Well, not today, but we have had some beautiful days. We will do the distribution from the house now rather than from the field – 66 Jabez Allen Road. Here is a map. We still have one row of potatoes to dig, beets, carrots, lettuce, chard, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, salad mix, etc in the field. I went over to Potsdam and got a few winter squash for you. The winter squash selection was disappointing. The kinds I really like hadn’t grown well, and I was choosing based on appearance and they save their own seed for the acorn squash and it wasn’t as pretty as the hybrids that are bred for perfect shape. This brings up a delimma – I would like to support local seed saving rather than depending on multinational companies. Driving home I thought I probably should have gotten more and just explained it to you. On the other hand, since I like to grow slender, small carrots and you have really liked the larger ones I got carrots from them. I decided I need to work on carrot production – theirs are straight, plump, beautifully cleaned, and really good. I also got onions from them for you. I have spoken with several regional farmers who are having an even tougher time with their fall broccoli than I am. It is good to know I am not alone, and it is not something I did wrong. I have some broccoli for you, but the heads are only 3 to 4 inches across. I hear from others that are having 1 and 2″ heads, or none at all. They have great vegetative growth, but they just aren’t making nice heads.
I made the crunchy Napa Cabbage salad for church dinner this week, which reminded me to post the recipe for you. It is Rosie’s Bok Choy Salad from Allrecipes.com. It is good with both the Napa and the bok choy, and some summer members cooked and crisped rice noodles instead of using Ramen noodles and like that as well. I can also report that it is OK with raw quinoa used instead of sesame seeds, but the sesame seeds are much better. The quinoa is soft enough to eat without cooking though. (For those of you who don’t know, quinoa looks like very small sesame seeds.)
A logistics note: sometimes I like to watch what you take to give me an idea of the quantities you like, but I don’t want to seem to be spying on you, so don’t always watch. If a bin gets low or empty, and there is another bin below it or under that table, please put the empty one aside and open the new bin. There was lots of spicy mix Friday, but I didn’t realize the top bin was getting empty. There was more in the bin underneath. I appreciate that you are respectful and not tearing things apart, but please ask if we are running low or a bin is empty, or just check underneath and open the new.
New this week – I tried a sweet potato tonight and it seems to have cured enough, so you will get some tomorrow. Warning though, there are very few that are fat and not mouse/vole munched, so they are not pretty. I do have lots of “fingerling” sweet potatoes, long thin ones that are very good sliced 1/2 ” or less thick and pan fried.
