I received this in my email this morning:

Dear friends,

The last week is finally here, and it will be a little lighter than past weeks. Due to all the precipitation (over 26" since Nov.11!), we are thin on things like lettuce due to waterlogged plants that didn't grow. It is so wet that the areas covered by the greenhouses are wet inside where it obviously doesn't rain.

We really want to thank everyone for participating throughout the winter and last summer. Winter is a little more difficult time to grow crops, but this year was probably the most difficult due to all the rain. I'm not complaining, just want to help everyone understand the realities of growing food where you live. Otherwise, its places like either Florida, southern California, or the southwestern deserts that grow your food in winter. Maybe even Mexico or South America, where US government regulations are harder to enforce. If you don't buy organic from these areas, then pesticides that are now illegal here (DDT for example) are still in use. How's that for sobering? Take into account habitat destruction in the Amazon for cattle and soybeans, and local food starts to take on a different light. I'm not trying to scare anyone, but reinforce the importance of our decisions when it comes to food ALL year long. Winter is the most important season of all when it comes to eating local and creating true, local, sustainable farms. THANK YOU!!!!!

We are still taking new customers for the spring/summer season. If you have any friends that are interested, have them email me ASAP.

Tom

This week's pickup was on Friday because of our Impending Snowstorm, so I have a bit of an overlap with last week's veggies. I still have beets and tatsoi left over. Chris shredded last week's carrots so I could try my hand at lactofermented ginger carrots, even though he's skeptical about the whole fermented vegetables thing. (To be fair, my efforts so far have been dismal failures so he's completely justified.) This week's carrots are much thinner and will probably be great in salads.

The haul:
two bunches of small carrots
bunch of small beets
bag of various lettuces
two bigger heads of tatsoi
one giant 2 lb sweet potato
red russian kale

I've already boiled the kale (both week's batches) so it won't go bad, but I have very little idea what I'm going to do with it or anything else we got this week. I'll try making a menu soon.

This week's Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day variation includes whole wheat and rye flours (I ran out of white as I was making the dough). I keep forgetting to put a pan of water in with the bread while it bakes, so the first loaf turned out a little small. It tastes good, though.

We have only one more week of our winter CSA and then a month or so gap before the farmer's market starts again. I'll be buying veggies at the grocery store for a while (I usually choose less variety when that happens). Come on March!

Last weekend I was in Florida during my usual CSA pickup time, so I arranged to get them on Tuesday instead. And would you believe that we have already eaten our entire share of lettuce this week? That's a first for us. We're not big salad people, so our lettuce usually ends up going bad. This time I planned better.

The haul:
red, green, and romaine lettuces
2 lbs sweet potatoes
2 mini heads of tatsoi
2 big bunches of carrots
small bunch of small beets
purple kale

The menu:
breakfasts - caramelized onion quiche
dinners -
Monday: tandoori chicken & waffled aloo parantha
Tuesday: steak salad
Wednesday: caesar salad with leftover tandoori chicken
Thursday: meaty chili (Chris is making this tonight)
Friday: ginger glazed mahi mahi, kale

We'll need to eat the carrots, beets, and tatsoi on Saturday to make way for week #11's veggies.

I've also been trying my hand at baking the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day bread, which is pretty awesome so far. My bread tastes so much better than the stuff I buy at the store.

A confession: I picked up veggies last weekend and didn't tell you about it. I also didn't plan any menus around them and none of them got eaten. Some of them are still on the counter, slowly rotting. It was a bad week for food in my house. I didn't plan, didn't shop, and basically ate fast food all week. This week I vow to do better and I started by going to the grocery store and buying loads of meat. I also put together a menu for the week already even though I haven't picked up my veggies yet. When I do, I'll post my update for week #10.

Last week's list:
two bunches of little carrots
one giant two-pound sweet potato
a bag of lettuces
a small head of bok choy
purple kale

My farmer decided to take the week off due to cold weather so I had no veggies to pick up. Instead, I took the opportunity to go meet the man who raises the chickens that produce my eggs.

A few months ago I found an ad on Craigslist advertising a weekly supply of free-range eggs for a reasonable price. Bob and I exchanged emails and discovered that he lives very near my in-laws' house. He agreed to deliver a dozen a week to their house on Saturdays. Chris and I pick them up on Sundays after church while we're doing our weekly visiting. It's a great arrangement -- with the unfortunate downside that I never actually got to meet him! My in-laws have been on a cruise for the past two weekends, though, so after my morning work shift I swung by Bob's place to meet him and get my weekly eggs.

