Happy Autumn!
We still could use one person to help out at the CSA this
week from 3:30pm to 5:30pm, so either respond to this email before noon today
(or leave a voice message at 631-421-4864), OR show up at 3:30pm and ask if we
still need help.
CSA weather report…cool (unless it’s not 😊)
Important…if you send anyone to the CSA to
pick up food for you, please tell them to BRING BAGS and a FACE
COVERING!
This email includes…
- What you need to know
- Food safety and COVID-19
- It’s time to buy
Chocolate Halloween candy (if you haven’t already 😊)…
- Emergency situations at
the CSA (hurricanes/electronic communication glitches/etc.)
- 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 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…and a FACE COVERING.
Time – 3:30pm to 7:30pm
Place РSky Room Caf̩ 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 –
- Please wear a face covering when entering the building,
and proceed to the restrooms to wash your hands with soapy water (more
effective than hand sanitizers…COVID hates plain soap…NOT
anti-bacterial…the most)
- Check in at the desk with our friendly CSA worker (if
there are more than 3 people/couples/families of CSA members in the CSA,
you may be asked to wait in the hallway…socially distanced…before
entering)
- 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 after the CSA closes for the evening, the food is
donated to a local food organization (Community Solidarity…see Events email for
more details about them). And if you accidentally took too much, please get in
touch ASAP (email or phone) so the food can be returned to its rightful owner
in short order.
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 #22
October 28, 2021
- Celery Root (Celeriac)* - 1 pc.
- Beans, Snap - 1 bag
- Broccoli** – 1 pc. total
- Peppers, Sweet – 1 bag
- Lettuce – head
- Kale – 1 bunch
Total Items: 6
Herb Share – October 2B
Mizuna, Red AND Parsley
*Some great tips on preparing, and recipes for, Celery
Root/Celeriac…
https://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/tips-and-tricks-for-cooking-with-celeriac/
BEWARE of the temperature conversions as this is a British
website and they use Celsius and we us Fahrenheit so 180C = 356F (basically
400F is what I’d use)
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-cook-celeriac
Health benefits and contraindications…
https://draxe.com/nutrition/celeriac/
**Watch out for possible (not probable) worms in your
Broccoli (if it’s good enough for the worms to want, it’s good enough to us to
eat! 😊), and in case there are any here’s a way to
get them out (I will just soak my Broccoli automatically before preparing for
“just in case”)…
https://commonsensehome.com/get-worms-out-of-broccoli/
https://joybileefarm.com/getting-rid-of-broccoli-worms/
2.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…
3.It’s time to buy Halloween candy (if you haven’t
stocked up already 😊)…
When it comes to Chocolate, the USA ranks 11th in
Chocolate consumption worldwide. Switzerland is #1 with its citizens consuming
over 20 lbs. of Chocolate a year, while we Americans eat a measly 11.64 lbs. on
average per year.
So, if you’re buying any Chocolate for Halloween (or any
time of the year), consider buying from these green companies…
And here’s another good source for where to buy Chocolate
from companies either doing the right things, or seriously working on doing the
right things (and not just providing empty promises)…
https://www.greenamerica.org/end-child-labor-cocoa/chocolate-scorecard
And file under “I learn something new everyday whether I
want to or not” 😊, just found this
website with the longest list of Chocolate sources that I’ve found so far (and
have eaten stuff from a number of these Chocolate companies over the years)…
https://www.slavefreechocolate.org/ethical-chocolate-companies
Why? There’s over 2 million child laborers in growing and
harvesting Cocoa, and Hershey’s, Mars and Nestle promised over TWENTY YEARS ago
to stop using Cocoa harvested by children (and they basically haven’t)…
Some of these children (now young adults) are suing these
companies (and a few more) with a child slavery lawsuit in the US!
Lastly, in general choose certified organic over non-organic
Chocolate, because at least the child laborers working in certified organic
Cocoa plantations won’t be sprayed with toxic pesticides (see above article). I
noticed that Hershey is now selling USDA certified organic Chocolate. Still
using child labor, but at least those kids aren’t getting doused with
carcinogenic, etc., pesticides on a regular basis. You can make a real
difference in the lives of children in another part of the world from the brand
of Chocolate you choose to buy for eating or baking.
4.Emergency situations at the CSA (hurricanes/electronic
communication glitches/etc.)
- It’s hurricane season! Farmers are more hardcore than
postal workers so your food will be at the CSA between 3:30pm and 7:30pm
on Thursdays, pretty much no matter what. Hurricane Sandy didn’t stop the
CSA. We were at the Unitarian Fellowship in Huntington and there was no
power and there were tree limbs around the property BUT I checked out the
building to make sure there was no danger in being in the building or
entering the property, and with flashlights brought by me, we had our CSA.
If there’s no emails…show up anyway. If there’s some problem/issue with
the food arriving there should be a note on the door of the Cinema letting
you know what’s up (if we’re not already in there waiting for you). In a
storm situation…please bring a flashlight/lantern. It could be helpful for
you and those of us at the CSA. Again…show up and 3:30pm and 5:30pm if
there were no emails and offer to work if you’re able and available. And
if you feel it’s not safe/wise for you to venture out, know that any food
left at the end of the CSA will be picked up and donated by the gang at
Community Solidarity. They have NEVER missed a food distribution day even
in snow and ice storms (regardless of the weather…hungry people will still
be hungry if there’s no food to eat).
