May 13, 2009 – This week’s featured fruits and vegetables are asparagus, rhubarb, salad mix, herb, spring onion, spinach, radish and head lettuce. Please check the list of items at pick-up for substitutions.

We are so glad you are participating.  Starting this week, weekly information will be posted here on the website under NEWS, and will be provided by CSA member, Jennifer Milewski. If you have questions, you can post a comment on the website and you will be answered.

How it works:

At the pick-up site, you will see boxes full of produce. One box equals one share. The contents of the box will be posted at the site so you will know what’s in the box. We highly recommend that you bring bags and empty your box and leave it on site. That way you won’t forget to return the boxes. Please fold up your box per the instructions given. We reuse them through the season, which saves the farmers money and is part of the price of your share.

Much of the fruit will not be certified organic. We will identify the items that are not organic each week.  The proposed fruit list includes strawberries, blueberries, small melons, peaches (a few for each), grapes and early apples. 

What if you are splitting a share?

If you are part of a share group, it is your responsibility to work out with your partner(s) how to handle pick-up.  Some options are:

1) You pick-up and consume the share one week; your partner picks-up and consumes the share the next week, and so on.

2) You pick-up and then you and your partner rendezvous later to split the bounty.

3) You agree with your partners on a system to divide the shares at pick-up so that you separate and mark the shares for partners arriving after you. Please label the portion you leave for your share partner. Bring bags.

What if you are away?

When you are unable to pick up, it is your responsibility to arrange coverage for your share pick-up. You may arrange for your partner(s), a friend or prospective CSA member to pick it up.  Any shares not picked up by 7 pm will be donated.

CSA Etiquette

This experience requires consideration for others and following the honor system. Yes, you really have to fold up your box and stack it in the pile. Please don’t take more than your share and please don’t substitute items. Okay, maybe you aren’t crazy about turnips, but its not good CSA etiquette to take potatoes from someone’s else share and leave them your turnips. If you don’t want an item at all, you can leave it and it will not go to waste.

Hours and contact info

Pick up is always on Wednesday regardless of holidays.

Sandy Spring 

Hours of pick-up:  1PM to 7PM

Contact: Gene Klinger at gklinger AT verizon DOT net or 301-260-1635.

Rockville

Hours:  2PM to 7PM

Contact: Vanessa Strunk at vanstrunk AT gmail DOT com or 301-424-9142.

Kensington

Hours: 3PM to 7PM

Contact: Winnie Holbrooke  at winniekh AT aol DOT com or 301-509-8097.

Recipes:

In this area, you will find suggestions for recipes. Click Epicurious and type in a mix of ingredients (kale, collards, mushrooms, onions, etc,) you will get many recipes. Epicurious has over 850 recipes for rhubarb alone.

At this time of year, we get lots of greens. In general, you can wash and chop any combo of leafy greens (kale, spinach, collards, even radish and beet greens) and saute them in olive oil and garlic for just a couple minutes. Just long enough to wilt them. Then sprinkle them with balsamic vinegar or lemon. Takes five minutes and is a great vegetable dish. A reminder that eating cruciferous vegetables raw is a thyroid inhibitor. So if you have slow thyroid function, you should cook them first.

If you get more than you can eat in a week of something like greens, they store well. Either wash and spin them and store in the fridge in a salad spinner where they will last a week for sure or clean them up and get excess water off and freeze. You can also steam them slightly and freeze them in bags. They are great added later to soups and casseroles.

Here is Farmer Pam’s suggested recipe for cooking radishes.

SAUTéED RADISHES WITH SUGAR SNAP PEAS

Adapted from Bon Appetit, April 2004 

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter                                                      
2 cups thinly sliced radishes
1 tablespoon olive oil    
¾ cup orange juice
½ cup thinly sliced shallots
1 teaspoon dill seed
12 oz sugar snap peas                                                  
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

Directions 

Trim and remove strings from peas. 
Melt butter and oil in a skillet over medium heat.   Add shallots and sauté until golden, about 5 minutes.  
Add peas and radishes, and sauté until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
Add orange juice and dill seeds, and sauté 1 minute.
Season with salt and pepper, and stir in chopped dill.
Transfer to a bowl and garnish with extra dill if desired.  

Food for Thought

The purpose of this section is to give you resources to connect the dots between the CSA experience and living in a local, more sustainable way.  

Book recommendations include Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) (2007) and any books by Michael Pollan, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Another good one is Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean and Fair, by Carlos Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement.

You might also enjoy a subscription to Edible Chesapeake, a magazine all about eating locally.

Sometimes we will provide you with an opportunity to advocate on behalf of independent farmers like ours. In case you are interested, a good advocacy site for organic food is Organic Consumers.    

We look forward to meeting you Wednesday May 13.

Erin Johnson, Winnie Holbrooke, Gene Klinger, Meg Pease-Fye, Vanessa Strunk, Robert True