Bob lives in my ideal spot. The directions to his house go like this: drive down a certain street until you are stopped by the barrier that divides the public road from a 5,000+ acre state park, then turn into the driveway on your left. His backyard is five acres plus a nice-sized pond and beyond that is an entire beautiful forest.

I got out of my car and Bob came out of his house carrying my eggs. We introduced ourselves and started chatting, but before too long the whole flock of chickens came running from the backyard to scratch at the pine straw near our feet. They were fearless! A couple of them were so inquisitive they walked right up to me to check me out. I wish I'd brought something to feed them.

I am so glad that I got the opportunity to not only meet Bob, but to hang out for a bit and see his happy chickens. They live in a couple of generously sized chicken tractors at night and have free reign of 5+ acres during the day. They scratch and eat grass and catch the occasional snake (so I'm told!). They have lush, lovely red feathers. I hope that someday I have the opportunity to live in a setting as idyllic as Bob's and maybe raise beautiful and friendly chickens of my own.

You guys have to try the pork mango picadillo recipe I posted about over the weekend. It's easy to make and sooo delicious. It will make your house smell like a cozy winter night.

It is a severe oversight on my part that I don't have gastrologues of all of Chris' previous birthday dinners. I found the one for Frazier's (our first) and 18 Seaboard, both before we were married, but it looks like I'm missing a writeup of last years' dinner at Savoy. I am not going to let this years' lovely dinner pass without a mention, be it only as brief as our little tapas meal.

It has been our tradition to go out to dinner on Chris' birthday. I usually pick a surprise restaurant and we order the chef's tasting menu. Last year I wanted to take him to Zely & Ritz but they are closed on Sundays, so we went this year.

Zely & Ritz was attractive to me because they boast a close relationship with local farms. The owner even owns a local farm and the menu highlights the ingredients that are from the farm. As a result, the menu is constantly changing with the seasons. And that is where this gastrologue begins. All plates were shared.

Drinks: I ordered the seasonal margarita (choice of pumpkin or blood orange, but I wasn't brave enough to try the pumpkin) and Chris ordered the Scandinavian -- homemade aquavit (infused with caraway), lemon, and soda. His looked like water but actually had carefully balanced flavors.

We also ordered a bottle of Domain Serene Yamhill Cuvée Pinot Noir, which we finished by the end of the night. (Mondays are half-price bottles night at Zely & Ritz.)

Starter #1: Goat cheese wrapped in grape leaves on a bed of pickled radishes and persimmons, topped with pesto. Chris didn't like the radishes much and I don't normally like them, but these gave a sort of limburger-cheese quality to the rest of the dish that was kind of attractive. Maybe they were lacto-fermented? The goat cheese in grape leaves (not brined) was lovely.

Starter #2: Our first starter came out with a salad that combined a flavorful balsamic vinaigrette with a few slices of well-seasoned flank steak. For a small salad, the flavors really popped. There were bits of crunchy watermelon radishes in our salad, too, a glimpse of the farm and the season.

After this course the chef came out and gave us a choice between red snapper and scallops. Having no idea what he planned to do with either, we let him choose.

Main #1: Red snapper on a bed of risotto with beet sauce. This was delicious. The snapper was barely cooked through so that it fell apart on the fork. It had a wonderfully fresh flavor, like it had just come from the ocean and deigned to rest on my plate. The risotto was buttery and creamy with small bits of root vegetables, but the real star of this dish was the beet sauce. It colored everything the most amazing red and lent a subtle earthiness to everything.

Main #2: That said, this next dish was probably the best thing I have ever eaten in my life: osso buco with braised root vegetables (more watermelon radishes and our ubiquitous white turnips) on the most delicious mashed sweet potatoes I've tried. You would not believe the flavors in this dish. Rich, meaty broth combined with subtly spiced mashed sweet potatoes, all supporting a small portion of fork-tender veal shank. If I learn to make this I will never leave my house. Later I asked the chef what the spice was in his sweet potatoes and he said it was just cinnamon, so I might have to try it.

The time between this course and dessert found us sopping up our respective favorite sauces with rosemary bread (him: beet; me: veal) and finishing our bottle of wine.

Dessert #1: This was a sort of napoleon of almond shortcake and pumpkin mousse in two layers. We couldn't quite place the tangy flavor in the mousse, but I imagine it was a creme fraiche or a mascarpone. (It was gone too fast for a thorough analysis.) The almond in the shortcake was the surprising star.

