chardgirl

mini pumpkins and butternut squash and cabbage, parsley, romaine lettuce, potatoes, eggplant, radishes, paste tomatoes.... A California CSA box this week

I love this thread! I've been only lurking so far... About the pumpkin: baking (foil and or oil to cover the cut part) or put the cut side down in water in pyrex, or saran wrap and microwave as is suggested, I've never tried that one since I don't use saran wrap much. If you've got a food processor around anyway (possibly for some of the pasta project? I've never made fresh pasta so I don't know...) you could puree the cooked pumpkin and freeze it for a future pie/bread/soup. cg

Another Vote for mint tea, here's some text I wrote out for our own bumper crop last year to encourage folks to try it: Mint Tisane, otherwise known as the delicious and cheap-if-it's-in-your-garden Fresh Mint Tea Clean several sprigs of mint. Put into a teapot or a large glass measuring cup. Pour just-boiled water over mint, let steep 3 or so minutes, drain through small tea strainer. Drink hot or chill first. Options: you can add honey or sugar if you want a sweeter taste. You can also mix this 1/2 and 1/2 with lemonade. Fresh mint tea tastes different than tea made with dry mint leaves.

thanks for this link, they are using one of our photos and didn't even ask! I've emailed them a friendly reminder. another garlic scape use I ate at a restaurant last week: part of a fritto misto (I hope I spelled that correctly.) The garlic scapes were a bit strong, I would blanch it first maybe? or just roast them for a nother dish and keep the asparagus and squash blossom as part of the f. misto. cg

our farm sells garlic scapes. Here's a webpage that includes recipes and a photo: Garlic Scape Recipes with photo cg

Lambsquarters! Below is a photo for anyone who's interested. We sell them to the restaurants and some at the SF farmers market, but I won't let Mr. Farmer put them in the CSA box hardly ever, although they are tender and yummy.

Our CSA has also been heavy on leaves: I recommend soup and other cooking uses asap: it helps reduce the bulk of green that looks at your when you open the fridge. And or make a large salad and take it to a party... This week in our CSA box (we think: we'll see if the heat and the field has a different idea tomorrow): strawberries, chard or spinach, scallions, broccoli, radishes, carrots, basil... Basil before tomatoes! That's what I call pesto season. cg

While I'm waiting for other's thoughts on radishes, I'll admit my favorite way to eat radishes (I'm talking the small garden variety here, not the larger daikons and so forth) is to slice them in half or thinner and put them on buttered bread. Heaven! When bread and butter are not part of a day's plans I dress them with a simple sesame oil/green onion/rice vinegar concoction. Chopped cilantro if available is an nice addition... cg

Today there is a front page article in USA TODAY about CSA farms. I know that some may not take this newspaper seriously (ok, I admit I often don't) but this is a good thing for CSA farms to get this kind of coverage. CSA article in USA Today Spring is still very much here, we're madly planting out the yummy summer crops! in our CSA box in Central CA this week: -Sorrel -Arugula (Wed) -Rapini (Thursday) -Fava Beans -Bacon Avocados -Seascape Strawberries -Red Leaf Lettuces -Carrots and lastly for any of you anywhere who have a CSA share, I have a recipe database that might be useful at times: A-Z Vegetable Database especially made for seasonal eaters Tell us where your CSA farm is if you reply to this thread about what's in YOUR box! cg

Yes, this is the best way to find rhubarb! best of luck to you. If my parents had any in their westside back yard, I'd send you over. cg

My experience with bitter artichokes is that they aren't quite cooked enough, that's one possibility for the bitter artichoke problem. cg

We own an organic farm in central CA: we don't grow rhubarb or pickling cukes because so many people have fond memories of these easy to grow crops coming from a bountiful neighbors (grandmas, etc) garden in their youth they don't want to pay for it. We still have to pay the fuel costs, labor costs (ouch!) and so on to grow and bring these things to market, so we keep things simple and just don't grow them because we don't want to be chewed out at the farmers market for high prices for cheap crops. It's easier not to grow them at all! cg

We grow an Italian culinary variety of dandelion, a cousin of the weed found in lawns in the US. (I don't know about the weeds in other countries...) Here's a photo, the variety is 'Catalogna'. This is much much better eating than the weeds, for wine and jelly it may not make as much of a difference. cg

my favorite homemade 'refridgerator' pickles I make with rice wine vinegar and onions and cukes and a few spices. Serve those with a great cheese or two and forget about dinner. cg

Where is your 'most goats' idea from? There are ranches in Texas and neighboring states that have 10,000 heads of meat goats: bred mostly for the 'ethnic' market in the Eastern US. We have a few meat goats: they love our abundance of poison oak and make a nice employee thank you gift at the end of a season when it's time to make a birria party! This is a young boer goat on our ranch: cg

Yes, dramatically more than 'normal'. But I didn't want to whine about considering where most of you are. cg ps my husband and I secretly dream of farming in the northern prarie so we would REALLY get 4-5 months off every year. We harvest and sell 52 weeks a year.

