Soul Fire Farm CSA Newsletter
Week #5 – July 27, 2012
Contents of Share this Week
- green string beans – 1 1/4 lbs
- yellow string beans – 1/2 lb
- cucumbers – 4-5
- chard – 1 bunch
- collard greens or tatsoi – 1 bunch
- lettuce – heads or cut greens
- green onions – 1 bunch
- scallions – 1 bunch
- basil – 1 bunch
- parsley – 1 bunch
- eggs or sprouts (mung bean, green lentil, spicy mustard mix, chick pea)
Announcements
- Your CSA is delivered every Friday with one exception. CSA delivery will take place MONDAY AUGUST 20th instead of Friday August 17. Same times – 2:15 WHMS, 2:30 TVHS, 3-4:00 Albany, 4:00+ Troy. So the upcoming delivery dates are 8/3, 8/10, 8/20, and 8/24. The farmers are going family camping for the week including 8/17. (What?!? Vacation? Yes, vacation.)
- Please return your boxes, egg cartons, and clean, clear plastic bags. Thank you so much!
- Remember that you are always welcome to visit socially and/or to volunteer. Give a call to schedule a time.
Recipe Ideas
Miso Mayo Dip
This is a brilliantly simple recipe from our shareholder Simon Burke-Lipiczky
Thought I might remind you of the easiest way to eat a pound of raw green beans by yourself… I learned this from a Japanese housewife Engish student of mine when I lived in Tokyo a 15 years ago.
You will need: 3 cucumbers, 1 clove garlic, ¼ red onion, ½ cup plain yogurt or keifer, ¼ cup white vinegar, a little less than a ¼ cup olive oil, 1 tbsp mayonnaise, ½ tsp cumin, and salt/pepper to taste. Add mint if you like!
The first step is to thinly slice the cucumbers and place them in a bowl with about a teaspoon of salt. The cukes need a good sweat before they join the rest of the ingredients in order to not water down the final product. Let them chill (like a cucumber) to shed some of their water content for about 20 minutes.
While the cucumbers are busy working with the salt, chop 1 clove of garlic and thinly slice ¼ of a red onion. I usually go light on these since when the prepared salad is in the fridge for a day or two, this flavoring becomes pretty dominant, so depending on taste preference, you could bump up the garlic and onion quantity.
In a large bowl whisk ¼ cup white vinegar, ½ cup of plain yogurt, 1 tbsp of mayonnaise, ½ tsp of cumin, and about ¼ cup of olive oil together. Add garlic, onion. Salt and pepper to taste. To add another dynamic to this dish, chop about half a bundle of English mint if you like and stir into the dressing.
Once the cucumbers are done sitting for the 20 minutes, rinse the salt off of the slices and push against a colander to drain any access moisture. Combine the dressing and the cucumbers and set in the fridge for a while so the flavors can blend.
Food Justice News
Six basic principles of community food security (From the Community Food Security Coalition):
- Low Income Food Needs
Like the anti-hunger movement, CFS is focused on meeting the food needs of low income communities, reducing hunger and improving individual health. - Broad Goals
CFS addresses a broad range of problems affecting the food system, community development, and the environment such as increasing poverty and hunger, disappearing farmland and family farms, inner city supermarket redlining, rural community disintegration, rampant suburban sprawl, and air and water pollution from unsustainable food production and distribution patterns. - Community focus
A CFS approach seeks to build up a community’s food resources to meet its own needs. These resources may include supermarkets, farmers’ markets, gardens, transportation, community-based food processing ventures, and urban farms to name a few. - Self-reliance/empowerment
Community food security projects emphasize the need to build individuals’ abilities to provide for their food needs. Community food security seeks to build upon community and individual assets, rather than focus on their deficiencies. CFS projects seek to engage community residents in all phases of project planning, implementation, and evaluation. - Local agriculture
A stable local agricultural base is key to a community responsive food system. Farmers need increased access to markets that pay them a decent wage for their labor, and farmland needs planning protection from suburban development. By building stronger ties between farmers and consumers, consumers gain a greater knowledge and appreciation for their food source. - Systems-oriented
CFS projects typically are “inter-disciplinary,” crossing many boundaries and incorporating collaborations with multiple agencies.
For some ideas of food security initiatives in action you can visit their link http://www.foodsecurity.org/CFS_projects.pdf
Farm News and Notes
This week we welcomed interns Colin and Caroline from Brooklyn. Colin joins us for the second time this season. He was a catalyzing inspiration for the bustling kitchen projects we now have going on. Upon his return we bombarded him with excitement about all of our kitchen alchemy, including, coconut milk kefir, dosas, raw ginger carrot cookies, kale chips, and more. We don’t have a kitchen, we have a laboratory, or artist studio, depending on how you look at it. Basically, food runs throughout our lives – art to science.
Jonah, Neshima and all three interns traveled to Greenwich this week for a day of straw bale tutorials on a project Jonah has been working on for over a year. The homeowners are about ready to install the straw bale walls, so Jonah taught a bale installation workshop. It was a great opportunity for everyone to learn new info and get some hands on experience.
Finally, it was a delight and blessing to welcome our dear friends Taina, Gaetano and their baby Caona back to the farm this past weekend after a several month absence. Our community and family is so important to us. Without them, without you, this project has no breath. Approaching their yurt under starlit skies last weekend, their voices and poetic guitar wove through the thickness of the night air, making it glimmer with spirit, bringing tears of joy.
Have a great week!
Jonah, Leah, Neshima and Emet