Dessert #2: A fragrant and warm chocolate sponge cake with the world's tiniest dollop of cherry ice cream. Both desserts were accompanied by locally roasted decaf coffee.

By this time we were full of wine and coffee and general deliciousness, and it was time to stumble home. Though we only had three courses our dinner took a full two hours. Our waitress was attentive, the dining room was small and quiet, and the chef came out a few times to interact with everyone. Overall, I recommend it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of work and holidays and visits with family. I didn't do much cooking during that time. In fact, pretty close to all of my plans for week #7's veggies were waylaid by too little time at home. I apologize now to you, to my farmer, and to the pile of veggies that didn't even get the dignity of adding their goodness to a compost pile when they left my house.

But now it's a new year and a new week of veggies, and I get another shot at doing right by them. Today I picked up: green and red lettuce, carrots, white turnips, bok choy, cabbage, kale, green onions, and sweet potatoes. We also have a backlog of local eggs. And because we're out of the Advent Fast and this is really my first week of cooking since Christmas, you'll find that this menu is unusually meat-heavy.

Menu:
breakfasts - pound cake with blackberry compote or ham and cheddar quiche
lunches - leftovers or quiche with salad
Saturday dinner - Carbonnade a la Flamande over last week's leftover mashed turnips and potatoes
Sunday dinner - roast chicken with roasted carrots & kale
Monday dinner - out for Chris' birthday (we went to Zely & Ritz - see next post)
Tuesday dinner - potluck after Theophany liturgy: beef shank and white turnip stew
Wednesday dinner - wild King salmon, greens, sweet potatoes
Thursday dinner - pork mango picadillo with cabbage slaw and corn tortillas
Friday dinner - shrimp & grits w/green onions

One last note this week: my farmer is a pretty chatty guy, and today we talked a bit about the need for local, organic farms to not necessarily stay so small. While I'm thinking about it, here is an article that speaks to this need: Unfair fare: Why prices for meat from small local farms are too high. I appreciate that the farmer I do my tiny part to support has his mind in the right place.

Despite the freezing temperatures this week our farmer came through and delivered a good sized share of fresh veggies for us. Gone are the halcyon days of spinach and broccoli. In their place are hardier fare.

The list:
a head of bok choy
a small head of cabbage
kale
red lettuce
green lettuce
green onions
lots of carrots
white turnips
sweet potatoes

This week will involve a lot of visits to the in-laws' to spend time with Chris' 90 year old grandmother who is visiting from Chicago. That plus Christmas means that we can't create a normal weekly meal plan. Here is the best I can do (subject to change):

breakfast - spinach nests with egg (using leftover spinach)

soup - Elise's Kale and Roasted Vegetable Soup (a good way to use up some carrots, kale, sweet potatoes, and the rest of the white beans I cooked last week)

dinner -
Tuesday: Halushki (the only night we won't both be eating at Chris' parents' house)

I might turn the bok choy, lettuces, and carrots into a salad to bring to the in-laws'. We have a bad habit of letting lettuces go bad in our house.

Maybe a bowl of mashed turnips and potatoes would be a good offering for Christmas or Christmas Eve dinner.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Vegetables that I think would be fun to steam and present whole at a dinner party:

1. a head of romanesco broccoli

2. a head of tatsoi

3. a head of blooming broccoli

We're halfway through our 12 week winter CSA, but after the past couple of weeks off I kind of feel like I'm just beginning. Fortunately seeing a giant pile of fresh (and visibly aging) greens in my kitchen has inspired me to create a meal plan that will maximize their potential and throw me back into the swing of things.

Here is what I got this week: kale, broccoli, tatsoi, spinach, lettuce, green onions, carrots with greens, white turnips with greens, sweet potatoes. We also got a beautiful dozen of jumbo eggs from our egg supplier.

And the menu:
breakfasts - spinach & turnip green nests with egg
lunches - salad (lettuce, goat cheese, smoked salmon) for me; sweet potato and carrot soup to go with egg salad or tuna sandwiches for Chris
dinners -
Monday: tilapia, broccoli, mashed turnips & potatoes
Tuesday: brown butter pasta with kale and shrimp
Wednesday: sauteed tatsoi with cannellini beans
Thursday: migas
Friday: out

I've used everything but the carrot greens. Those might get frozen for vegetable stock.

A few weeks back the US Senate was about to vote on Senate bill 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (more info). As an avid consumer of food from local family farms these kinds of bills scare me. I wrote to my legislators to voice my concern that new legislation not disproportionately affect small food producers.

