Love Notes #15, September 21, 2016
By: Hannah Slipakoff
- Contents of Share
- Announcements
- Farm and Food Justice News
- Recipes
Early morning shot of the harvest cart… summer lives on in our high tunnel! (Photo: Hannah Slipakoff)
CONTENTS OF SHARE
- Dill- 1 bunch
- Cilantro- 1 bunch
- Onions- 2 to 4 bulbs
- Lettuce Mix- approx. ½ lb.
- Spinach – approx. ¾ lb.
- Edamame- 1 bunch- see photo and cooking instructions below!
- Leeks or Celery- 1 bunch
- Potatoes – 1.25 pounds
- Eggplant or Broccoli – 1-2 fruits or 1-3 crowns
- Tuscano/Dino Kale – 1 bunch
- Zucchini and/or Summer Squash – 1-2 fruits
- Cucumbers – 1-2 fruits
- Tomatoes- 2 to 4 fruits
- Jalapeno Peppers- 2 to 4 fruits
- Optional: 1 dozen eggs
- Optional: french lentil and spicy radish sprouts
Edamame! Simply remove pods from the stalk. Steam for 2-4 minutes until bright green. Salt. Beans will easily pop out of pod. Do not eat the hairy pod. It’s yucky. (Photo: thekitchn.com)
Our beautiful garlic curing on the edge of the woods. You know you want to order some! (Photo: Hannah Slipakoff)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
COMMUNITY DAYS. 8-1 Work and learn together. 1-2:30 Potluck lunch. THIS SATURDAY, September 24, October 22, and November 12. RSVP here.
UPCOMING EVENTS: We will host an on-farm seed keeping workshop with Owen Taylor on Saturday, October 8 and an ancestor healing workshop with Enroue Halfkenny on Saturday, November 19. Please join us! We are facilitating an Undoing Racism Training for the Hudson Valley Young Farmers Coalition. Apply here.
SOUL FIRE ON STAGE: On Sunday, October 2nd, at Bard College, Storyhorse Documentary Theater will be showing Good Dirt, a live-art performance piece chronicling the lives of Hudson Valley farmers… including Soul Fire! More info here!
GARLIC FOR SALE: We have a beautiful hard-neck garlic for sale for eating or seed! All orders can be placed by-the-pound (a pound is roughly 1 quart) and picked up at the farm or delivered on our weekly Wednesday distribution route. This garlic will store for months, so stock up for your winter supply. Garlic also makes a great gift! Contact us if you are interested. $9 per pound. $12 for seed garlic.
RETURN YOUR BOXES AND JARS please. You can leave them where you get your delivery. If you break them down, please make sure not to tear or bend any of the tabs, or just leave the assembled box for us and we are happy to break it down.
WASH YOUR VEGGIES. We DO NOT extensively wash veggies before delivering them to you. We will do some washing if there is a lot of dirt on greens and we always rinse root crops. In general, this allows the food to stay fresher longer. It also means you need to wash your veggies before consuming them. For greens: fill a bowl with cold water. Soak greens in water for a minute. Drain water and repeat two more times. Dirt will rinse to the bottom. Bugs should float to the top.
KEEP FOOD FRESH, EASY: Store leafy greens in a sealed plastic bag in the fridge. To revive wilted greens, dunk them in ice water and dry in salad spinner or with gentle toweling. To make it easier to use greens on the go, wash and chop them in advance and store them in a sealed plastic bag. Then you can just grab a handful to add to your eggs, smoothie, soup, or saute. Quick and easy.
FARM AND FOOD JUSTICE NEWS
Members of the Philadelphia Community Doula overflow with joy as they sing their affirmation song. The network has supported over 800 low-income mothers in Philadelphia in the last four years. (Photo: Jonah Vitale-Wolff)
Artist, doula, wonder woman Charlyn Griffith poses with Leah and Jonah in front her work… the new border for SFF’s movie theater (and packing barn, classroom, dance floor)! Check out Charlyn’s work on Instagram by searching #brownskinsummer (Photo: Hannah Slipakoff)
As a part of our Activist Retreat Program, last weekend Soul FIre welcomed a group very near and dear to my heart, my activist community from back home, the Philadelphia Community Doula Network. As the harvest moon rose high and bright on Friday, carloads of amazing birth and postpartum doulas, lactation peer counselors, midwives in training, and children ages 5 months to 5 years arrived arrived on this healing land. Creativity, joy, sisterhood, and renewal emerged as the group spent the weekend with their hands on the land, deeply engaged in strategic planning, relaxing, and creating personal sovereignty plans.
