It’s Not Easy Eating Greens

No, I’m not talking about how roughage might affect one’s digestive tract. I merely mean that it’s not easy finding enough different ways to serve greens in one week when greens are really in season at the CSA. We have a new motto at our house, “A meal without greens is . . . breakfast. Maybe.”

I like greens; I have always enjoyed salads, and cooked greens used to be a special treat when we’d go to a good barbecue restaurant. But now I know that I had barely touched the surface of what you can do with greens.

In the last week or so, we have had . . .

-5-Lettuce Salad with Basil Vinaigrette
-Polenta with Greens, Baked Eggs, and Cheese
-Thunder Bay Salad, made with Chinese Cabbage
-Potato Fry-Up with Summer Greens
-Greens Soup with Cream Cheese Croutons
-Kale Sauteed with Tomatoes, Peppers, and Onions
-Mixed Greens with Basalmic Vinegar
-Pineapple Chicken Stir Fry with Chard

So far, I have not come up with a dessert recipe that uses greens, but give me time and more greens, and it may happen!

If anyone has some good ideas—and especially recipes—to use greens, we’d like to share them on the blog. Send them to the Committee Team Leader to post or bring them to the next potluck or to packout on a Saturday. As the summer moves on, we’ll be getting other vegetables instead of greens, but they’ll be back when the weather cools off in fall and we need to be prepared!

Packout Scones

A few people have requested the recipe for the scones that were at the greenhouse during packout last Saturday. They weren't made with any of the produce from the farm this time, although they are also tasty with a dollop of pear butter made from the pears from the Schenk's yard. Here's the recipe.

SCONES

2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold butter (or margarine)
2/3 cup buttermilk (or put a tablespoon of lemon juice in measuring cup and then add milk to 2/3 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
dried fruit, nuts, or jam (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. It's quicker to mix the dough in a food processor, but you can cut in the butter with the dry ingredients by hand with two knives--that's the first step, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and butter (cut into smaller pieces) until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the vanilla to the buttermilk and then add all the liquid slowly to flour mixture until it forms a stiff dough (you might not need all of the liquid). At this point, mix in dried fruit or nuts if you want, then turn out dough on floured surface and form a round about 8" in diameter and an inch or more thick. (For more smaller scones, make two rounds, smaller in diameter but still about an inch thick, and cut each one ito six wedges.) Cut into eight wedges, and arrange them on a double cookie sheet lined with wax paper (that is, put one cookie sheet inside another and put wax paper on the top cookie sheet; this keeps the bottoms from burning while the tops brown). Mix the egg and milk together and brush the tops of the scones with the egg mixture. If you haven't put dried fruit or nuts in the dough, at this point you can make an indentation with the back of a spoon in the wide part of each wedge and then put a teaspoon of preserves, jam, or apple butter in the indentation. Then bake for 20 minutes, cool, and eat.

On Farming & Revolution

On Fourth of July, I always think about the men in the Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence. I knew them all well. And no, I’m not nuts or channeling past lives—the theatre group I was in put on the first amateur production of the musical 1776, and after two months of rehearsals, fittings for about 27 frock coats, and numerous performances, I still feel like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Hewes, John Hancock, Robert Livingston, John Dickinson, and the rest of them were my friends. Probably because they were, at least in their musical theatre incarnations . . .

Historically, I know a lot of them were farmers and plantation owners, but they were all what you might call “gentlemen farmers.” Whilst they were in Philadelphia, other people were tending their fields and farms back home. In Braintree, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams kept the small family farm going while John was away (I know because she told me so herself when I was hemming her dress); Thomas Jefferson, with Ben Franklin’s help, tried mightily though unsuccessfully to have slavery outlawed in the Declaration, but Jefferson’s own slaves kept his plantation at Monticello running while he was gone, including tending his gardens, where he experimented with heirloom seeds and organic growing methods more than 200 years before we thought about it.

Now, I’m finally getting to my point in this Independence Day post: we have a few gentlemen farmers in the CSA. They pay for a nonwork share, and we’re happy to have them, because they definitely help pay the bills. However, the majority of our shares are work shares, and a few of those work share owners haven’t picked up a hoe yet. So, this is a gentle reminder that our Urban Farm Revolution needs the help of every share member. If you are reading this blog, you’re probably already an involved member of the Enright CSA, but if you know any members who haven’t signed up for a work team or two yet, please encourage them to take a little time this week to do so.

