Help Plan for the Future of the Enright Ridge CSA

Saturday,
February 11, 2012
1 pm to 4 pm

Join Our Roundtable
“Visioning” Afternoon
At Imago Earth Center


We’d like everyone who’s been involved with the Enright CSA as shareholders to join us for this afternoon of planning, brainstorming, and envisioning the changes and improvements we’d like to see as we continue forward. We want to know how we can improve what we’re doing, enlarge our membership, and in general, decide what we’d like to see happen in the next 3 to 5 years with the CSA. What kind of dreams do you have for our future? Please join us!

In preparation, you might like to look over the results of the 2011 end-of-season
Enright CSA survey

The Enright Ridge CSA Website Is Up and Running!

It was a challenge, but once we realized that a spade and a rake were not the right tools for creating HTML code for our new website, things started to move along fairly quickly. From our first meeting back when the greenhouse was still warm(ish) and the greens were still growing, it’s only been about 75 days since we decided we were going to create an Enright Ridge CSA website until we posted it and made it live for all of our members and folks interested in becoming members.

Seventy-five days—let’s see, if memory serves me, there are several kinds of tomatoes that go from seed to ripe fruit in 75 days. Indeed, the whole process of getting the website online has required as much preparation, sweat, and nurturing as any of our crops. We planted those little coding seeds and watched them grow into about a half-dozen colorful pages that are bursting with information to bring us some new members for the 2012 season, as well as keep our current members informed about what’s new with the Enright Ridge CSA.

By the way, the new website is located at www.enright-csa.org and we encourage everyone to bookmark it and visit it frequently. If you see anything that looks like a weed or a pest, let us know and we’ll take care of it. But we hope our website flourishes and helps all the members of the CSA communicate better in the upcoming growing season.

Coming Soon: The Official Enright CSA Website

What do you get when you take a couple of designers who don’t know much about computer coding, a computer expert who has not worked with Google Apps much, a lot of good photographs and interesting data about the Enright CSA farm project, and a little vital information from the former Enright computer wizards about how to access our Google account?

Well, I’ll tell you what you get—a placeholder “Coming Soon” website, for the time being. But it’s something, and we have high hopes for having a real public face on the Web for the Enright CSA in the coming weeks. It won’t be a Google site; we’ve decided that there are easier ways to go about this, so we’re not quite sure what the website will be yet, but it’s well on its way to being, and that’s the important thing.

At first, it will simply provide information about what we’ve been doing with the CSA, current prices for shares for the season, and how to sign up or find out more. We also hope to have a way to connect to the Enright CSA Facebook page so that people can share news about the farm and other projects through Facebook. Eventually it may include information about what kind of produce you can expect to see each week, what’s expected in terms of work hours, and should provide a way to pay for shares with a credit card.

The basic website will let everyone who’s a current member of the CSA help promote what we are doing with this urban agriculture project. You can pass on the website address to friends and families who are interested in joining, and we’ll also have a simple online address to use in promoting the farm project to the general public, too.

Then, if our official Technology Committee doesn’t take to drink after getting the “public” part of our website up and running, there are plans to add a members-only section before the next growing season, to make it easier to communicate about pickups, provide news, and to have simple links to the weekly newsletter and this delightful blog, where you can get current information about the farm in general.

Finally, we want to try to find a way to figure out how to post information about work schedules, and maybe even have an online way to track hours worked. This is the hardest part of the whole plan, because the management software available is designed more for a one-farmer CSA type of setup, rather than a work share co-op scenario like we have. But we believe that it is doable, and imagine how great it would be if we could easily communicate via computer, laptop, iPad, Kindle, Nook, smartphone, yada yada, to find out where workers are needed and to keep track of our hours.

But, first things first. Look for the announcement of a new website coming soon—and wish us luck. Then, if you or someone you know happens to be an expert in Web design and coding, and they want to help with the harder bits, figuring out how to handle the scheduling without reinventing the plow, for example, we would be SOOO happy to talk to them and maybe con them into helping us—well, you can hardly imagine how thrilled we would be. If you are that person, or know that person, leave a comment here, or contact us at farm@pricehill.org and it would absolutely make our day.

Salubrious Solstice, Karmic Kwanzaa, and Welcome Back the Sun!

I like winter holidays, no matter what they are called. Christmas, Kwanzaa, even Santa Lucia Day, I like them all, though I’m not too fond of winter. Or, perhaps it’s because I’m not too fond of winter. It’s cold, grey, and miserable outside, so the only sensible thing to do is have a celebration to cheer us up.

Some of the traditions of the holidays are very, very old, coming from Solstice and Juul (Yule) celebrations, good old pagan holidays that probably started to keep people from losing their minds on the long, cold winter nights as much as to practice a little sympathetic magic, just to give the sun a nudge, to get it to come back so spring and the growing season would also return.

Others are new but have an old air about them, like Kwanzaa. Personally, I like it because it involves candles. I’m probably the only person in St. Teresa’s parish who faithfully lights a chanukkiah (a menorah just for Hanukkah) every night of the Jewish holiday of lights, and if I had a Kwanzaa candleholder, I’d light that nightly, too. Kwanzaa originated in the 1960s as a way to connect with African roots and has many traditional harvest celebration elements to it. Food and light: That’s what every good winter holiday needs.


We’re right in the middle of Roman Saturnalia, which was celebrated from December 17 to 23, and was a time of merriment, gift-giving, and making amends and new starts. Slaves weren’t punished, citizens were ridiculed, and there were parades, masked dances, and a King of Saturnalia--similar to the Lord of Misrule who turned up in the middle ages. They also ate a lot, special foods that might be generally hard to get.

