Hi everyone!
We hope you’re as excited as we are about the fridge restock after the break! We build a break week into the season as an opportunity to catch-up, shift things around, and take a breather. Every year Lisa and I have been fortunate enough to fit a little trip into it, and this year we switched things up and made the trek up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Luckily, we have Lisa’s mom’s place to stop at halfway breaking up the 7 hr drive. The drive is totally worth it though: we camped in vast forests, swam in Lake Superior’s pristine waters, and picked both farmed and foraged raspberries. The Great Lakes and The Midwest never fail to amaze me.
After the UP, we did a quick road trip to visit my Grandma. A big part of this year’s break was sharing news with family, and now we’re thrilled to share it with you all as well —Lisa and I are expecting a baby! Lisa is due in mid-January and we’re overjoyed to start this new chapter. We’re hoping to continue Gard Mo and the CSA Club next season but are still working through the logistics along with the co-op study group to make sure it’s manageable. We’ll likely ask for your feedback and ideas as we figure things out, so stay tuned!
The shares this week are filled with the best of summer, and I don’t anticipate it slowing down for the rest of the season.
Hope you all enjoy the share!
—Ben
Nichols grows over 200 varieties of apples, and we’ll likely try one a week from here on out. Pristine is an early harvest variety, which tend to bruise easily and spoil quicker, so you won’t ever find them in grocery stores. But fresh like these are, they’re delicious. They have a nice tartness that almost masks how sweet they are.
You’ve probably heard this called cantaloupe, but cantaloupe is a very specific variety of melon that is pretty rare in the U.S.. The broader group of melons with tan webbed skins and orange flesh is called muskmelon. Sugar Cubes are a particular variety of muskmelon that are small, but super sweet with notes of spice that resonate with me as coriander and clove —sort of bubble gum-y.
The characteristic flavor of carrots is due to terpenes —the same terpenes that are referenced in the context of cannabis. These aromatic compounds are built from five-carbon building blocks that enzymes combine together to create slightly differing terpenes. The notes terpenes give are often described as piney, citrusey, floral, and herbaceous.
The first field tomatoes of the season. These ones are a fun sunset-orange. I’d recommend enjoying them simply —just with salt and maybe a touch of oil.
Its supposed to be hot this week so a light salad is a perfect, no heat required dish. Follow the vinaigrette portion of this recipe for something simple and refreshing.
This is a bicolor, supersweet corn that really shows off the best of Midwest peak season produce. We love to add corn to just about everything we cook this time of year. With it off the cob, its easy to just toss into a pan with whatever else is cooking (like maybe the carrots). The kernels freeze well as is but best practice would be to first blanch.
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.”
Crowder peas are also called cowpeas or black-eyed peas. This particular variety are called-so because their pods are a vibrant purple. Crowder peas are not actually peas, but a relative of mung beans. Fresh like this they are quick to cook and particularly delicious compared to dried or canned. Here is a recipe from Taste of Southern for inspiration.
