Happy Summer!
CSA weather report…warm, sunny and breezy
HURRICANE ALERT!
We’re not having a hurricane YET but please read this now…
This is hurricane season and will be followed by the
possibility of snow and ice before the CSA ends for the season. So, please be
aware…
- If you don’t get any emails on any given week, show up
to the CSA at the usual time and place, and if you’re able…show up to
offer to work at 3:30pm or 5:30pm in case there’s a need. The reasons for
non-communication could be A) computer problems (storm or no), B) power
outages, and C) the X factor (unknown at the present time but…stuff
happens).
- Keep in mind that the farm will show up and deliver
food like the post office talks about the weather…rain, sleet, etc., so
your CSA share will be at the Cinema Arts Centre waiting for you, unless
there’s several feet of snow (or a serious ice storm or flooding) and no
one is able to go anywhere. We’ve had food delivered during Hurricane
Sandy, and during snowstorms.
Parking Alert!
From now till August 23rd there will be cars
lined up from 2pm to 4pm at the end of the initial driveway of the building.
It’s parents picking up children from summer camp at the YMCA. If you want to
avoid it, come after 4pm. OTHERWISE, if you’re trying to get to the upper
parking lot around the other side of the building, be careful!
DO NOT LEAVE MESSAGES FOR THE CSA WITH THE CINEMA BOX
OFFICE STAFF!!! We don’t always get the messages…at all (people
forget…and it’s not their job), and the Box Office staff doesn’t always give
correct info. Ask to be transferred to the Café to speak to someone at the CSA.
If not, the CSA will not be responsible if your food isn’t left at the Box
Office to be picked up, or for anything else you might have wanted to
communicate to the CSA staff.
The list…this is a general list and you’ll be sent another
email within the next week with the detailed list after I get it (which isn’t
till the day of the CSA…the list is subject to change without notice because
farming is like that! J .
However, most of the time it’s accurate and if it’s not…usually only one food
item will be changed)…
CSA words to live by…when trying any new food that
you’ve never eaten before…START SLOW! Read up about it (make sure
it doesn’t interfere with any medications you might be taking or any health
conditions you might have), see what traditional/conventional ways it’s
prepared (cultures that have been eating certain foods for many years basically
have a good idea what they’re doing and we can learn from that), try a small
portion, see how your body/digestive system reacts, and proceed from there.
Then try preparing in different ways and see what you come up with, and feel
free to ask for suggestion/info/recommendations!
Paraphrased wise words by a nutritionist that I read and
don’t remember where I read it or who said it, BUT it’s pretty smart info
regarding eating seasonally in our part of the globe…
Spring… is all about detoxing (what we get
from the CSA at this time is a lot of green things that are really good to help
clean us out from whatever we accumulated during the winter)
Interesting piece about spring greens (out of the 14 listed,
we get 12 of them with our CSA…watercress nutritionally and botanically similar
to Peppercress) and detoxing…
Summer is all about being hydrated (the
popular summer foods are all full of water…Tomatoes, Lettuces, Summer Squashes,
etc.)
Fall/winter is all about storing energy (we
get all the dense vegetables…Sweet Potatoes, Winter Squashes, etc…. that are
energy powerhouses to fuel us through the winter) to get you through the winter
to make it to…Spring!
Week #12
August 23, 2018
- Lettuce – 1 head
- Squash, Summer* and/or Bitter Melon** – up to 2 lbs.
- Peppers, Shishito*** – ½ lb. bag
- Tomatoes**** - up to 2 lbs
- Cantaloupe***** - 1
Total Items: 5
Flower Share – Week #10
Zinnias
Herb Share – August 2B
Cilantro AND Sorrel
*On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
**read separate Bitter Melon email for info before
eating/cooking
***On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…1 in
about every 10 Shishito Peppers are hot, so I’d read both the Bell and Chili
Pepper Veg Info Sheets for this one (hot and sweet Peppers are
varieties/cultivars of the same plant - Capsicum annuum)…
Basic recipe from vegetable wrangler and cookbook author
Deborah Madison…
and more…
****On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
****On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
This email includes…
- What you need to know
- It’s time to weigh our CSA food!!!
