Happy Spring!
If you didn’t get an email regarding working at the CSA this week,
you’re not on the schedule.
CSA weather report…
HOT and HUMID – heat advisory from noon to 8pm (feels
like 100), Air Quality alert till 11pm (avoid exercising outdoors, etc.)
Do NOT leave your CSA Shares in your car! They
will not be happy, and neither will you when your food doesn’t last as long as
it could. Over 40 degrees in your car and your CSA Share’s not happy (and
inside your car with closed windows it’s probably hotter than you’d think… and
it is – check this out… https://abc7news.com/how-hot-can-it-get-inside-a-car-baby-in-gets/2266627/#:~:text=Here's%20a%20look%20at%20just%20how%20hot%20it%20can%20get%3A&text=When%20it's%2080%20degrees%20outside,and%20119%20after%2030%20minutes
)
Important…if you ever send anyone to the CSA to pick
up food for you, please tell them to BRING BAGS (and make sure at
least one of them is plastic for the wet foods so you don’t get the dry ones
wet which would not be a good thing…will make the foods that don’t want to be
wet rot faster)!
This email includes…
- What
you need to know
- Food
safety and COVID-19…
- Click
activism…it doesn’t necessarily take that much to make a difference!
- How
best to contact the CSA/suzanne
- It’s
not all bad news 😊
- Emergency
situations at the CSA (hurricanes/electronic communication
glitches/medical emergencies, etc.)
- Weight
loss drugs raises heat stroke risks
- What
you actually got last week!
- And
now, for something completely different…
*Anything in any of our CSA 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)…
Most immediate helpful hints…
- Bring at least TWO bags to
the CSA EVERY WEEK for wet and dry food items (and never the
twain should meet)
- When packing up your CSA
food, start at the left side of the long table and work your way to the
right and out the garden door. Why? We set out the food to be packed in
that order so the heaviest food items will be on the bottom of your bag,
and your food won’t get squished (another way to make your food go bad
faster), and if you separate the wet from the dry foods you’re doing
pretty good on having your food last longer! 😊
- When you get your food
home, if it’s in a plastic bag take it OUT of the plastic bag and store
elsewhere…even if it’s in another plastic bag (the original bag will be
wet and your food won’t be happy there for long)
- Plan on using your food in
the order of how long it will reasonably stay fresh.
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. Consider stashing wet and dry bags in every vehicle you
own or might end up driving (or someone would use to pick up for you) and stash
them in the glove compartment, hatch, trunk…whatever 😊 so
you never have to end up not having anything to pack your CSA Share in.
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 –
- Check in at the sign-in
desk with our friendly CSA worker
- 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 (Community Solidarity…read more about them in the CSA
Events email under Tuesdays) that’s waiting to pick it up and get on their way.
Veggie info sheets are added as needed. This is the link to the: Veggie Info Sheets. Print them out, put them 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.
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 11, 2026
- Beans: Black Turtle, dried
– 1 bag
- Radishes – 1 bunch
- Kale – 1 bunch
- Purslane* – 1 bunch
- Lettuce
– 1 head
- Strawberries
Total Items: 6
Flower Share #1
Sweet Williams
Herb Share – June 1A
Mint, Chocolate AND Sage, Purple
*Don’t know how many of you either have eaten Purslane before or
know what it is, but I am THRILLED we’re getting it this week 😊. It’s
been a long time since we’ve gotten this in our CSA Shares. It’s a good source
of Omega 3 Fatty Acids so it’s like eating fish, without the fish (and a heck
of a lot cheaper 😊)!
What’s with all the articles? Unfortunately, I NEVER will find
just one that has all the info that the multiple ones have, AND I want to be as
informed as I can about the foods I eat so am giving you the same info that I
find useful and interesting 😊.
HOWEVER, if you have an issue with having or getting Kidney Stones
(or are very salt sensitive), talk to your doctor before adding Purslane to
your diet (the main issue is its oxalic acid content…though boiling any oxalic
acid food at least lessens, if not eliminates, the oxalic acid being a
problem), and I’d advise everyone to read this as a good general article for
the pros, cons and suggestions how to use it…
https://draxe.com/nutrition/purslane/
Am a fan or Dr. Axe as he is an alternative doctor but also goes
over the conventional medical info too.
And according to this article, if you add Yogurt to a Purslane
dish, the Yogurt will lower the effects of the oxalates! I learn something new
every day whether I want to or not 😊!