Soul Fire Farm is wholly committed to the intersectionality of collective liberation- we know that birth justice and food sovereignty are intertwined in a world of dignity, empowerment, and sustainability. Throughout the Birth Justice Retreat we focused on the commonalities and shared stakes of the food justice and birth justice movements. We wove common threads between the work of Soul Fire and the work of the Philadelphia Community Network throughout the weekend by asking ourselves:
- In what ways do you work for access with dignity?
- In what ways does your work honor the earth and natural systems?
- In what ways does your work uplift and credit ancestral practices?
- In what ways does your work transfer skills and knowledge to increase personal and community sovereignty?
- In what ways does your work invest in the next generation?
- How does white supremacist capitalism disrupt your work?
- How do you leverage your skills and resources to resist and contribute to broader movements for social justice?
Sharing ancestral practices with the next generation while caring for the raspberries. (Photo: Khadiya Blanks)
Sister doulas process the edamame for this week’s farm share! (Photo: Leah Penniman)
As we move into this new week, ever effecting by the pervasive trauma and pain that is so unjustly present in the world, we hold close to seeds beauty and hope that were planted when village of love was built by the Philadelphia Community Doula Network. We cradle our mission, vision, and guiding questions close to our shared visions of freedom. We had doulas share gratitude for this land and work, expressing that time here healed them from their traumatic births that mobilized them to support others.
We are infinitely grateful for every day we get to put our values into action. This is another week of what healing looks like. At Soul Fire we are mourning the gross and tragic murder of Terrence Crutcher and Keith Lamont Scott. We’re sending all our love, hard work, and the strength of the global village to their families and Black Lives Matter warriors.
Love and Nourishment for the week ahead.
RECIPE – Green Soup
Recipe and photo from Anna Thomas via Food 52.
Ingredients
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1bunch chard or spinach
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1bunch kale
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4 to 5 green onions, sliced, white and green parts or 1 leek
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½ cup loosely packed cilantro
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1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
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1 medium potato or sweet potato or 1 cup winter squash
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1medium yellow onion
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1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
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Marsala or dry sherry cooking wine (optional)
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1 to 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
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2 1/2 to 3 cups vegetable broth
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Freshly ground black pepper
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Cayenne
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1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste
Directions
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Wash the greens, trim off their stems, and slice the leaves. Combine the chard or spinach, kale, green onions, and cilantro in a large soup pot with 3 cups water and a teaspoon of salt.
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Peel the potato, or just scrub it well if you prefer, cut it into small pieces, and add it to the pot. Bring the water a boil, turn down the flame to low, cover the pot, and let the soup simmer for about half an hour.
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Meanwhile, chop the onion, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet, and cook the onion with a small sprinkle of salt over medium flame until it is golden brown and soft. This will take up to half an hour. Don’t hurry; give it a stir once in awhile, and let the slow cooking develop the onion’s sweetness. If you like, you can deglaze the pan at the end with a bit of Marsala or sherry — not required, but a nice touch.
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Add the caramelized onion to the soup. Put the remaining 1/2 tablespoon oil in the pan and stir the chopped garlic in it for just a couple of minutes, until it sizzles and smells great. Add the garlic to the pot and simmer the soup for 10 minutes more.
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Add enough of the broth to make the soup a soup — it should pour easily from the ladle and puree it in the blender, in batches, or use an immersion blender.
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Return the soup to the pot, bring it back to a simmer, and taste. Add a pinch more salt if needed, grind in a little black pepper, and add a pinch of cayenne and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Stir well and taste again. Now use your taste buds — correct the seasoning to your taste with a drop more lemon juice or another pinch of salt, and then serve big steaming bowls of green soup.