Today I received a very nice letter from Senator Richard Burr (in the mail!) and I'd like to share it here:

Dear Mrs. Gorski:

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510). I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.

As food safety legislation makes its way through the legislative process, I believe it is very important to consider how such legislation will impact farms, small businesses, and businesses that sell directly to consumers. A "one-size-fits-all" approach is not the best approach when it comes to our nation's farms and small businesses, and I have worked with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (NCDA) to address the needs of small farmers in our state as they relate to food safety.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, which was recently approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, would expand our food safety system and protect consumers while exempting small farmers and local food businesses from unnecessary and overreaching requirements. During debate on the bill, I introduced an amendment to ensure that farms, small businesses, and businesses that sell directly to consumers are represented in the process of developing guidance in the produce safety standards and that the FDA conduct outreach and education to these folks through local public meetings. I am pleased to report that my amendment was accepted.

I also worked with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to include language in the bill that would utilize current state food safety inspectors instead of new FDA employees, which encourages better coordination among local, state, and federal food safety agencies, and a common sense approach to food safety as it relates to small farms.

Again, thank you for contacting me to share your concerns. Should you have any additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Sincerely,

Richard Burr
United States Senator

I have not been able to pull our meal plan together since returning from our Thanksgiving vacation. I think that I was just not mentally ready to return to the giant piles of uninspiring turnips and other root vegetables from our double CSA share the week before. I also have a difficult time sticking to any kind of menu when I don't have time on the weekend to plan and shop. The week goes by so fast that it's easier to run to a drive-through for breakfast, grab a sandwich out somewhere for lunch, and rely on stuff that's only marginally food for dinner. The next thing I know an entire week has gone by and I've eaten so badly I can no longer use my brain to recall important information (people's names are usually the first to go).

So this weekend I took the opportunity to plan a menu even though my CSA is on a post-holiday break. I still try to stick close to seasonal food when I shop at the grocery store, though you'll see that the lure of the tomato and lemon were too strong for me this week.

We bought a half box of oranges and grapefruit yesterday morning outside of the Catholic church and will snack on them while we follow this menu:

breakfasts: spinach nests
lunches: Goi Chay with fried tofu
dinners:
Monday - tilapia, broccoli, roasted sweet potates (first good meal since Thanksgiving)
Tuesday - curried pumpkin soup (second try)
Wednesday - beet risotto with shrimp
Thursday - migas
Friday - leftovers or out

I'm looking forward to feeling functional again.

Can anyone use two tickets to the NC Symphony on very short notice? I have two vouchers for tonight's show to give away. Pick them up at my mailbox, bring them to the box office by 7:30. Leave a comment for directions to my empty house.

I'm putting this paragraph here because I doubt it's going to be up for too long:

Seagal uses a blend of Blues, Country, World Music and Euro techno in his unique compositions, reflecting the eclectic mosaic style of his martial arts and film work, both of which combine different styles (aikido/gunfire and action/lecture are respective examples). Seagal is also known for his live cover versions including seminal works like Don Macleans' 'American Pie' and Hot Gossips' 'I Fell In Love With a Starship Trooper'.

First, a bit of housekeeping: I was wrong about last week being week #2 and the week before that being week #1. Somehow I got left off of the mailing list when the CSA started so I missed week #1. That means this is week #4 and I can look forward to a double share in the future.

Speaking of double shares, that's what I have this week. This is actually weeks 4 & 5 because my farmer is going out of town for Thanksgiving. I have been given the challenge of preparing 2 weeks' worth of veggies in about 4 days. I'm up for it!

Here is this week's menu:

Saturday dinner - crockpot flounder with chard and leftover turnipy mashed potatoes
Sunday coffee hour - bok choy, green onion, and carrot salad with a little leaf lettuce, apple, and chopped pecans thrown in
Sunday lunch (this may not happen) - swiss chard and sweet potato gratin (update: made with spinach, tatsoi, and beet greens instead of chard)
lunches Monday & Tuesday - leftover gratin
Monday dinner - caramelized onion quiche (I add kale) and broccoli
Tuesday dinner - leftovers
Wednesday-Sunday we'll be out of town

As you can see, this is a pretty dairy-heavy week. My main goal is to clean as much out of our fridge as possible. I'm hoping to make two gratins to use up all of my greens, though with the bok choy out of the way there may not be too many to use up. If I do make two I'll freeze one for next week.

