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Friday July 22, 2011
Greetings Farmers' Market CSA Members,
As I write to you, it is 84 degrees in my house and it is 7:15 AM. If you can, bring a popsicle or some iced tea when you come pick up your box tomorrow - by then our amazing crew will really need it! How they have been able to harvest in this heat is beyond me! Until today I have been able to keep my kitchen cool for their lunchtime. But that is no longer possible. We have thought about diving into the water tubs where we clean the salad mixes. If anyone does, we will be sure to post the photo on Facebook. You know that you can visit our Facebook page even if you don't have an account yourself. Just click on the Facebook icon on our website. The photo albums are really beautiful and give you the full picture of life on the farm - Thank you Andrea, Walter, and Rebeca.
Tuesday was a big day for us here at Denison Farm. Perhaps some of you saw the photo of Brian and myself on the front page of the Times Union - the modern American Gothic!. After the last car pulled out of our driveway with Mark Westcott, Deputy District Director in Congressman Chris Gibson's office at the wheel, I collapsed. He, along with Barbara Glaser from Saratoga Open Space, NYS Senator Roy McDonald, NYS Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino, Jean Carlson, Supervisor of the Town of Schaghticoke and Teri Ptacek, Executive Director of the Agricultural Stewardship Association, and several other wonderful ASA people attended a "Press Conference to announce the launch of a public campaign to protect Denison Farm in Schaghticoke". Meeting and speaking honestly and sincerely about important issues with these public officials was very powerful and I am so grateful that I was given this amazing opportunity.
In addition, we are all fortunate to read a piece written by Jeannine Laverty about her visit to her home state of Iowa. I hope that you enjoy reading her words and we both welcome your feedback and thoughts about the questions she poses.
This week in your share, you will most likely receive:
Lettuce, Sweet Salad Onions, Cucumbers, Summer Squash/Zucchini, Tomatoes (I hope!), Braising Greens (Mizuna, spicy Red Streaks, Mustard Greens, Komatsuna, and Kales), Parsley, and a yummy surprise!!
Have a great week ahead and stay cool - Justine
Devoted and hard-working crewmember Jeannine Laverty takes a busman’s holiday.
Back home in Iowa for a national conference of liberal Quakers, I signed up for a field trip to an organic farm. In my view, no one farms smarter than Brian and Justine, so I’m a little closed-minded, but after only 3 days away, I was homesick for the crew and the crops and the camaraderie at the Denisons. I also wanted to feel the hope of seeing organic vegetables thriving among the Iowa seas of corn/beans/corn/beans/corn/beans.
The young farmer at Grinnell Heritage Farm is the 5th generation of his family on that piece of soil. Andy Dunham didn’t even grow up there, but preceding the 2000 Gore-Bush election he made a heads-or-tails decision: Gore wins I go to vet school; Bush wins I go to the Peace Corps. In Africa learning from the Tanzanians how to grow a garden without chemical fertilizers, he made his next choice: he’d come back to the family farm, keep it from being sold for “development”--think Global Foundries coming to Malta—and grow organic vegetables.
Eleven years later he has a wife, a 2-yr-old, 11 acres of vegetables, and 200 CSA members. I wish for him: next year, 300. Let him be up to Denison size before Sophie’s in Kindergarten!
But then I see my dream is too timid. Excavation and piles of gravel line the lane to the packing shed. “I’m building a turn-around for semis.” (Iowa-speak for what we Northeasterners call tractor-trailers.) Besides, he mentions, he has “pending wholesale contracts,” which would require easy access for the big rigs. Uh-oh, I thought, is he going to become dependent on selling to Whole Foods when they open in West Des Moines, who may or may not stick by him, and will certainly tell him what to grow?
We see a concrete slab on which the new, bigger packing shed will be built. He tells us he’ll be expanding to 25 acres—more than doubling his acreage under cultivation in ONE year. I swallow. He’ll have to have a lot more workers or a lot more machines, probably both. “It’s the only way the bank would give me the loan,” he finishes. “I could eventually have 40 of these 80 acres in row crops.”
Twenty-five acres…. PENDING contracts!!
In Iowa, a 1,000-acre farm is SMALL. I should be glad Dunham found a bank willing to lend to him. But the voice of Ezra Taft Benson, Secretary of Agriculture after World War II, booms in my head. The U.S. solution to food-security concerns then was “Get Big or Get Out.” In Iowa, it still is.
When it comes to food-security slogans, I much prefer “Buy Local” and “No New York Farms, No New York Food.” It’s never been easy to be a farmer, and I may be an Ol’ Nervous Nellie. But I wonder, will he still be farming in 2020? What do you think? What do you see for small organic farms in 2020?