- Click Activism – changing the world one click at a time
- Got kids or know folks with kids? - read this…
- Fracking water and Cantaloupes- ugh
- Events…both near and far
- Nitric Oxygen vital to good health and eating CSA food
helps!
- What you actually got last week
- And now for something completely different…
Anything in these emails not directly related to the
functioning of the CSA feel free to take or leave at your discretion, and
anything related to health issues always consult with your physicians before
taking any actions.
1.What you need to know (will be either new info to
first time CSA members, or reminders/old hat to returning CSA members)…
Before you leave the house…BRING BAGS
to pack up your food (CSA members are responsible for packing up their own
shares) – canvas/plastic/paper…bring whatever suits your fancy. The CSA does
NOT provide bags for CSA members. If someone is picking up food for you, please
remind them to bring bags with them.
Time – 3:30pm to 7:30pm
IF you need to pick up later than 7:30pm, call the Cinema
Arts Center Box Office between 3pm to 7:30pm at 631-423-7610 xt. 0 (make sure
to ask to speak to someone at the CSA) and we can pack a bag for you and leave
it at the Box Office but it MUST be picked up before the Box Office closes
(call the Box Office to check the time…lately it’s been somewhere between 10pm
and 11pm). If not, it won’t be there on Friday.
Place – Sky Room Café in the Cinema Arts
Centre at 423 Park Ave, Huntington (if otherwise, you’ll be informed)
Parking – park in the lot all the way around
at the back of the building by the day care center (you’ll see a fenced in
playground area with a sandbox)
When you arrive at the CSA –
- Check in at the sign-in desk
- Read the Wall Chart that tells us every week what we’re
getting, how much we’re getting, and what the farm charged us for it…some
weeks it’s take one of everything but SOME WEEKS IT’S NOT!!! So you have
to make sure you read the Wall Chart every week, and not assume anything.
You can also ask your fellow CSA members that are working at the CSA that
day what the story is (they should have name tags on).
Before you leave the CSA – Make sure you have
everything on the list! If you get to talking with people, have kids with you,
etc., it can be easy to get distracted, but if you arrive home and find out you
don’t have everything that was on the list, you’re out of luck because at
7:31pm the food is donated to a local food organization that’s waiting to pick
it up and get on their way.
We send a 2nd email with the list for the week
and the Veggie Info Sheet attachments that you’ll get because of a) concern if
I send one email with attachments it might end up in junk/spam and you might
not be in the habit of looking for it there yet, and b) modern communications
technology not being all it’s cracked up to be so trying to hedge success rate
in getting info out to you.
2. It’s
time to weigh our CSA food!
- Please
be aware that it may take a little more time for you to collect your CSA
share when weighing is part of the experience, so plan accordingly.
- Check
the CSA Wall Chart that our farmer brings in every week before taking any
food so you know what you’re taking and how much to take…assume nothing
and please feel free to ask questions!
- Bring
your reading glasses or ask someone to help if you can’t see the numbers
on the scale clearly.
- PLEASE DO NOT GO OVER THE AMOUNT STATED on the Wall
Chart.
Please
err on the under side of the weight posted…NEVER over. It may not seem like
much to you, but we have 42 CSA members this week, and if every person is over
by ONE OUNCE (for crying out loud! It’s only an ounce!!!) …that means we’ll be
short over 2 1/2 POUNDS of produce and 1 or 2 CSA members (and one of them
could be you) won’t get the food they paid for.
- IF
you are asked to weigh more than one food item at the same time (and you
probably will at some point in the CSA season)…please follow the directions
given to you, and weigh in the order you are asked (you might not think
there’s any good reason to be doing this but our farmer does, and that
should be enough of a reason right there but if you want a further
explanation – ask someone working at the CSA or contact suzanne…there is
always a method to the madness J )
Tell USDA to classify mutagenesis techniques as GMO (because
they are)…
4.Got kids or know folks with kids? - read this…
File this under…eat organic, live organic…
Feed kids organic and then give them toxic school supplies?
