CSA - Week 1

I had been wanting to join a CSA for YEARS. There were some available in the New York City area, but I never participated because I didn't think I could get to some pick up location at the same time weekly. After moving, it was one of the first things I looked into. I looked through the offerings on Local Harvest, and signed up for the first one that opened up applications for the spring/summer season. But that was way back in NOVEMBER, and I still had to wait until MAY for the CSA to start! This is totally normal, and how the whole process works, I was just so excited to get going with it.

CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture," which has been increasing in popularity for the past decade, and has really started to boom in the past couple of years. A farm accepts shareholders who pay a bulk amount at the beginning of the growing season. Many farms offer full- or half-shares, depending on the size of your household. The farmer uses that money for seeds and supplies, etc., and when harvest season comes around, the shareholders receive a weekly box of vegetables -- and/or eggs, meat, flowers, or whatever the specific program offers -- for the length that the program runs. I like it especially because I know that my money goes directly to a local farmer, and I know I am getting the freshest, in-season produce that is grown right in my area.

I am looking forward to the challenge of cooking with what is available, rather than purchasing out-of-season sub-par ingredients that have been marked up a million times. One draw back that some people might find is that you might not have control over vegetables you receive. A picky eater might want to locate a CSA where you have the option to switch out items or one where you purchase credits and can use them weekly for the specific produce you want. Personally, I hope to find some mysteries in my box this summer. I encourage anyone interested in finding out more to take a look at the Local Harvest website.

As for my CSA, I think I got lucky in the program I joined. I am getting a half share weekly from Elysian Fields Farm, which will provide me with yummy veggies for the next 20 weeks. The farm practices organic and sustainable agriculture, which is a huge selling point to me. This is my first weeks takings:

Strawberries, Winterbor Kale, Boston Lettuce, Pink Beauty Radishes, Baby Turnips, Spinach

I've been snacking on the strawberries and radishes straight up, and have used the lettuce for lunchtime salads. Last night I used the turnips and their greens for a simple soup from The Art of Simple Food (and it was GOOD). I am thinking of trying kale chips with the kale, and the spinach is reserved for a bed for my potato salad I'm bringing to a family dinner tonight (which also includes someofthem radishes).

Does anyone else participate in a CSA? Let me know. I love hearing about different types of programs.

Sometimes, I knit

My knitting mojo has been crappy in 2009. Oh yes, I've been knitting for sure, but every project is either not working out, or going painfully slow (hello Riding to Avalon [Ravelry link]), or riddled with mindless knitting mistakes. I haven't finished one project yet. Not one, son.

I've been working on a baby gift, and whizzing right along, until I looked back, and realized I had missed a a few rows of garter stitch along the button band, very noticable. $#&^%&%%! I sure as heck did not intend to frog back that far when things were finally moving along, and especially with a lace pattern. I decided to tackle dropping the stitches and weaving them back up in the correct order.

I actually had to work my head around how to do this for garter stitch (I've done it countless times for stockinette). And lo, it is simple: Just alternate between inserting the crochet hook from the front and the back (I turned my work for each row) to alternate purl and knit stitches. That might be obvious to some, but I had to Google to double check...

Wow, it worked!
Bonus round: Can you tell what I'm knitting? I bet you can!

Mountain Retreat

Did I ever mention that I joined a knitting group? I did. Shortly after moving back to NC, I joined up with the Durham String Thing. And lucky thing too, as the core group is quite active in getting together and planning projects, gatherings, and outings.

The weekend before last, 9 of us headed to Saluda, NC for a short knitting retreat. Off-season, cabins can be had for a song (or a crocheted pair of deer blinders). We spent two nights in the Bear Lake Lodge, with a field trip to Asheville to visit Yarn Paradise and Earth Guild (and a yummy, yummy dinner at Tupelo Honey). We even got some knitting done The trip was completed with a ukulele jam session and a stop at the Folk Art Center on the way home.