Quick Sauté of Zucchini with Toasted Almonds
(Inspired by the Red Cat, NYC)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced almonds
1 to 2 small zucchini, cut into 1/8-inch matchsticks with a knife or
julienne blade on a mandoline
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Few ounces pecorino Romano or parmesan, in thin slices — a peeler works great for this
Heat the oil on high in a large skillet. When it is hot but not smoking, add the almonds to the pan. Cook them, while stirring, until the almonds are golden-brown, approximately a minute or two.
Add the zucchini to the pan, tossing it with the oil and almonds until it just begins to glisten, about one minute. The idea is not to cook the zucchini so much as warm it.
Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately, with or without cheese on top.
Pasta with Braising Greens
(topped with a Farm Fresh Fried Egg) Thornhill Farm CSA
Boil pasta in salted water until cooked al dente (fresh pasta cooks quickly – watch for it to change color and swell slightly). Stop the formation of starch by removing from the heat and adding a cup of cool water. Remove a cup of the cooking liquid and reserve, then drain carefully into a colander and rinse the pasta.
Chop the braising greens into large 1-inch pieces. Add thinly sliced sweet onion to the greens, and sauté. If you like garlic, add chopped fresh garlic. Sauté in olive oil until lightly wilted, about 5 minutes. You can add sliced mushrooms, sundried tomatoes or artichokes at this point if you like.
If you want to use meat in this dish, thinly slice some good fresh sausage. You only need about 2 ounces per person, at the most! Combine sausage and braising greens mixture in the pan and stir to combine the flavors. Add about ½ – ¾ cup of the reserved pasta liquid to the pan and allow to simmer for just a few minutes. You can enhance the flavor of this with the addition of something acidic – I would recommend 1 Tbl Balsamic Vinegar.
Top the whole thing off with a fried egg! Over medium allows the intense flavor to permeate the dish and add an indescribable richness and depth to the fresh egg pasta. Salt and pepper the egg generously, then top with an additional dollop of the tomato chutney if you have it.
What's a sweet onion anyway?
If you've never tasted a fresh, sweet onion you're in for a treat. Because they're so sweet and mild (forget the tears), yet still deliver great onion flavor, they're something you'll want to keep on hand all the time.
Sweet onions, sometimes referred to as "short day" onions, because their growing season occurs during the fall and winter with harvest usually in spring /summer, are fresh onions, picked and cured for a short time, then rushed to market. Storage onions, or regular globe onions, are harvested in late summer and fall, stored in warehouses and delivered to markets throughout most of the year.
Although there is no official industry standard, it is generally accepted that an onion should contain at least 6% sugar to be in the "sweet" category. Some sweet onions, like the OsoSweet, have recorded sugar levels of up to 15%. Storage onions usually range from 3%-5% in sugar content.
Unlike sweet onions, regular onions have high levels of sulfur compounds. It's the pyruvic acid in the sulfur that causes tears, harshness, and indigestion. That's why great sweet onions are always grown in soil with low amounts of sulfur. Typically, sweet onions have pyruvic acid levels that measure below 5%; storage onions usually run 10%-13%. Because a sweet onion is also a fresh onion it is very high in water content, which further dilutes the effect of the sulfur and increases mildness.
The best sweet onions deliver a burst of sweetness when bitten into, are incredibly mild, with very little if any sharpness, and have a subtle, fruity flavor. They should still taste like an onion, but be much sweeter and milder. Sweet onions have a thinner, lighter color skin than storage onions and tend to be more fragile.
Sweet Onion Cornbread with Cheddar Cheese
3 cups yellow cornmeal
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 quart buttermilk
1 cup chopped Sweet Onion
4 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)
Mix dry ingredients together reserve. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in each of two 9"x9"x2" pans in a 450-degree oven. Meanwhile, stir buttermilk into reserved dry ingredients; fold in onion and cheese. Divide batter between each prepared, hot pan. Bake at 450 degrees until just firm in the center and lightly browned on the edges, about 25 minutes. Remove; let rest 15 minutes before cutting. Cut each pan into 12 pieces. Serve slightly warmed or at room temperature.
Yogurt, Cucumber and Radish Salad
1 cup yogurt (Greek style yogurt is the preferred choice)
1 cup finely diced radishes
1 cup finely diced cucumber
1 small garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons minced fresh mint or parsley leaves, soft-leafed lettuce or pita bread for
In a bowl stir together the yogurt, the radishes, the cucumber, the garlic paste, the mint or parsley. Salt and pepper to taste
Divide the salad among individual salad plates lined with the lettuce or serve with pita bread.
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