happily introduced themselves. I grabbed by share and off we went. Easy Smeeshy.
Debbie and Carlen were sweet enough to let me snap a photo!


Luckily, my share included a newsletter complete with a list of what was contained in this week’s share. Bok choi, cape daisy plant, garlic scapes, kale, lettuce, scallions and strawberries.



So I understand strawberries and lettuce. But the rest of the veggies are more of a mysterious challenge. The friendly farmers must have anticipated veggie-challenged people like me because they included a written description of the more exotic vegetables along with a few recipes. Garlic scape pesto anyone?

See you next week Debbie and Carlen (like George)!

4 comments:

Akkire said...

i'm sort of a farm girl and I don't know what cape daisy plant is! what do you do with it?

garlic scapes are just a milder garlic. they are the part of the plant that grows up from the bulb (which will be the clove garlic). once they start to curl and twist, and form a smaller little garlic bulb, they are cut off to let the underground bulb get nutrients.

we just added scape to our taco meat last night. yum! your pesto recipe sounds great. maybe we could trade recipes...? We're in a CSA too, so we'll be cooking up all kinds of new and tasty treats. Ever had kohlrabi?

Gruppie Girl said...

I've heard a few people talk about kohlrabi. I wouldn't know what kohlrabi was if it jumped on me. How does it taste? What do you do with it?

Let's swap recipes! Tonight we had some surprisingly yummy bok choi soup. Hubby made some kale pasta dish a few days ago. Tomorrow I plan on whipping-up some garlic scape pesto.(aren't I domestic?)

In today's share we receieved swiss chard...that one is going to take some research to figure out what to do with it.

Mama said...

Ooo, please share the garlic scape pesto recipe! I have some I need to use:)

Melissa said...

I look forward to garlic scape season every single year so that I can make pesto from it! I am always so sad when it's over. I try to make enough to freeze, but it never seems to last.

I don't really use a recipe for mine. I put a bunch of garlic scapes and about 4 oz or more of shredded asiago cheese in the food processor. I drizzle in some olive oil. I like mine to be a paste-ish consistency, because I use it as a filling in sourdough bread, but the more oil you add the more like a sauce it is.

Yummy! I made some bread with mine this morning.