Our CSA is part of a local food revolution, and we each have dedicated ourselves to the proposition that we must help water, weed, write, count, clean, packout, plan, plant, hoe, and harvest. Tell any friends who haven’t started putting work hours in yet not to wait too long or they’ll have a lot of time to log and not too many weeks to do so. They need to put their John Hancocks on a team signup list today. Email farm@pricehill.org if you specifically need a list of team leaders and their email addresses.

Happy Fourth of July, and remember what Mother Jones said: “We need to raise less corn and more hell.” We can raise hell with the status quo in America’s food production methods by raising our own corn, beans, greens, tomatoes, and more—each and every one of us. I think I hear the Liberty Bell tolling for us now . . .

Tomato Time!

The first red tomato appeared in my garden this morning. It was a cherry tomato, a half-inch in diameter, but it was still ripe and delicious. It got me thinking that southern Ohio/ Kentucky tomatoes must be the single best argument for locavore eating. From the time I was a kid, I can’t remember any food—not chocolate, not chili, not even blueberry pie—tasting as good as a sun-warmed tomato straight from the garden.

I eat all the tomatoes I can get from July to October, and I hardly touch them from November to June—I’ll even pick them out of a salad at a restaurant during the chillier months of the year. Nothing is worse than a cottony, flavorless winter tomato, but a summer tomato—ah, that is the stuff. If I had written Dandelion Wine, that homage to summer, it would have been called Fresh Sliced Tomatoes. If I tackled my own version of Rememberance of Things Past, the trigger for a million memories would be a tomato straight from the garden, not a warm madeleine cookie.

My uncle used to pack a couple of suitcases of Rabbit Hash tomatoes (the Ohio River valley, on either side, is the mecca of homegrown tomatoes) and take them to Florida where he’d trade them for hotel rooms and restaurant meals, because they had nothing like a good northern summer tomato down in the tropics. I’ve had meals in August that consisted of a tomato and basil salad followed by gazpacho (cold tomato soup) and baked tomatoes. And I consider them some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

When they are plentiful, I can sun-dried tomatoes, and when I open a jar of them in February, I get exactly the same feeling Ray Bradbury describes when they open a bottle of his grandmother’s dandelion wine in the depths of winter: it’s summer in a jar. Here’s to red, ripe, Cincinnati tomatoes—coming soon!

A visit to the greenhouse

The other evening, our daughter and I came along while Mike was doing evening greenhouse duty. It was a nice evening, and the greenhouse smelled wonderful--you could really smell the rich earth and even the growing things. Our daughter, Alice, asked what everything was growing in the greenhouse, then asked the same question when we went out back and walked down to the gardens on Terry Street. She just stood there looking at everything growing in the Terry Street gardens, inhaled deeply, and said again how wonderful it smelled. It made me think about how the farm affects all of your senses; the growing plants look like natural art as they escape their neat rows, and the fruits and vegetables add color to the palette. Of course the produce tastes great, but I think maybe the smell is the most profound and visceral way the gardens can affect you. It calms me down, makes me walk slower, and just makes things seem better to visit the gardens and take a deep breath. I heartily recommend a visit to the greenhouse or garden as a way to unwind on a nice summer evening.

Thanksgiving Harvest & Pick-Up


Thanksgiving Harvest will occur this Tuesday, Nov. 23rd, from 9am-4pm. Pick-Up will be on Wednesday from 4-6pm. Contact Dave (614.441.1223) if you'd like to help with either Harvest or Pack-Out.



Egg Delivery

Eggs will continue to be available every Saturday through the end of December. The eggs and money jar will be in the cooler at the greenhouse for you to help yourself.



End-of-Season Evaluation

What sets our CSA apart from farmers' markets, grocery stores, and even traditional models of CSA, is the community! This means that your input and contribution really make a difference. Please bring your evaluation with you to the Thanksgiving Pick-Up on Wednesday. Please contact Amy Stross at amy(at)strosspub(dot)com if you aren't able to return the evaluation on Wednesday, and we can make other arrangements.



Meeting Summary

Though we had a lot to cover in a short amount of time, we were able to give our thanks and say our farewells to an abundant and successful 2010 season. This included a sharing of our gratitude to Suellyn for all that she did in the past two years as the glue that held all of the pieces of the operation together, including member needs and questions, communications (between Charles, interns, members, ecovillage and public), social event organization, contribution in the gardens, and so many, many other things for which we will never know. Thanks, Suellyn!





Below I'll briefly summarize some main points from the November 17th Final Potluck & Meeting 2010 Season Reports.