Check this out…
5.Fracking water and Cantaloupes- ugh
Who cares about fracking water? We don’t allow fracking in
NY State, right? YAY!!! Our Lettuce and Cantaloupes that we’re getting this
week aren’t being watered with fracking water!!! J
While that’s true, how many of us exclusively eat locally
grown food? If not, which I will assume is the majority of us (and everyone we
know), you need to be concerned because it’s legal to use fracking water…ON
FOOD!!! And that includes certified organic food coming from California and
other states that allow fracking because there’s no legislation in place for
them not to, and the places that grow a lot of our food (California, Arizona)
are having severe water shortages so they don’t have much of a choice.
Didn’t know Arizona has a weekly drought map (and things
there are BAD)…these people have no water reserves, so what exactly are they
using to water their crops???
So if you eat Broccoli, Spinach, Cauliflower, Lettuce,
Cantaloupe and Honeydew (for starters), and it’s not in season and
it’s not local, it could be from Arizona and it could have been irrigated with
fracking water…
Ugh…
6.Events…both near and far
Thursday, August 23rd
10am to 11am
iEat Green with Bhavani online radio show
Progressive Radio Network
Always interesting guests. You can also check out the
archives for other shows.
IBS & SIBO SOS Summit
FREE online conference
For more info and to register…
Explore a holistic approach to dealing with IBS and SIBO
(and you know vegetables and fruits are probably going to be part of the
solution).
Monday, September 3rd
1pm to 4pm
Wild foods tour with Wildman Steve Brill
Sunken Meadow State Park
1 Sunken Meadow Pkwy
Kings Park
$20 – Adults/$12 – under 12 years old
To register and for more info…
Steve Brill is a rock star of food foraging. Will be on the
lookout for Beach Plums, Sea Rocket and Honey Mushrooms! The tour may, or may
not, be co-led by Steve’s 14 year old daughter, Violet, and whether she’s there
or not, it will be kid friendly.
Saturday, September 15th
10am to 4pm
10th Annual Organic Apple Festival
Rodale Institute
Kutztown, PA
$10 parking fee per vehicle (suggested donation)
For more info:
Pick your own organic Apples, wagon tours, kid’s activities,
live music, lecture, and much more!
Saturday, October 20th
Annual CSA Pumpkin Picking Farm Tour
Green Thumb Farm
Water Mill
FREE
Last time to get a behind the scenes tour of our farm and
talk to our farmers (Got a garden? Got questions? These are the guys to ask J ). More info to come
Saturday, November 3rd
LI Food Conference
LIU Post
Northern Blvd.
Brookville
More info as available
A project of the Long Island Food Coalition (connected to
the North Shore Land Alliance).
7.Nitric Oxygen vital to good health and eating CSA food
helps!
8.What you actually got last week
Week #11
August 16, 2018
- Lettuce: Leaf, Green – 1 head - $3.25
- Eggplant: Italian, Black* – 1 - $1.75
- Leeks** – 1 bunch - $4.50
- Cucumbers*** - 4 - $2.00
- Tomatoes, Mini: Cherry, Red**** - 1 pt - $5.25
- Cantaloupe***** - 1 - $3.75
Total Amount: $20.50
(We pay $20 per week for our CSA share…some weeks we get a
bit more and it adds up over the course of the season. This week we got an
extra $.50. So far that total is $10.75 which may not sound like much, but…just
wait and see! We seem to always get at least one CSA share’s worth of food
every year that we don’t pay for…some years two, and some between one and
two…it’s all good! J )
Flower Share – Week #9
Gomphrena (everlast)
*On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
And I thought this was an Asian variety till I saw this
online…
**On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
***On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
****On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
****On the list of the world’s 100 healthiest foods…
9.And now for something completely different…
This Japanese candy is TRULY dandy (and pretty amazing…and I
think it’s too beautiful to eat)…
Another video of amezaiku master Shinri Tezuka and photos
(amazing)…
More detailed historical info…a video of another candy maker
with no subtitles (but still very cool to watch and only 2 minutes long) and
another video (with subtitles) about Kanten (no idea why this is here BUT it’s
a great video illustrating amazing artisan cooks in Japan, and how cool it is
that there’s enough customers for them to make a living doing what they do)…
###