Foodie Friday :: Recipes

Recipes recently bookmarked from the blogroll:

Carrot Soup, Walnut Miso Noodles from 101 Cookbooks
Cuban Picadillo from Bitchincamero
Ginger Spice Pulled Pork from Coconut & Lime
Cranberry Blood Orange Loaf from Everybody Likes Sandwiches
Red Chicken Curry w. Rice Noodles, Tadka Dal, Ful Medames, Spaghetti All'Ubriaco, West Indian Rice and Beans from Serious Eats
Baked Shrimp in Tomato Feta Sauce, from Simply Recipes
Artichoke-Olive Crostini from Smitten Kitchen

Other links of interest:
The One Block Diet
Stovetop energy-saving tips
How to use up the leftovers from your CSA bin
Homegrown Herb and Tea review

Drops Spring/Summer '09 picks

New patterns are up at Drops. Lots of clean designs, lots of stockinette... just my thing! Here are some of my favorites:

Clockwise from top left:
112-26: Jacket with V-neck and ¾ or long sleeves in ”Classic Alpaca”
111-18: Jacket with 3/4 sleeves in ”Alpaca.”
112-10: Knitted DROPS tunic in ” Bomull-Lin.”
0-538: Tunic in stocking st in ”Alpaca” and ”Vivaldi” (metric pattern).
112-11: Jacket in 2 threads ”Kid-Silk.”
111-7: Jacket with raglan in ”Silke Alpaca.”

Yikes! I have to stop looking because I just keep seeing more and more that I like. I'm already in the middle of the longest stockinette project ever (post coming.... supposedly, someday). Gotta get that finished before starting anything new!

Foodie Friday :: The Greenhorns

I've had this preview for The Greenhorns bookmarked for a while now, and thought it would be a cool thing to share for FF. The documentary will take a look at the current movement of young men and women returning to farming culture and who can be found working the land rather than working the office. I'm looking forward to seeing this.



A snippit from the director's statement:

Our job in this generation is to rethink, recycle, retrofit and restore our land and our community; the Greenhorns have come to this revelation and taken action. This film is a way to convene a movement that is for now quite thinly spread out on the ground. Population density of young farmers might be as low as 1-2 per county in America. Yet, once seen as a whole in the film, you will find it an attractive and coherent sub-culture: proud, strong, tough, and a little bit nuts.

Sheep Shearing Day (2/14/09)

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of visiting Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty, NC for their annual open sheep shearing. It's about an hours drive from Durham, through some lovely rural areas, which made me long for a home in the countryside.

Rising Meadow raises Corriedale, Morrit, and Pulled Dorsit sheep, which create a lovely natural palate of neutral fleeces -- from fluffy whites, to caramels, to a deep chocolate browns. It's enough to make me want to take up spinning! Although I managed to hold off (don't need another addiction right at this moment, heh).

To shear the sheep, the shearers would pull a sheep from the corral, flip them onto their backs, and start shearing away, turning the sheep as they went. They used old school hand shears, which to me looked terrifying but they handled them with ease. After shearing off the entire fleece in one large piece, another person would bring it outside of the barn to be skirted (picked through for any leftover vegetable matter (or other) matter. Then the fleece would be weighed and put into a large garbage bag to be sold.

I got to pet my first llama. Every field with sheep also held a few llamas, who offer protection from coyotes and other predators.

Although the activity of the day was sheep shearing, they did have the added attraction of showing off a few lambs born just that morning. They are adorable! They mostly were sleeping, with their mothers staying over them protectively. The barn had classical music piped through the speakers to help with the calming mood, even with hundreds (seriously, hundreds) of visitors coming through.

Some more photos (and then see more here):

Christmas Poffertjes

At Christmas time, Oma gave my parents a kit for making Poffertjes. Poffertjes are a Dutch snack of small, silver dollar-sized sweet pancakes. They are made in a special Poffertjes pan, which has round divits where you pour the batter. Apparently, these treats are seasonal, and are served particularly in the summer months.

The kit contained a mix, to which we add some milk and egg. There is a bottle which we were supposed to use to dole out the batter into the pan cleanly (the nozzle kept clogging so we didn't really use it properly).

When they are just done on the bottom, and before the top has set, you use 2 forks and try to flip them quickly. It's a tricky maneuver.

Shake on some powdered sugar (Oma tells me I use too much... like that's even possible!)

Eat AT LEAST 25. They're small and tasty, and after all that flipping, you've surely worked up an appetite.