Farm Notes – Week 4, July 15, 2013
Veggie Coop Farm Notes
COORDINATOR: MIKE RABINOWITZ
If you can’t pick up on time at MUN before 6:30, let us know by calling the house phone (895-2884) in Portugal Cove by 5 pm, and we will leave your bag in the chill room at the farm to be picked up later at your convenience. Running late? Mike will wait for you if he knows you are on the way. Call Mike on the Farm Cell at 689-7693. Otherwise, your bag also goes back to farm chill room. E-mail us to let us know your plans so we won’t considering giving away your precious veggies.
NOT TO WORRY IF YOU MISSED PICK UP THE FIRST TIME OR TWO.
Some new members are finding it a challenge to get to pick up and even to follow through on their second or third plan to get to the farm. We are getting apologies as well as good excuses. No need to worry! We are all in this together. We understand it is difficult to be in a planned place, at the same time each week, in spite of soccer games, festival practices, swimming lessons, visitors and sick relatives. It is a good idea to have a back up plan from the beginning – a friend who comes along to pick up and knows where to come in case of emergency. Maybe the best plan is to take a trip out to the farm on a week-end, to scout things out and know how long it takes to get here, say hello to the friendly dogs wagging their tails behind them, find your bag in the chill room and mark your name off the green board to let us know you were here. No doubt, the first trip out to the farm may seem long and complicated just like any other first time adventure – but, soon, it will be “old hat.” MY SUGGESTION IS COME OUT SOONER, RATHER THAN LATER FOR A WALK ABOUT. Saturdays are usually good because Mike is here puttering around, checking on everything. If it is Sunday or a late afternoons, let us know. We will make sure there is someone here to let you peek into the greenhouses and gets a heads up on what will be ready in the next few weeks.
SWAP BOX AND TAILGATE SALES!
If you are an “old” member, you already know how this works. If you are a new member, this is a reminder that we take in extra vegetables to swap and/or sell. When you read over the list of things in the bag, if something doesn’t fit with your diet or liking, bring it to the back of the van, where Mike has a cooler of extra things and choose something of similar value. If you are sharing a bag with another family you may want to buy an extra bag of lettuce mix or another zucchini. This early in the season, there is not much variety, but later on, we will have things such as berries and artichokes which are not sufficiently plentiful to have one for each of the members so we bring what we can spare that week. Or you might want to order extra basil which will be bagged with your name on it and picked up at the Tailgate Sale.
RAISING MIX! WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT?
Regardless of my early green diet, I had no experience with braising mix. Even though I liked greens immensely, braising mix was a totally different kettle of fish. It seemed like a collection of odds and ends – which it is. The 2 FARM SHARES Website described braising mix as being made up of “mature sections of what is normally found in a bag of salad green mix and often consists of shoots from greens that have bolted or gone to seed, or a little too rugged to be included in a salad mix, but still too tender to require as much cooking as a fully mature green.”
It took recipes from veggie coop members, Emily from Montreal and Jamie from B.C., who lived more on the new edge of culinary development to walk us through using Braising Mix. Over time, we have not only learned to like it, but learned to cook it in a half dozen ways, including throwing it all in a pot, for a sweet and sour soup. Click here to be taken to the greens recipes in Farm Recipes where you will find a variety of recipes collected from Veggie Coop members over the years. You may want to look up Braising Mix on the Internet, the way I did several years ago. Regardless, my advice is, if this is your first time to prepare Braising Mix, take your time, find a recipe you think you might like. You might separate out the more tender green bits from the stalks, cooking them different amounts of time, or using stems in stir fries or creamed soups, but most people don’t bother. They throw everything in, cooking lightly with a bit of olive oil, maybe a sprinkle of balsamic and serve hot from the pan. We use lots of fresh garlic – this time of year it is the garlic scapes. Add sunflower seeds or cashews in last stir or even feta cheese and/or raisins if it feels like that kind of day.
Garnish with Eggs?
Unless I am serving this as a hot sweet salad, I usually serve with wedges of boiled eggs on the side like my Mom, with a side dish of sliced tomatoes and home made bread. If there is any dessert at my house this time of year, it will be rhubarb crisp. Occasionally, the “mess” of braising mix will be sufficient inspiration for me to make cornbread, in the large black skillet that my Dad gave me as a wedding present in 1965. Dare I mention that when he gave me the skillet, the present he gave Mike was a hand gun to protect his daughter from the dangers of our new life in Seattle? When we moved from New Orleans to Newfoundland ten years later, we found it at the bottom of the trunk we brought from Seattle. We returned it, unused. My guess is that it is in my brother’s gun vault in Tennessee along with my Dad’s rifle, shot gun and two dozen other guns.
My Green Heritage
As a child, I lived on a farm in Tennessee. Greens, as my family referred to them were included in most meals during summer months. It was usually turnip greens, but they might be beet greens or a wild green, called polk salad, picked along the fence rows in the spring, the way some Newfoundlanders remember dandelion greens as children. Wild asparagus was also abundant. In Tennessee, greens were seasoned with bacon or ham and boiled, never steamed. Mom served them in the middle of a large platter, with boiled egg wedges, amounting to l/2 an egg per person around the edges. The accompanying condiment was “hot pepper sauce,” held in a glass bottle with a long narrow neck, and a shaker top for sprinkling. This was made by forcing as many of the small fresh hot peppers as possible into a tall bottle with vinegar. Dad added more peppers according to his taste throughout the summer. Along with the greens and eggs, there would be a large pone of corn bread made in the hot iron skillet with sliced tomatoes on the side. All meals offered ice tea and maybe a fresh peach cobbler, which my mom made on the run, between picking beans or tending to the wash in the back yard. Fast forward to 2013. If you go into a restaurant in rural Tennessee, today, you will see a commercial version of hot pepper sauce on most tables, there to sprinkle over the greens, white beans or corn casserole, much like you find vinegar and salt on the table at Chess’s Fish and Chip Cafe.
WHAT IS HAPPENING OFF AND ON THE FARM?
The Little Red Hen was in Halifax at the Victoria General Hospital this week, getting a fractured jaw repaired because there were no oral surgeons available to do the surgery in St. John’s. The fall happened on June 23rd, but as it turned out, it took a second x-ray on Friday, July 5th to discover the fracture. It took a couple of days to get referrals in place and Mike booked a ticket to Halifax at day break on Wednesday. Everything went as well as could be expected. Everyone was gracious and attentive – from the stewardesses, taxi driver, nurses and doctors as well as the volunteers who helped me with the wheel chair. It is obvious recovery will be slow and has been painful. I go back in six weeks for a review.
LOCAL SOIL BUILDING!
I am grateful to be back in familiar surroundings and able to go pick up free bales of hay this morning at a farm on Logy Bay Road. Good, clean mulch is like gold for an organic farm. As with Veggie Pick-Up, Pick-up for means simply that – sitting in the truck while two of our farm helpers load and stack the hay. Later in the morning, O.J. Lien delivered a truck load of bagged chicken manure from his free range chicken farm near us on Bauline Line. O.J. Charges $10.00 a bag for the manure, but it is worth every penny for him to bag and deliver it to us as a product which is easy to handle and add to other soil amendments. So, as we go to press this Monday, July 15th, I am certainly counting my blessings!
Melba Rabinowitz
July, 2013