- Electronic communication is FAR from perfect. IF you
get no CSA emails or responses to your emails…come to the CSA anyway. It
could be a problem with my laptop, etc. Stuff happens.
- Anything else that might come up (these days…who
knows??? 😊)…no emails, come anyway
and will do our best to keep everyone informed as best we can (look for
notes on front door of Cinema if nothing else). The CSA has always
happened every week during our 20+ seasons…(lifted from the postal worker
motto 😊) - Neither snow nor
rain nor heat nor gloom stays these farmers & CSA crew from the swift
completion of their appointed rounds…to get you your CSA Shares!
5.What you actually got last week
Week #21
October 21, 2021
- Cabbage: Savoy - 1 head - $4.25
- Beans, Snap: Dragon Tongue* OR Romano – 1 bag total -
$4.25
- Squash, Summer: Costata Romaesco, Gold, Kousa, Yellow,
Zucchini – 3 pc. total - $1.50
- Radishes: French Breakfast – 1 bunch - $3.75
- Broccoli: Green OR Purple** – 1 pc. total - $4.00
- Kale: Lacinato*** – 1 bunch - $4.50
Total Items: 6
Total Amount: $22.25
(We pay $20 per week for our CSA share…some weeks we get a
bit more, some a bit less. This week, it was $2.25 more. So at the moment we’ve
already gotten $58.25 (2 CSA Shares + 😊) more than we paid for.
This adds up over the course of the CSA season, and 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! 😊)
*Dragon Tongue Bean info and recipe…(if you boil/blanch
them, the purple color will disappear…to keep the distinctive color pattern,
eat raw, marinate in Italian salad dressing, or steam very lightly)
https://cookingontheweekends.com/dragon-tongue-bean-salad-recipe-with-spicy-honey-mustard/
another Dragon Tongue recipe…
https://food52.com/recipes/63288-dragon-tongue-beans
**Watch out for possible (not probable) worms in your
Broccoli (if it’s good enough for the worms to want, it’s good enough to us to
eat! 😊), and in case there are any here’s a way to
get them out (I will just soak my Broccoli automatically before preparing for
“just in case”)…
https://commonsensehome.com/get-worms-out-of-broccoli/
https://joybileefarm.com/getting-rid-of-broccoli-worms/
***Lacinato Kale recipe…
https://www.purewow.com/recipes/kale-salad-persimmons-crispy-chickpeas-fried-shallots
6.And now, for something completely different…
The Halloween edition (though no idea why #5 is in here…not
scary at all unless you have phyllophobia – a fear of leaves 😊)…
Events…both near and far
Thursday, October 28th
10am to 11am
IEatGreen radio show
To listen to the show live (or listen to the archived
programs)…
Hosted by Long Islander Bhavani Jharoff. Older shows can be
accessed in archives.
Friday, October 29th
6pm to 7pm
Natural Alternatives
WUSB-FM/90.1 FM
Rotates with Healthy Planet radio with Huntington area
resident Bob DiBenedetto, and Dr. Eugene Zampirone of Dr. Z Naturally.
Saturday, October 30th
7:30am to 12:30pm
Huntington Farmers Market
228 Main St. (Elm Street parking lot)
Huntington
Runs till some point in November.
Noon to 1pm
Food Chain Radio
https://metrofarm.com/food-chain-radio-3/
Host Michael Olsen always has interesting guests on the
issues of food, food politics, health, and related topics. Check out the
archives.
Sunday, October 31st
2pm to 6pm
Long Island Vegan Pop-Up
3434 Hempstead Tpke.
Levittown
FREE
For more info…
https://longislandveganpopup.com/#wpcf7-f1407-o1
100% vegan market (outdoors) to shop, eat, drink, learn and
have fun!
Tuesday, November 2nd
10am to 11am
Green Street Radio
WBAI-FM/99.5FM
To listen live or check out the archives…
https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=365
Join Long Islanders Doug & Patti Wood (founders of the
Port Washington Farmer’s Market…the only all organic greenmarket in New York
State), in their weekly show featuring conversations on health and sustainable
living.
7pm – Volunteers
8:15pm – Drive-thru distribution
Huntington Food Share
Community Solidarity
Fairground Ave. & 6th St.
Huntington Station
FREE
For more info…
https://communitysolidarity.org/foodshares/huntington
To volunteer…
https://communitysolidarity.org/volunteer
Or to make a donation (they REALLY need a new truck)…
https://communitysolidarity.org/donate/funds
Community Solidarity (formerly Long Island Food Not Bombs)
is an amazing group, doing much needed good works. These are the folks our CSA
donates food to (and have for the last several years). If you’d like to
volunteer, make a donation (they REALLY, REALLY need a new truck), or have need
of their services (or know people who might)…get in touch/get information via
their website (listed above).
They also need/accept donations of the following…Bicycles,
Books, Clothing, Flowers (good for general mental health…taking care of the
mind AND the body), Food, Medical Care (is there a Doctor or Dentist in the
house? 😊), Plants/Seedlings, School Supplies, Toys
and more. For details on donating items, please go to the Home Page, scroll to
Donate, and read the appropriate listing (and scroll to Material Goods to see
the topics not initially listed)…
https://communitysolidarity.org/
Here’s founder Jon Stepanian’s TED Talk (TEDxNYU) on
Community Solidarity and Hunger Relief…
https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_stepanian_community_solidarity_hunger_relief