At the end of this short few days I should have mostly root vegetables left: turnips, sweet potatoes, and beets. That gives me something to work on next week.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today I picked up a double share of CSA veggies because my farmer will be out of town for Thanksgiving weekend. I will also be out of town for Thanksgiving weekend, so the giant pile of greens needs to inspire me right quickly.

By the way, this is what a double share of winter veggies looks like:



Clockwise from top: chard, beets, tatsoi, bok choy, kale, spinach, green lettuce, red lettuce, broccoli, green onions.

And this is what 3 pounds of white turnips and 4 pounds of sweet potatoes looks like:



At least the root veggies will keep until we get back. The greens? Not so much. I'm considering freezing most of them. Will let you know when I figure it out.

I did it! Here is this week's menu, otherwise titled A Green A Day:

lunches - salad with tomato, white beans, roasted beets, yellow peppers
Saturday - grass-fed steak, mashed red potatoes & turnips, salad w/red pepper, green onion garnish
Monday - pasta with peanut sauce, wilted daikon greens, green onion garnish
Tuesday - broccoli, red pepper & shrimp stir fry w/beet & turnip greens, rice, green onion garnish
Wednesday - eggs & sweet potato hash browns (sweet potatoes, onions, green peppers), chard
Thursday - tatsoi and warm scallop salad
Friday - leftovers or out

We have a number of challenges these days. I work or am otherwise occupied several evenings a week. Chris and I don't eat dinner together most nights, so some of these dinners have to stand up to reheating. Also, the Advent Fast starts on Sunday so you won't see meat other than fish in these menus until after Christmas. (We're a bit relaxed on dairy and eggs.)

I'm always open for suggestions! This is week 2 out of 12, so we're just beginning.

Some kind of madness overcame me at the North Hills Farmer's Market this morning. Maybe it was because I hadn't been there in a while, or because of the impending Advent Fast, or the fact that today is the final day. All I know is I went there to pick up my CSA veggies and came home with that and a ton more stuff. I have no idea how we're going to eat it all.

Today's haul:

From the CSA - green onions, tatsoi, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, broccoli, chard, turnips + greens, a giant beet + greens, 2 lbs sweet potatoes

From everywhere else - a small honey bear and a cookbook with honey recipes, red potatoes, peppers (green, yellow and red), tomatoes (!!), daikon radishes + greens (the best part), yellow and white grits, a grass-fed sirloin steak, 2 pumpkin whoopie pies.

And now, a short list of people who I've been happily buying from in 2009:
Double T Farm
RTP Farm Fresh
Edible Earthscape Farm
Roger Ball & Anna
Krissa Sotomayor at Just Desserts
The Pleasant Bee
Carolina Grits & Co

And a preview of what's coming in 2010:
Mae Farm
Rare Earth Farms

I'll wrangle this haul into a menu and post a new CSA survival guide later in the week.

This week we picked up our first week of winter veggies from our CSA. I love our winter CSA because I can still have local, organic veggies even when the farmer's market is closed. It's brilliant.

Subscribing to a CSA can be a challenge, especially in the winter. Sometimes you just don't know what to do with all of those veggies. What do I do with a bunch of turnips a week, or pounds of sweet potatoes that keep piling up, or a gigantic pile of greens? I'm going to try to record my menus here in the hopes that maybe those of you with similar problems might get some inspiration. I'm also hoping you can help me come up with some ideas!

Here was this week's haul: swiss chard, kale, beets with greens, white turnips with greens, green lettuce, red lettuce, 4 peppers, 2 lbs sweet potatoes, 1 head of broccoli, 1 cucumber, bunch of green onions (oops, forgot about the radishes we gave away immediately). We're also getting a dozen eggs per week from a guy who lives near my in-laws (found him on Craigslist!).

The menu (with star rating out of 4):
lunches - salad with roasted sweet potatoes, cucumber, fried egg ***
Monday dinner - rosemary pork with glazed turnips and carrots, turnip greens ***
Tuesday dinner - beef with broccoli and peppers and chard, rice **½
Wednesday dinner - pasta with shrimp, beets, and kale, beet greens ***½
Thursday dinner - out (we went to Klara's)
Friday dinner - pumpkin curry soup (oof, this didn't happen. I was too exhausted.)

I managed to work everything into this menu except the green onions. A handful of them made it onto last night's stir fry, but I have a feeling there is going to be a lot left over (especially since I had just bought a bunch last week -- d'oh).

See anything you like? Anything you would have done differently? Any favorite white turnip or sweet potato recipes to share? I'm going to need them.