"I am only a child, yet if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environ-mental answers, what a wonderful place this Earth would be..."
- Severn Cullis-Suzuki, age 12, Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, June 1992

What’s in the box this week:

... and if you have an extra-fruit share:
three additional baskets
of strawberries!

CALENDAR


Sat. May 18 - Open Farm Day, 1pm - 5pm

Sat. Jun 22 - Summer Solstice Celebration 4pm - 10pm, with The Banana Slug String Band!

Sat. Jun 8 - a Farm Work Day! 8am on

Sat/Sun Aug. 3&4 - Children’s Mini Camp,
10m Saturday - noon Sunday. Optional early arrival Friday night.

Sat. Sep 21 - Fall Equinox Celebration,
3pm - 9pm

Sat. Oct 26 - Halloween Pumpkin U-Pick,
all day

Reminder: This Saturday from 1-5PM is our Annual Open Farm Day. Bring friends and family.

Eating with the seasons close to home. As a CSA member you might want to rethink the old "price per pound mentality." Observe in its place a certain satisfaction of discovery in how the contents of your share box changes throughout the season in both quantity and variety. Contrary to super-markets which dull your connection to the seasons by supplying virtually any fruit or vegetable you might want year-round, the produce you receive from the farm is determined by the natural growing conditions (i.e. soil, climate, topography) and the particular craft of farming practiced here. So don’t be disappointed because tomatoes won’t ripen before July or because the quantity in the first few shares starts out lower. Both diversity and quantity increase as the season progresses, often to the point where you will find yourself making new friends among your neighbors to help consume the bounty!

What's Up on the Farm
Or rather, "A Peek into the Future" (of our share boxes). Crystal-balling crop harvests is always a bit tricky, but here is what the farm’s "star charts" predict: it looks green for a little while longer, with spinach coming soon, and sugar snap peas in early June. With a little more heat, zucchinis and cucumbers will make their entry (start of summer) and set the stage for our irresistible "Sungold" cherry tomatoes in early to mid-July. I had hoped to have had freshly dug red, white, and blue potatoes by the fourth of July, but it looks hazy inside that crystal ball, so most likely they'll be a couple of weeks late. On the fruit front, berries are dominant in the weeks ahead with the addition of blackberries and raspberries in June and July. Apricots and plums will make their appearance within the first summer month as well. Receiving food grown close to home does ask of you a little more patience, but the rewards, in return, are that your food is healthier, tastier, and super-fresh. As an organic farmer the most important aspect of growing healthy food is to grow and maintain a healthy soil. In the organic farming community we believe that if we can get our food from healthy soils, there is no question that we can build and maintain our own sustainable health.


Q&A
Q: What the heck are those sputnik-looking vegetables in our box this week??
A: Those, my friends, would be kohlrabi. Read a little about them in the recipe section.

Have a burning question about the farm, organic farming, CSAs, something in your box, or anything you think we can answer, call or email us and we'll see if we can't answer it here!

Member to Member Forum
Another "how I used my share" food diary, this time from fellow member Carmel Weifert. She says this is how she went through her first week's box:

Wed May 1: Plain ol' green salad.
Thurs May 2: Carrots went off to Montessori school for "carrot work." Cream of leek soup (with some green garlic inadvertently mixed in) from a recipe in Cooking Light magazine.
Fri May 3: Chard with sesame oil, soy sauce and spring onions (a tip from your website: thanks!), more green salad, strawberry smoothies.
Sat May 4: Steamed broccoli, chocolate covered strawberries!
Sun May 5: Cinco de Mayo. Nothing from our share today.
Mon May 6: White bean soup with collard greens and kale (another recipe from Cooking Light magazine).
Tues May 7: More steamed broccoli, and more chard with sesame oil and soy (we liked it so much the first time, we decided to have it again!). Ready for our box tomorrow!!

Notes from Debbie’s Kitchen . . . . . . . . Have a recipe you’d like to share? Contact the newsletter editor.

Finally... room for more than one recipe again! The kohlrabi info is mostly a rerun from last year (for those of you new to the beasts). The other stuff, well, read on and see! - Debbie

Kohlrabi
First: their greens. Like with beets, these can be trimmed off, washed and used separately from the root (prepare them as you would any other greens: steam, sauté, braise or stir-fry with other veggies, etc.).

The root itself: peel and slice (or grate or dice or matchstick) it raw into salads like you would jicama, or cut it into sticks and use with a dip (along with some carrot sticks and broccoli tops!). You can cook them too, however the ones we're getting in our box this week are small and not enough to cook with. Besides, in my opinion they are most interesting used raw!

Chives
Fresh chives have wonderful and delicate onion-like flavor. Emphasis on the delicate though. They're great as a garnish, and go particularly well with eggs. Store 'em in a small ziploc bag but use 'em while they're fresh! Just grab the whole bunch and, using a kitchen scissors, simply snip off as much as you need/like. Snip a bunch into your scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow! Here's a recipe from the Rolling Prairie Cookbook for fresh chive dip (into which you can dip those aforementioned kohlrabi sticks!):

Fresh Chive Dip
1 1/2 C sour cream
1 1/2 C yogurt
1/4 C finely minced fresh parsley
1/3 C freshly snipped chives
1/4 tsp. salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients. Chill for sev-eral hours to allow flavors to blend. Makes about 3 1/2 cups (and can probably be easily halved – Debbie).

Broccoli and Penne in Cheddar Sauce
a recipe directly from Debbie's Kitchen!

I make this often – it is a staple when I have broccoli in my refrigerator. It is very flexible in quantity as well as content: in addition to broccoli, I've sometimes included carrot segments and/or cauliflower florettes, and you can just as easily substitute fusilli for penne. Whatever you have works fine!

Broccoli
Penne or fusilli pasta (or similar)
1-2 tbsp. butter
small spoonful of flour
milk
grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tsp. or so prepared mustard (optional)

Put your pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta while you trim the broccoli into florettes (I peel the stalk and cut it into segments too). Have your broccoli standing by; you can simply throw it into the boiling pasta for the last 2-3 minutes of cooking time and drain 'em together!

To make the cheese sauce, melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Whisk in flour and bubble a wee bit, then add milk, whisking continuously, to incorporate. When it heats through it will thicken (add more milk if too thick; you want a cream sauce, not a paste). Whisk in mustard, if using, then cheese and continue to stir until melted. Drain pasta and veggies well and add to cheese sauce!

*Click Here* for a link to a comprehensive listing of recipes from Live Earth Farm's newsletters going back as far as our 1998 season! You can search for recipes by harvest week OR by key ingredient. Recipe site is updated weekly.