Hi everyone,
Exciting update on CSA Club Member Potluck; we’ll be gathering at Ping Tom Park on Saturday 7/19 from 5:30-7:30 PM. There is a poll in the General chat of the WhatsApp community to coordinate on what everyone is bringing, as well as allergens. If you aren’t on WhatsApp, just send me an email or text, and I’ll make sure to keep you looped in!
The shift in the season is strong in this week’s shares. The vegetables out in the fields have been dealing with the same heat we have for the last couple of weeks. Similar to most of us, the greens don’t do well in the heat, hence why we’ve finally had a reprieve of them with only one in the shares. However, everything else has been loving it. The totes are noticeably heavier as a result.
We hope you all enjoy this week’s shares!
—Ben
New potatoes are an early summer treat. Harvested before curing, new potatoes have a thin papery skin and high moisture content. They’re also a little sweeter since all of the sugars haven’t been converted to starches yet. Because of all of that, new potatoes should be kept refrigerated. While raw they have a crisp texture that reminds me of jicama, but cooked they are extremely creamy and keep their shape well which makes them perfect for potato salad.
This will be the fourth week in a row that we’ve had lettuce in the shares. I went back in my records to see if that’s ever happened before and best I can tell, it hasn’t. My sister has been asking for tips on making salads recently, and the number one thing I’d say is to include lots of different textures: croutons, seeds, beans, crunchy vegetables, soft (roasted/cooked) vegetables, dried fruit, cheese –however you can get it. Lots of different textures keeps each bite exciting, and there’s hardly a combination that would taste bad together.
Orange carrots are actually a somewhat recent development. The color comes from the pigment carotene which is a precursor for vitamin A, meaning that our bodies convert it into vitamin A. Purple, red, white, and yellow carrots have been eaten since medieval times, however the orange, carotene-rich carrots that are prevelant today seem to have developed in Holland in the 17th century. There are stories of the orange carrot being a point of pride for Dutch people as they often refer to their monarchy as the House of Orange, after William of Orange.
The first of lots of green beans that we’ll get throughout the season. Green beans are a crop that are somewhat fragile so the quality difference from those at the end of long supply chain terminating at the grocery are a world apart from those grown locally. Quickly sautéed with some garlic and basil would be a great way to enjoy these.
Nichols mentioned they’re harvesting one of their best broccoli crops ever—so we’re in for a treat. Broccoli belongs to the oleracea group of brassicas, cultivated specifically for its tightly clustered flower buds. As Harold McGee explains in On Food and Cooking:
“extra flower-stalk tissue develops, fuses into thick ‘spears,’ and then goes on to produce clusters of small green flower buds.”
It took a lot of effort for me not to shove my face into all the basil when I opened up the boxes from Nichols. The aroma screams summer. There are a lot of different tips out there on the best way to store basil. The most popular is the basil bouquet method where you treat it like a bunch of flowers and keep it the stems in a vase of water. Obviously, we did not do that. I’ve found in my experience (I worked at a pasta restaurant for awhile that used lots of basil), that stored as picked basil leaves in the refrigerator give the best combination of shelf life and ease of use. Picking the leaves also makes it much easier for us to wash the basil, and ensure that it is completely dry before we store it. A very cold refrigerator will give the basil cold damage and cause it to go bad quickly so I prefer to keep it in the door, or front of the fridge.
A classic brassica, we’re always excited to get cauliflower in the shares. Most of what Nichols sent were white, but a couple were orange so don’t be worry that there are a few funny colored ones mixed in. There’s a little yellow in there too.
Generally, I would refer to all thin skinned squashes as summer squash (zucchini, yellow squash, patty pan, etc.). This one is called Grey Zucchini because of the more muted green color with some speckling. Jarvi let me know that the particular seed variety they planted was called Mexicana. There’s a fun variety of sizes, with the smaller ones being absolutely adorable and would be served well cooking whole or simply halved.
