Hi everyone!
I hope you all are doing well. I don’t normally mention much outside of the CSA Club in these newsletters, but given what feels like a dramatic escalation of the current situation I feel like I should. We generally think of the CSA Club as a form of activism through food. We believe that collectivism and community building is the only way to a prosperous future, and hope that the CSA Club does that through the mutual supporting of the local food system. By diverting our food dollars back into our community rather than grocery store chains, distributors, large agriculture corporations, and ultimately the fossil fuel industries (via fuel, fertilizers and other chemicals), we can keep power in our community by not allowing wealth to be siphoned out to large international companies. Those large entities are disconnected from Chicago, and us. Given a choice between us and profits, they will always pick profits and won’t hesitate to use those profits to influence policies to our detriment.
But as we watch this occupation of Chicago unfold, I find myself feeling like I should do more. Governor Pritzker gave an address on Monday where he forcefully condemned the unlawful activity of ICE, DHS, and the federal government. Unfortunatly because of the legal power of the federal government, there is not much that the state government can do to restrict the feds activity or hold them accountable. The only thing the Governor had to offer as resistance was a plea for help from Illinoisians to film, document and share these unhelpful, illegal, and immoral activities of the feds. Fortunately, the community was already on it.
Across Chicagoland, rapid response groups are organizing to be wherever the feds are to record what they are doing. If you are like me and trying to figure out a way to do more, getting involved with one of these groups would be a great way to do that. PUÑO (Pilsen Unidos por Nuestro Orgullo) is the group here in Pilsen that has been organizing patrol shifts. I have not been particularly involved yet, but Lisa is way more knowledgeable on the situation and would be happy to chat with anyone about it so please feel free to reach out.
There’s lots of tasty stuff in the shares this week, particularly a lot of apples. We like to keep our apples in the crisper box of the refrigerator in their brown paper bags. Like that, they’ll keep for months. Knowing that we can stockpile apples for winter makes the amount we’ll get through the end of the season less daunting.
Hope you all enjoy the share.
—Ben
This variety of sweet potato is fun since its flesh is white rather than the typical orange. They’re particularly sweet and have a nice fluffy texture so do well just simply baked. If you do cut them, be mindful since the white flesh will discolor quickly (but will taste just fine).
Wow, what a green bean season. I don’t have much more to say about greens beans so I’ll just leave this excerpt from On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee.
Green beans come from a climbing plant native to Central America and the Andes region of northern South America. Though the peoples who domesticated them have probably always eaten some mature pods, the breeding of specialized vegetable bean varieties is less than 200 years old.
Brussels Sprouts are pretty much mini heads of cabbage. To prep them for you all, we trim off the bottom woody stem, and remove the tough dark outer layers. Removing the darker green outside helps reduce some of bitterness that often turns people off from brussels sprouts. It also gives us more opportunity to find the occasional compromised brussels sprout that the outside layers would have other hidden so that way you all don’t have to worry about finding those surprises. Cooking at high temps for just as long as needed is the best way to avoid the warmed-over brassica flavor that is the other major turn off for people when it comes to brussels sprouts. Halved and sautéed over high heat is my preferred way to cook them.
We opted to leave the squashes whole for you this week. Lisa and I love using winter squash as décor around the house and then gradually eat them throughout the fall. With a thin edible skin, you often see them sliced and roasted as pretty rings. Being so big, these would do well cubed and roasted (or anyway you’d do any other winter squash).
In contrast to most the apple varieties that we’ve had, Red Rubins aren’t an American bred variety. A cross between Gala and Elstar, Red Rubins were bred by the Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti (Italian Consortium of Nurseries) in Ferrara, Italy in the 1960’s. They’re a bit smaller in size, but have an intense apple flavor and a superb crunchy texture.
These are some gorgeous peppers. They’re similar to other pepper varieties you might see called ‘frying peppers’ or ‘Jimmy Nardello’s.’ We’re in the peak of pepper season right now. This is point in the season when red peppers are plentiful and delicious. You’ll notice some green color lingering on these. Most peppers will eventually ripen to a red color if left on the vine long enough. I find that red peppers have a more fruity flavor than the green ones. Jalapenos, for example, we typically eat green but you can occasionally find red ones at grocery stores. Red peppers will always be a little more expensive though since for industrial agriculture the extra time on the vine reduces the overall yield of the plant by weight. For smaller farms, they’ll pick green peppers early in the season as needed and the rest later as they turn red for a natural staggering of the pepper crop rather than just maximizing pounds of peppers.
From On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee:
“People have eaten this plant since prehistory, initially its leaves, then the underground part of specialized varieties. In Greek times beet roots were long, either white or red, and sweet; Theophrastus reported around 300 BCE that they were pleasant enough to eat raw. The fat red type is first depicted in the 16th century.”
We’ll likely receive two types of apples with each share for the remainder of the season. After we receive the apples, its a fun challenge to identify which are which variety and then separate them out. To be honest though, this week was a challenge (so hopefully we got them right). Autumn Crisp are a cross between Golden Delicious and Monroe apples develop by Cornell University. They’re sweet, slightly tart with floral notes and store very well.
A fun mix of a different colored carrots. We think that each of colors taste a little different, so definitely taste each of them! I think my favorite are the ruby orange, or white ones.