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/purslane#TOC_TITLE_HDR_6
AMAZING health benefits of eating Purslane…(some is good but going
overboard and eating too much is pretty much never a good idea 😊)…
https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-purslane
GREAT easy hints and a good looking recipe for a Purslane Dip
(yum! 😊)…
https://ourpermaculturelife.com/20-ways-eat-purslane/
Easy hints on what to do with it (Salads, Soups, etc.)…
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/what-to-do-cook-with-purslane-article
Good source of recipes using Purslane…
https://foragerchef.com/category/wild-green-recipes/verdolagas-purslane/
Here's a study talking about all the good things in Purslane…
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3934766/
And it’s a great source of Vitamin A and E!
https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS1484
HOWEVER…unless you’re an experienced forager, there’s something
that LOOKS like Purslane that you might find growing on your property or
elsewhere but it isn’t and it is POISONOUS. So don’t go eating
something if you’re not totally sure what it is, it’s not worth it…
https://www.healthygreensavvy.com/spurge-vs-purslane/
Even though it’s been a while since the word “pandemic” has been
bandied about, people are still getting COVID and other illness. And the
lessons we learned during the past few years can still come in handy today to
avoid basic things like colds and the flu.
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…
After keeping the CSA going thru 2020 and 2021 while the Cinema
Arts Centre was closed (with everyone staying healthy using the simple
practices of wearing face coverings, hand washing, and social distancing), this
is where we are now at this moment in time…
- Face coverings are
optional
- Hand washing upon entering
the theater is recommended (it’s always a good idea in preventing COVID as
well as the flu and colds)
Why COVID HATES soap (works better than hand sanitizer or gloves),
and we’re talking plain soap, NOT antibacterial soap (the use of which causes
antibiotic resistance which could kill us all ☹)…
https://healthmatters.nyp.org/how-does-handwashing-with-soap-kill-the-coronavirus/
- Will try and keep the CSA
area relatively uncrowded if any future outbreaks of any infectious
diseases occur
- Enter near the Box Office
entrance, and exit thru the door that leads out to the Cinema garden and
upper parking lot stairs
A. Ban New GMO Frankenfoods Made with Synthetic Biology (a.k.a “Precision
Fermentation”). It’s about time
someone stood up to Monsanto (now Bayer’s) plot to replace real farms with
genetically engineered synthetic Frankenfoods! https://advocacy.organicconsumers.org/page/59366/action/1?chain
B. Join me in telling Sec. Kennedy that GMOs should not be GRAS (Generally
Recognized as Safe)! On March 10, 2025, Health & Human Services Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., promised to close the “generally recognized as safe”
(GRAS) loophole that allows dangerous food additives to enter the marketplace
without premarket safety testing. This could mean genetically modified
organisms (GMOs), given a blanket GRAS exemption in 1992, might finally be
safety tested https://advocacy.organicconsumers.org/page/81232/action/1?chain
First thing you might think is…I don’t need or want this info.
- You’re scheduled to help out at the CSA and
something comes up at the last minute and you need to cancel
- Something comes up and you can’t make it to the
CSA at all and you’d like to see if someone can take your CSA Share and
hold on to it till you could pick it up from them
You get the idea 😊.
I am not a 24/7 connected person, have no desire to be, and try
and keep my CSA and personal communications separate, so…
- Phone…you can leave a message on my landline
(yes, they do still exist 😊) at 631-421-4864
at any time 24/7 (keep the ringer off when sleeping), BUT on Thursdays if
you leave a message it needs to be before noon otherwise I won’t hear it
till I get back from the CSA Thursday night
- Email – you can email 24/7 at gtCSAhuntington@gmail.com but
again, if you email after noon on Thursday, I won’t get it till I get back
from the CSA Thursday night
- On Thursdays I am totally incommunicado from
noon to 3:30pm so if you want to get in touch with me between those times,
the best option is to make sure you call or email me before noon OR wait
till after 3:30pm and call the Cinema Box Office at 631-423-7611 xt. 0 to
reach me up till 7:30pm
- On Thursdays after 3:30pm (and up to
7:30pm), call the Box Office at the Cinema Arts Centre at 631-423-7610 xt.
0 and ask to speak to someone at the CSA and they will connect the call to
the Café and we’ll talk to you directly. If you leave a message with
someone at the Box Office, we might not get it in a timely manner or at
all, as it’s not the Cinema staff’s job to take messages for the CSA.
- FYI – I don’t get emails on my phone at all, and
CSA members aren’t able to text me as I don’t deal with CSA issues on my
cell phone
Consider putting the two phone numbers (suzanne – 631-421-4864 and
the Cinema 631-423-7611 xt. 0) in your phone under “CSA” or “Green Thumb CSA –
Huntington” (or whatever works for you to remember where you put them 😊) and
you can put in the notes the details of when to call, what days to call, etc.
- It’s hurricane season from
June 1st till November 30th (our CSA’s last day is December 10th)!
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 our 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
for us 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 as it could be helpful for you and those of us at the
CSA. Again…show up, and at 3:30pm and 5:30pm if there were no emails
please offer to work if you’re able and available. 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 to 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
on any given week…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, etc., 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!
😊
- If there’s an emergency
situation in progress, consider offering to help out at the CSA whether
you’re asked to or not.