I like that aspect of winter holidays, too. I always have enjoyed making old-fashioned foods for holiday feasts, maybe not Roman specialties, but things like mince pie and plum pudding and springerle cookies, and serve what were once special treats in the middle of winter, citrus fruits like kumquats, always found on our Christmas Eve table. As that fellow in “Fiddler on the Roof” once said, “Without our traditions, we’d be as shaky as a . . .” Well, you get my point.

Light a fire. Eat an orange or a cookie. Light a candle. Curse the darkness, if you need to. But celebrate the turning of the seasons, because the Solstice/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/New Year’s holiday also marks the sun’s return, and we can start counting the days until it’s time to sort seeds, then plant them in the Enright CSA gardens. Happy Solstice!

“Feed”back, So to Speak

I am tickled to report that the Enright CSA blog has gotten a little feedback from the entry last month that asked what people had made for Thanksgiving using farm produce, I am delighted to report. Another entry got a great response, too—“Remind me not read this when I am hungry!” Ah, then I must be doing something right, talking about all this great food we grow in Price Hill.

Now, for reports of what folks made with CSA or homegrown products for Thanksgiving—just to give you some ideas for Christmas, Hanukkah, or New Year’s feasts. It sounds like sweet potatoes were a common theme:

From Amy Stross: This year I made a sweet potato cake from homegrown sweet potatoes—turned out moist and delicious---perfect amount of sweetness.

Sweet potato cake—I never would have thought of that, but it sounds quite taste-tempting.

From Deborah Jordan: Still feeling the glow although slow to respond, but yes, I took a sweet potato dish to our family gathering - with cranberries and walnuts, etc. Love those sweet potatoes. And, on a preserve the harvest note, I finally bought a dehydrator so have been experimenting with that. Cheers!

I’ll add that on the preservation topic, I am definitely going to be making pickled squash again, with plenty of cloves in the pickling mix. They were a big hit at a night-after Thanksgiving leftover party we attended, as was the baba ganoush made from Enright eggplants. But the squash was really something different and very tasty, unique and delicious. I’m going to be ready for the onslaught of summer squash next year, because now that it’s all gone, I am wishing I had pickled more of it to enjoy all winter.

Now, keep those cards and letters coming, as they say. How are you enjoying the December bounty from the farm? I had some tasty steamed and sauteed mixed greens, or as we like to call it, "bacon delivery system," with dinner last night. And we had a nice salad the other day, made from lettuce and arugala with clementine segments and goat cheese. That would be tasty with the addition of roasted radishes or beets from the CSA, too. It's just wonderful to still have fresh local food to eat when it's almost the Solstice!

Playing with Your Food: Radish Reenactments and Twirled Turnips

I will admit that the only reason I am writing this blog entry is to use this great photograph at left. Someone who obviously had a few too many radishes apparently decided to carve a nativity scene from the roots, and this was the result, I guess. Since we're expecting radishes in our serendipitous December pickup, I thought I'd post the photo in case you too are looking to make Christmas decorations from farm products.

Of course, there are better things to do with the produce. Nancy Sullivan found an article about roasting radishes in the NY Times and though I love radishes raw with butter on them, I have to say that roasting them also sounds pretty tasty to me, for a holiday dinner garnish or just a nice snack.

Now, we're also expecting to get a few turnips in the pickup, and my mom and I were discussing mashing turnips with potatoes, which is kind of a way of hiding the fact that you are serving turnips. I have nothing against turnips myself, but some people do, and you can get them to eat them just by cooking them with potatoes, mashing them together, and adding some milk, butter, and salt.

Then I found a recipe for turnips mashed with sweet potatoes. Well, not exactly mashed with them, mashed separately and then swirled together. I like food that looks lovely, and I am picturing this looking very much like the orange and cream colored circus-themed bedroom my sister and I shared in the mid-1960s. Ooh, dating myself there. Anyway, I think I have to try this one; it's pretty easy and quick, too.

Sweet Potato and Turnip Swirl
1/2 pound turnips, peeled and cubed
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
1 tablespoon butter margarine
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 teaspoons grated orange zest

Cook the turnips and sweet potatoes in separate pans over medium high heat with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until soft, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain; transfer to a food processor and puree the two vegetables separately (turnips first, with a little butter and milk, then the sweet potatoes, and you won't have to clean out the food processor in between but the turnips will stay creamy white.

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the ginger, butter, sugar, and orange peel. Allow butter to melt and mix ingredients together well. In a warm bowl, first add the turnip puree, then the sweet potatoes, then the ginger orange butter; swirl together and serve warm.

And--next post, I promise, will be about what people made from farm produce for Thanksgiving, just to give you some ideas for upcoming holiday meals. For now, don't forget the December pickup, Saturday, December 10, 10 am to 12 noon at the greenhouse.

December Bounty

The weather has been fairly lousy lately--lots of rain, and a little snow today, but apparently those warmish days in November were just what some cool-weather vegetables needed in the Enright CSA plots.

Turns out there were a few more crops growing, and they'll be at the greenhouse for pickup on Saturday morning, 10 pm to 12 noon. This is very exciting! There will be lots of greens, some broccoli, turnips, and a few surprises. I'm looking forward to anything that turns up--I've been having fresh local vegetable withdrawal the past couple of weeks. (Although those winter squash we got awhile back kept well, and we had some delicious homemade butternut squash soup last night; the recipe is in the Asparagus to Zucchini cookbook.)

And, if you need to make up some hours for 2011, or want to get a jump-start on hours for 2012, we could use some help getting the produce ready for pickup at the greenhouse on Thursday, December 8, from 1 pm to 5 pm. Help is also needed for packout/pickup on Saturday, December 10, beginning at 10 am.