Thursday, June 10, 2021

Huntington CSA Thursday, June 10, 2020 Week #2

 

Happy Spring (not really summer till June 21st 😊)!

 CSA weather report
warm and breezy

 Important
if you send anyone to the CSA to pick up food for you, please tell them to BRING BAGS!

 Our farmers are of New England/Yankee stock and as far as I’m concerned, the men are people of few words BUT they did manage to sneak in a few words of welcome on the first CSA Wall Chart of the year. In case you missed it (easy to miss as it was on the bottom, and on the first week of the CSA there’s a lot to take in), the gang said
THANK YOU and WELCOME TO THE 2021 SEASON! I know they are quite sincere and if you make it to the Strawberry Picking event on Saturday, June 26th, you’ll get a chance to meet and spend some time with this amazing 11th generation farm family (and you might want to talk to them about your home vegetable/herb/flower garden questions/problems).

 This email includes
 

  1. What you need to know
  2. CSA Strawberry Picking Farm Tour Update
  3. Food safety and COVID-19

  4. Click activism – you don’t have to do much, or spend any money, to help make a positive change in the world
  5. What you actually got last week
  6. Think you’re gardening organically? Think again

  7. 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 physician(s) before taking any action.

 

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.

Time – 3:30pm to 7:30pm

Place – Sky Room CafĂ© in the Cinema Arts Centre at 423 Park Ave, Huntington

Parking – park in the 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 –

  1. Check-in at the desk with our friendly CSA worker
  2. 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 that day what the story is for the day (they should have name tags on).

Before you leave the CSA – Make sure you have everything on the list (like the story of the 3 bears
not too much, not too little, but just right 😊)! If you get to talking with people, have kids with you, etc., it can be easy to be distracted and if you get 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.

 

Veggie info sheets added as needed. This is the link to the: Veggie Info Sheets. Print out, put in a notebook and you end up with a cookbook at the end of the CSA season. Also, there are good tips on storage, prep, and nutrition.

  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! đŸ˜Š 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 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 Curly Cress/Peppercress) and detoxing


http://www.nourishingmeals.com/2012/03/detox-with-spring-greens.html

 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 #2

June 10, 2021 

  1. Lettuce – 1 head
  2. Strawberries* – 1 pt.
  3. Cress: Curly (also known as Peppercress/Garden Cress)** – 1 bunch
  4. Kale (greenhouse)*** – 1 bunch
  5. Jerusalem Artichokes – 1 bag

 Total Items: 5

 Herb Share – June 1A

Cilantro**** AND Oregano*****

 *Strawberries are one of the world’s 100 healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=32

 **No official CSA Veggie Info Sheet for this but here’s the lowdown on


Cress, Curly (also known as Peppercress and Garden Cress)

It’s speecy spicy, very good for you, and goes well in small amounts in any salad, sandwich, wrap for starters
read on


https://harvesttotable.com/cress_cress_is_a_common/

https://www.healwithfood.org/health-benefits/garden-cress-nutritional-benefits.php

 

Web MD on “garden cress” (basically same as Pepper/Curly Cress)
please read if you have any underlying health conditions (diabetes, low blood pressure, etc.)


http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-453-garden%20cress.aspx?activeingredientid=453&

 

Pepper Cress – tangy/spicy herb that can be used raw in salads, on sandwiches or wraps and you can toss a small amount in at the end of a stir-fry or cooked recipe to give things a bit of a culinary punch

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/peppercress

 

Peppercress Aioli


https://food52.com/recipes/10884-peppercress-aioli

 

more Peppercress recipes


https://www.florettesalad.co.uk/recipe-category/peppercress

 

more recipes from a place that does Peppercress Sprouts more than growing them in soil outdoors


http://www.urbancultivator.net/learn-about-peppercress/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_cress

  

***Kale is one of the world’s healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38

 

****Cilantro is one of the world’s healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=70

 

*****Oregano is one of the world’s healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=73

 

2. CSA Strawberry Picking Farm Tour Update

 

Check the events email for more details but the basic new info is (and any additional info will be added as I get it)


 

  1. Tour times begin at 10am, 11am, and 12pm
  2. Please RSVP to the farm by calling 631-726-1900 between 9:30am and 4:30pm Monday to Sunday
  3. For last minute planners
you can call (starting at 9am) before leaving for the farm and probably still be able to attend
  4. CSA members attending the this event will be able to get a 10% discount on purchases at the farm stand (this discount is available to our CSA members on farm tour days only)
  5. If you have a home garden, or plant things in pots, keep in mind that Green Thumb Farm has their own certified organic farm grown vegetable and herb plants for you to purchase and add to your garden

 

 3.Food safety and COVID-19


 

Watch writer J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (son of a Harvard University geneticist and immunologist, grandson of a chemist, and author of Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science), talk about COVID-19 and food safety


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkvw9lZ3v3I

 

And read in more detail here


https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus-a-comprehensive-guide.html#covid-on-food

 

 4.Click activism – you don’t have to do much, or spend any money, to help make a positive change in the world

 

Tell Home Depot and Lowe's to remove toxic herbicides from their shelves and replace them with products that promote least-toxic practices


https://secure.everyaction.com/Uk4HdNd820u2XdqKrw4VmQ2

 

 5.What you actually got last week

 

Week #1

June 3, 2021

 