7.Weight loss drugs raise heat stroke risk
https://weather.com/2026/06/10/health/video/glp1-users-face-higher-heat-wave-risks
Also, as humans age the sense of being thirsty lessens and so
dehydration becomes an ongoing concern, and the thought that “I’m not thirsty”
doesn’t match your body’s silent message of, “I need water…HELP!” 😊
Eating seasonally (what we’re getting every week at our CSA) is
one way of combatting possible dehydration issues. Why? Foods grown in warmer
weather like Cucumbers, Lettuces, Sweet Peppers, Summer Squash, all have a lot
of water in them for just this reason. They’re there to help us stay hydrated
during hot weather! Isn’t Mother Nature amazing? 😊
Week #1
June 4, 2026
- Leeks – 1 bunch - $5.75
- Asparagus – 1 bag (1/2
lb.) - $5.00
- Spinach – 1 bag (1/2 lb.)
- $4.50
- Lettuce: Leaf, Green – 1
head - $4.50
- Strawberries – 1 pt. - $6.50
Total Items: 5
Total Amount: $26.25
We pay our farm $23 per week for our CSA share…some weeks we get a
bit more, some a bit less. This week, it was $3.25 over $23.00. I keep track
and it adds up over the course of our 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. Last year it was five and a half week’s worth extra, so we’re
talking $119 worth of food we got gratis. No idea what it might be this season
but in the end…it’s all good! 😊
File under…don’t try this at home kids 😊.
Events…both near and far
*Please keep in mind that any events or services listed do not
necessarily indicate a direct endorsement from Green Thumb Organic Farm or
Green Thumb CSA – Huntington
Saturday, June 13th
10am to noon
CSA gathering – Meet and greet, plus how to make the most of your
CSA Share
Cinema Arts Centre, Sky Room Cafe
423 Park Ave
Huntington
To RSVP – email gtCSAhuntington@gmail.com
OR leave a voice mail at 631-421-4864
Bring a beverage if you’d like (the Sky Room Café will be closed),
get to know your fellow CSA members, and be part of a sharing session for new
members, and not so new CSA members, talking about what we’ve found to be the
best way to make use of our CSA Shares (from how to store, recipe ideas, and
how to preserve…freeze, etc.. And we can chat about what other topics we might
want to have for future CSA Gatherings, other restaurants to put on our CSA
Culinary Extravaganza/Adventurers list 😊(those focusing on local/organic foods or
“ethnic” cuisines).
11am and noon
Green Thumb Farm Spring CSA Farm Tour
Green Thumb Farm
829 Montauk Hwy
Water Mill, NY
To RSVP –
Whether you email or call, the info needed is your name (if you’re
sharing with someone and you’re not the official CSA Member, your name and who
your CSA Share Partner is), which time you want to tour the farm AND the number
of people that will be in your party 😊
Email – gtCSAhuntington@gmail.com
Phone – 631-421-4864 (land line…no text option…no caller ID…can
leave voice messages 24/7)
For CSA members and immediate family only. We get to tour our farm
twice a year and this is the first one. It’s a walking tour of approximately
one hour given by one of our farmers. They don’t do any agritourism so this is
a rare chance to get a behind the scenes tour of how our food is grown, to meet
the people growing our CSA food, and to ask our farmers if you have any
questions about our CSA food OR about your own home gardens. For everyone
attending the CSA tour, there’s a 10% discount on all purchases at the farm
stand AND they have an amazing selection of seedlings for your home garden.
After the last tour, anyone who’d like is welcome to do one of two things…1)
eat at the delicious food truck called Hardwood Poke Co. BUT, if they’re sold
out after the noon tour there’s Plan B – 2) accompany us to a most excellent
restaurant called Barrow Food House in Aquebogue/Riverhead (on the way back).
It’s a farm-to-table place that’s very reasonably priced for the area (can get
a meal for $16 to $26 on average).
Hardwood Poke Co…
Barrow Food House…
Sunday, June 21st
HUDSON RIVER MUSIC FESTIVAL
Wednesday, June 24th
6pm to 8pm
CSA Culinary Extravaganza – June edition
Blind Bat Bistro Brewery
94 Washington Drive
Centerport
To RSVP – there’s only 7 spots left so if you want to attend,
respond ASAP 😊. If there’s
enough interest, will ask if we could do this again if we fill up.
Whether you email or call, the info needed is your name (if you’re
sharing with someone and you’re not the official CSA Member, your name and who
your CSA Share Partner is), AND the number of people that will be in your party
😊
Email – gtCSAhuntington@gmail.com
Phone – 631-421-4864 (land line…no text option…no caller ID…can
leave voice messages 24/7)
This will be the LAST event at Blind Bat as the owners, Paul &
Regina, are opting out of the restaurant business so get it while you can!
They’ll have a special menu created for us, we’ll pre-order, and have a
delicious last supper of homemade, local and/or organic food, and beer/wine.
It’s a small eatery so the first 8 people to sign up can attend (capacity is 16
and there’s 9 folks already on the list).
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