So exciting -the first pick up! We are excited here too, but the start of CSA comes with a certain amount of trepidation and anxiety: there is the organizing the membership for the season (there’s a lot of you), making a massive excel sheet, with a tab for every pick up location, make sure all your information gets onboarded to Mailchimp so I can send out the reminders, etc, etc, it all lends to a certain stress level in the office. BUT, the planning Glenn, your grower, puts in to ensuring different and wonderful produce week in and week out, picking and packing the bags, loading up the trucks, lists upon lists – is a lot more complicated than what I do in the office! And, of course, there is the constant worry about the weather, which is 100% out of our control, yet we still worry about it.
BUT, we love what we do! Not the stress and worry, but the growing and sharing of great fruits and vegetables with you. There is a pride in what we do… growing the perfect head of lettuce, picking the first peas in the state, harvesting early potatoes, and, of course, hearing positive feedback from our customers. It is important to try to understand some of the things that go on behind the scenes so you might be more empathetic when something doesn’t go quite as planned or when we cannot accommodate a special request.
Summary of the above: we are still merely humans 🙂
Now that we’ve got that out of the way…
It is so hard to know from week to week what will be in the box. It is best to treat your CSA bag/box like a grab bag, be delightfully surprised when you unpack it and THEN mastermind your your menu for the week. There will never be any bananas or avocados in the share, so pick up the exotics when you are at the store.
Every week I will let you know via the reminder email what you MAY have in your bag, but there are no guarantees. Too many times I find the harvest has split the week which means whatever I have written about might not be relevant. For example, the mustard greens may not have been ready when I wrote the letter on Thursday, but by the following Tuesday, they could be ready to go! And, with crops such as mustard, or cilantro, they HAVE TO be harvested when they are ready, they won’t keep in the field. Sometimes I I end up finding out about these occurrences from you, LOL, and I write about it the following week. To remedy this a little, we have a beautiful online reference with pictures and recipes; if you get something you do not recognize, feel free to reach out right away, email or any social media is perfect, and/or you can check out this page.
This week you should have strawberries, PEAS (mostly snap peas and purple or green snow peas), mesclun, garlic scapes, and spring radishes (French Breakfast or Cherrybelle), and kale!
Use garlic scapes in anything you would like to add the fresh flavor of garlic to. The whole thing is edible, though you may find the end where we snapped it off the plant is a tough like the base of asparagus.Â
We grow a lot of greens: This week are are enjoying mesclun mix, which is just a fancy name for small, assorted lettuces, arugula, mizuna and choi.  Pro tip: Wash your greens, mesclun, and lettuce when you bring it home, spin or shake dry and pack loosely with a paper towel in a plastic bag and store in fridge…if it is ready to go when you are, you will use it up every week and will not be wasted. The meclun and spinach comes to you in the perfect bag to preserve them perfectly in your fridge. In fact, I rinse out those bags and keep on hand for packing up my washed lettuces, chard and kale.
Peas! I believe you will have snap or snow peas in your bag/box, both types are fully edible, pod and all. DO NOT SHELL the snap peas. If you are unsure, just eat one, the snap pea will chew up perfectly, an English shell pea will be a fibrous mess for you to spit out 😉 Once you have determined what you have, enjoy them raw, stirfry, steamed… The purple peas (as with most purple vegetables) will turn green if cooked for more than 4 minutes. ALSO, cooking purple vegetables like peas, beans, cauliflower, will destroy some of the anthocyanins they are so rich in.
Recipes
Disclaimer: I cook with The Force. Many of my personal “recipes” are ideas to run with, not carefully measured out. I will endeavor to persevere and try to actually write down what I did for those who are less confident with “whipping something up”. We have many impressive CSA members who post amazing things on their blogs and social media. If anyone want to share, please include us @stillmansfarm on Insta or FB and I will pass along. I direct you to https://www.instagram.com/dalpiazkitchen/ and https://www.instagram.com/locallizardsvegankitchen/ for beautiful posts and do let me know if you have a page somewhere I can share!
Do you have your own food blog? Let me know so we can link you.
There are lots of recipes and ideas right here on this blog; you can do a search by name; ie: cucumber, beet, salad, etc.,.by clicking on the magnifying glass in the top menu or in the blog “archives”.