  1. Lettuce: Romaine AND Leaf, Red – 1 head of each -$5.00
  2. Strawberries* – 1 pt. - $6.25
  3. Arugula – 1 bunch - $3.75
  4. Kale: Siberian, White** – 1 bunch - $3.50
  5. Onions: Spring*** – 1 bunch - $4.25

 

Total Items: 5

Total Amount: $22.75

(We pay $20 per week for our CSA share
some weeks we get a bit more, some a bit less. This week, it was $2.75 extra. Doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but it adds up over the course of the CSA season. We seem to always get at least one CSA share’s worth of food every year that we didn’t pay for
some years two, and some between one and two
it’s all good! 😊)

 

Flower Share - #1

Sweet Williams

 

*Strawberries are one of the world’s 100 healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=32

 

**Kale is one of the world’s healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38

 

*Onions are one of the world’s 100 healthiest foods (good info and recipes)!

http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=45

 

 

6.Think you’re gardening organically? Think again


 

There’s a LOT more to growing “organic” food than just not spraying pesticides (check out the NOFA organic standards book at the CSA sometime to see what’s required to be a certified organic vegetable farm).

 

Does your “organic” fertilizer have toxic sewer sludge or other harmful chemicals in it that can then get into the “organic” food you’re growing?

https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2021/06/sewage-sludge-fertilizers-sold-at-hardware-stores-found-to-be-contaminated-with-pfas-chemicals/?emci=ffca0204-5ac9-eb11-a7ad-501ac57b8fa7&emdi=00451181-74c9-eb11-a7ad-501ac57b8fa7&ceid=68372

 

If you want to be (or are) an organic gardener, I HIGHLY recommend you consider joining NOFA-NY (the organic certification group that’s been certifying farms, like Green Thumb Farm, LONG before the federal government got involved). It’s only $45 for a basic membership and you get a lot of proverbial bang for your buck (and support certified organic farming in NY)


https://nofany.org/about-us/become-a-member/

One of the things I like the best is their yearly listing of all certified organic farms in NY by county.

 

And the next step is to consider attending this year’s virtual NOFA Summer Conference (which includes all seven NOFA member states
including NY)


https://nofasummerconference.org/

While a lot of this is geared toward farmers, there’s ALWAYS workshops for the home gardener/cook/food activist. Some of the speakers this year include Elizabeth Henderson (one of the founds of one of the first CSAs in the USA back in 1986
who I’ve met a number of times over the years
a great lady 😊), and Lee Reich (if you have any interest in growing fruit
he’s your man
have attended a workshop at his place upstate and ALWAYS worth hearing what he has to say).

 

 7.And now, for something completely different


 Questionable vintage recipes (how did I miss these growing up? 😊)


https://www.boredpanda.com/questionable-vintage-recipes/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter

 

Events
both near and far

 Saturday, June 19th

 10am to noon

 CSA Meeting – Get to know your CSA, and your Strawberries!

Cinema Arts Centre

Sky Room Cafe

423 Park Ave

Huntington

RSVP so we know our seating/spacing limits, and how many copies of materials to make, by responding to this email or calling 631-421-4864

 We’ll be viewing an episode of Alton Brown’s tv show Good Eats that’s all about Strawberries (best way to freeze, recipes and more) to prepare us for the following week’s visit to the farm for the Strawberry picking tour.

 Meeting Schedule (approx.)


10 to 10:15 – gather and optional recipe swap (bring a copy of a recipe for something you’ve used in the past 2 CSA Shares and we’ll make copies for everyone attending!)

10:15 to 10:30 – What’s a CSA (and what it’s not)? And
a brief history of Green Thumb Farm

10:30 to 11:30pm – Good Eats episode – Strawberries (recipes from the show will be given to those attending)

11:30am to 12pm – chat time and raffle drawings
ask any questions regarding the CSA or the food we get, future meetings, restaurant outings, etc., and there’s TWO raffles - one for new CSA members, and one for rejoining CSA members (no attendance required to win).

 

 Saturday, June 26th

 10am, 11am, OR 12pm

 Annual CSA Strawberry Pickin’ Farm Tour (rain or shine)

Green Thumb Farm

2 Rose Hill Rd (and Montauk Hwy)

Water Mill

FREE

For more info and to RSVP:

631-726-1900 (call between 9:30am and 4:30pm)

Directions are basically to go past the Green Thumb Farm farm stand (if you’re headed east), make the first right and the first driveway to the right is the path to the farm tour. Park along the road and walk down the path and there should be a sign-in table right there.

 This is a one hour walking tour, and then you’re let loose in the Strawberry fields. Everyone attending is given a quart basket. This tour is free, and limited to CSA members and their immediate family members. If you’re sharing a CSA Share with someone, usually one person does the Strawberry tour and the other does the Pumpkin picking and the CSA Share Partner needs to use the name of the CSA member when signing up for the tour (since technically, the CSA Share Partner isn’t a member of the CSA as far
as far as the farm is concerned – they don’t exist! 😊).

 Suggestion for somewhere to eat before or after your Green Thumb Farm visit (this is where I’ll be going 😊)


Barrow Food House

https://barrowfoodhouse.com/

 My go-to place (Bay Burger in Sag Harbor) has gone and been replaced by Ed’s Lobster Roll (a NYC chain). â˜č But am very pleased with this replacement (reasonably priced for the area and some local farm-to-table food used
they have a farm in the back of the property).

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