Box #6: The roots have arrived

Look at all these gorgeous, colorful veggies. Fennel, green beans, red-leaf lettuce, broccoli, green-top carrots, basil, peas, beets, uncured garlic and sweet onion. Our share was a little heavier this week, and the Driftless newsletter that came with it confirmed that the farmers have shifted their focus from planting and weeding to harvesting.

The newsletter also detailed the physical labor that farmers put into garlic to get it to your table—digging it, bunching it, washing it and hanging it up to cure for a couple of months in the curing shed. Curing is what makes garlic last so long on your counter. This fresh garlic that came in our share is great—the peel just slips right off. But without curing, we'd have to go most of the year without garlic, and who'd want to live in a world without garlic?

When you're weighing whether to participate in a CSA or choosing which farm to buy into, consider whether the farm produces a newsletter. Ours gives us instructions on how to store each vegetable, tells which parts of the vegetables are edible (beet greens, anyone?), offers one or two recipes each week that use several vegetables from the box, and gives us a personal perspective of what's going on at the farm. A lot of work goes into it and there's a ton of information in there. I think the underlying lesson here is that we've benefitted from growers who are willing to be communicators as well as producers and sellers.

There was a lot of talk at our pickup site about fennel. I guess it's novel to many CSA members, not just me. People were asking each other, "How do you eat it?" Some people said they grill it or saute it or use it in stir-fry. My answer is "Put it in my mouth and chew." It's a little tough, but the flavor is so great. Here's the fennel snack I had right after we got the box home:



Saturday morning's breakfast consisted almost entirely of CSA veggies. I chopped our half onion, two cloves of fresh garlic, the broccoli head and stem (sliced thin) and all of the basil. I sauteed the veggies in oil, then added a couple of beaten eggs to make a scramble. Most of the time I was talking on the phone and not paying attention, so it wasn't pretty, but it was a wholesome meal. I seasoned it with sriracha.