The initial purpose of the weekly letter (25 years ago) was to include a recipe or idea for what’s in the box. Those recipes appeared on a half of an 8.5×11 🙂 Clearly this concept has expanded to include more, BUT, the purpose of the recipe section remains: EAT WELL BY USING WHAT’S IN THE BOX! My goal is to keep it simple so you do just that.
Kale and Garlic Scape Pesto
Here’s me whipping down a recipe that is from something I just throw together in the food processor with The Force 😉
- 1 bunch any type of kale
- 1 bunch garlic scapes
- handful of nuts (I use almonds for all my pestos)
- 1/4 cup+ parmesan (optional)
- 1/4 cup+ EVOO
- salt
Wash and trim heaviest part of kale stem off, roughly chop leaves, you do not need to remove the rib. Wash and trim off 1/2″ off bottom of scapes. Jam everything except the EVOO in your blender/food processor and process. Once everything is looking minced, slowly add EVOO while machine running if possible and process until looking like pesto. Season to taste. This is amazing on pasta, as a dip, whatever you would do with pesto.
Simple dressing for greens:
2 Tb vinegar (your choice), s & p, and 1 tsp Dijon whisked together or shaken in your cruet; then whisk in 6 Tb olive oil (or shake until well mixed). A clove of garlic or a few garlic scapes minces is always welcome. Alter to fit your mood. If you are new to our farm, you will realize that our greens have flavor and are interesting without heavy dressing. By all means, use your favorite dressing – I’ve got at least one Ranch loving grandchild and a couple who put a half gallon of Briana’s Caesar on everything, it’s all good!
Farm Dirt
Farm Dirt is you can read a little bit about what is going on at the farm or with the farm family. This is also where wildlife sightings and other musings appear. If you are new to the Stillman’s family: Glenn and I are your farmers, while he is the expert grower, I am in charge of the finances, the desk work, inventory, and other behind the scenes stuff. Many of you know Glenn’s daughter Kate, the farmer at Stillman Quality Meats, and her two boys Trace and Jaide who can be seen working on the farm or any number of markets; son Curtis and wife Halley, the farmers at Still Life Farm and their son Kipling; youngest son Reid and his wife Kirsten who work on the farm and owners of Forgotten Harvest, making kale and apple chips, kraut and kimchi; and youngest daughter Faith, headed to Regent University for pre-med.
We all work together to have the best CSAs and market offerings in Massachusetts!   Â
Garlic scapes, those freaky curled green things in your bag, must be removed as part of good garlic growing protocol. We need to prevent the garlic from blooming so the energy goes into growing the bulb. The strawberry crop is delicious so far, but ours is a short season. Our goal is to get you at least one box, and if we can swing a second, we will!
Wildlife: It’s about the birds and the bears! As always, Glenn is excited and protective about all the barn-swallows in the barn and carriage shed. He grew up with them at his father’s dairy and loves their flying skill and striking appearance. There are Bluebirds everywhere. There is hardly a place on the farm where you won’t hear their cheerful chortling and, yes, we have boxes all over the farm for them (and the Tree Swallows, who also like a Bluebird box). Unlike the Cedar Waxwings which have decimated our older bed of strawberries, in the summer Bluebirds are mainly insectivores; they switch to fruit in the Fall and love the Winterberry. Also in the yard, we have Baltimore Orioles, three or more pair Red Breasted Grossbeaks, Blackpole Warblers, Yellowthroats, Cardinals, Blue Jays and other sweet Finches and sparrows nesting and feeding, just to name a few 🙂 If you are a birder, be sure to bring your binos when you visit the farm. There is always something good to see. The bears continue to be spotted out and about with cubs or no cubs. I don’t get close enough to be able to tell the full size bear apart, LOL. You cannot outrun or out climb a bear, so best not to get in that situation.
We encourage you to become part of the farm and be connected to your food and farmer; visit, check out the crops, sample in the field, picnic, watch the birds, amphibians, and insects! Â Â
Eat well, Geneviève Stillman
Next week: strawberries?, lettuces, peas, chard or kale, beets? radishes?