central California, organic farm. We've never had so little at this time, we're not even going to (our year round) farmers market this weekend. What we do have some of: green garlic, artichokes, fava beans, kale, chard, herbs, sorrel. cg

My dreams came true when I saw you were doing a blog this week. THANKS for all the work. I love your reasons for living in Japan, and for raising your kids there. We started homeschooling recently in CA in order to attain some of those goals ourselves, with a large piece being control over our children's food offerings! They were eating light at breakfast, and their friends were bringing packaged crap extra in their lunches because they felt sorry for their friends. That alone is reason enough to pull them out of school, but I can only admit that on e-gullet! Food, Japan, kids: Kristin your thread is not only fascinating to me, it's helpful with my son. He's just turned 10 years old, is passionate about all things Japanese, but is one of those picky kids who would subsist on quesadillas and chocolate milk if we let him. (He'll eat tofu, blueberries, and carrots when he's hungry enough an there's no other options. Yes, it's one of those twisted life circumstances as we own and live entirely off our organic vegetable farm.) SO we're trying to introduce him to Japanese food. The soba struck out because it was sweet (my 8 year old daughter loved it), the tempura: he claims to have liked it but I"m not going to be making tempura at home very often, if ever. Any other ideas on what he might like with what little info you have? This is a big favor, instead you could at some point this week just let us know some of your children's favorite foods. Thanks much!

I very much like Chez Panisse Vegetables, and the others in the Chez Panisse family. I just looked on ABE books (www.abebooks.com) and they have copies for 10ish dollars plus S/H cg ps the library idea is a very good one: I try this often. I've avoided several purchases I didn't need or want, and found a few gems by browsing the cookbooks too.

And a lovely fennel photo at the top of our fennel recipe page: Fennel Photo/Recipes

Hello, I'll post a couple times if I get to a computer, and certainly upon my return. I arrived in Italy last night, I'm thrilled to be here. Before the Salone, I'll be a 'delegate' at Terra Madre. Today I'm going to explore the farmers market in Torino, if my guide book and sketchy knowledge of Italian will allow me to find it, stay tuned. I look forward to hearing from other attenders of the salone. two workshops I hope to attend are: Bagna Cauda and Presidium Vegetables where they go into the history of this dish and then sample with cardoons, turnips, cipole, etc. Also I'm interested in the guided tasting of the extra virgin oils of Lazio. There are LOTS of wine and other boozy workshops, but I'm mostly a food girl, with little knowlegde of wine (ok, no knowledge) so I hope the true wine geeks will attend and report for those of you with a thirst! stay tuned... ps my email while here is chardgirl27 at yahoo

I'm enjoying this thread as much as everyone else, thanks for blogging! On the the other side of the Pacific (near San Francisco) my children's school also has a sports day, they call it Olympic day. There's a children's book in English written by Alan Say called "Bicycle Man" that's about the undokai, I have a copy and lend it to my children's teacher each year. My son is currently fascinated by all things Japan (he's 9) so I'm enjoying reading this for the food, OF COURSE, that's why I'm here, but also to see what's it's like raising children in Japan with one American parent. Said son has a classmate who's father is from Japan and her mom is from Texas, they spend a week every year teaching a unit about Japan.... Again, thanks for taking the time. The photos are a special treat!!!

I'm also attending the Salone di Gusto for the first time. I'll also be attending Terra Madre beforehand, as an organic farming delegate. I'll report back, with photos too. thanks to Russ for the advice... I'm pinching myself everyday to remind myself I'm truly going, I CANT WAIT. cg

Abra: I have fantasies of you being MY personal chef, and now I remember you mentioned somewhere you were. I love reading all your ideas of how you cook up core foods! about meetings: right now they help me because I like my leader, I like being a loudmouth about fresh food (I try not to complain about others suggestions, just make my own that include farmers markets, in season veggies and fruits, etc.), and I like the over 70 crowd that attend the meeting I go to: a couple of weeks ago they broke into a song from WW2 (that world war, not weight watchers!). "We did it before and we can do it again" or something like that... I think I will tire of the meetings and start the e-version in a few months though, I like hearing about it from y'all. -cg

I do continue to go to meetings, and enjoy some things about them, but I ignore much of the food recommendations. Most of America is clueless about what good food tastes like anymore, I'm convinced of that. Gardeners understand, and egulleters, of course. That's why I LOVE this thread. I just get depressed when I read the forums on Weight Watchers.... Tonight we're going to have guests again. Only 2! I'm going to make mustard chard (0 points: cook up the garlic in spray oil, add the rinsed chopped chard, then when just about cooked (3-4 minutes? on med. high heat) add 2 T dijon mustard. Really really good. You can also add cream cheese, but I won't tonight.... Roasted bell peppers (all colors but green), tomato salad, and an eggplant thing with preserved lemons and modified amount of olive oil. And sausages and ice cream, but I'll just have to be strong on those two fronts. Nothing Tastes as Good as it Feels to be Thin. (At least not all the time. It depends on who's cooking!)