2010 Work Hours: Total hours worked = 1,885. This is twice the amount of hours worked in 2009!





2010 Financial Summary Highlights: Income totals come out to $43,256. Around 48% of income came from inkind and cash conations, 33% of the income from member share prices, 12% from grants, and 7% from fundraisers (including our awesome benefit concert!). The bulk of expenses come from labor (42%- great bargain!), supplies (40%), and water/sewer (4%). Many financial contributions were not recorded, and came in the form of labor, supplies, and water, indicating a fantastic commitment to the success of the CSA project by members.





2010 Garden Summary: Charles is focused on increasing our harvest per square foot of gardening space. Perhaps a summary of what we grew and how much will be accessible to members in the near future.









2011 Planning

The second half of the meeting was an energetic brainstorming activity as we looked ahead to the 2011 season.





After the Thanksgiving Weekend be on the lookout for an email which reviews in more detail Notes from the 2011 Planning portion of the meeting and the results of the End-of-Season Evaluation.





Send an email to urbanfarmproject@enrightcsa.org if you have a special interest in contributing to the leadership and planning for the 2011 season.





And Please remember to return your evaluations.





Sincerely,

Amy Stross and the Potluck Team (Charles Griffin, Chris Boatwright, Jim Schenk, and Nancy Sullivan)

Will Allen Speaks at Xavier University

“It’s all about the soil.” These were the words that rang through Schiff Banquet Center on Sunday night, Sept. 26, when Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen spoke to a crowd of more than 200 as a part of the Ethics/Religion and Society Ecology and Sustainability lecture series. Allen strongly embodies the theme this year’s lecture series, Green Urbanism, through his work with the non-profit organization, Growing Power, Inc.

In 1993, Allen bought the last two surviving acres of the last remaining farm in Milwaukee, Wisc. Since then, he has started four farm sites in Chicago and grown his original farm to include six greenhouses; an aquaponics, or fish-farming, house; three vegetable greenhouses; an apiary, or bee farm with five beehives; three poultry houses; outdoor pens for livestock; a large composting operation including vermiculture, or worm compost; an anaerobic digester and a small retail store. The company operates on a $4 million annual budget and provides living wage employment for 55 people each year. Allen has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people, and is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, or Genius Award, which is a $500,000 grant given yearly to United States citizens who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work in their respective fields.

The son of a Southern sharecropper, Allen’s family moved to the outskirts of Washington, D.C. at an early age, but his father wanted his children to be exposed to gardening. After careers as both a professional basketball player and an associate for Proctor and Gamble, Allen went back to his gardening roots and has since been a key player in the Good Food Revolution.

By selling their locally-grown foods, Growing Power is able to ensure the quality and nutritional value of the food its surrounding communities consume, and likewise stimulate the local economy. “We’re always going to have food,” Allen said. “But is it food that is going to bring us to prominence?” Through Growing Power, Allen hopes to restore healthy foods into the Milwaukee area, recapture vacant lands lost to agribusiness and reinstate small, rural farmers into the food economy.

In addition to their gardening initiative, Growing Power, Inc. focuses on youth education, offering children from low-income backgrounds both academic and professional experience. They instituted a reading program that helped improve students’ literacy skills and grades in the local schools. They also offer three-month internship opportunities where interns work 60 hours a week assisting with community food system development, small farmer outreach, and urban agriculture.

For Allen, the most important part of his work is engaging the community. “Food is the one thing that really brings us all together, regardless of who you are,” Allen said. To pass on his knowledge to the next generation, he encourages the involvement of the community. “You have to have educators, planners, doctors, corporations and youth, and bring folks to the table to have a dialogue and leverage their strengths for success.” He encourages viewing the community as an asset to urban gardening, and wants to share his project’s success and sustainability efforts with the local communities.

For Xavier, Allen’s insights are a move towards more sustainability education and discussion on campus, which is exactly the goal that co-chairs of the Ecology and Sustainability lecture series, Dr. Kathleen Smythe and Dr. Elizabeth Groppe, had in mind. “We wanted to give students, faculty, and staff a chance to begin thinking about sustainability issues,” Smythe said. “We thought there was a strong need for a stronger climate of concern and education on campus.”

Growing Power, Inc. seeks the same goal; to set a concrete example of what a successful urban farming program looks like, and inspire others to follow that example and plant their own roots in the soil. “We have the means to do it,” Allen said. “We just have to have the will. We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and do it.”