CSA Shares Start Today

I picked up the first share of the CSA growing season this afternoon. It contained baby greens, pea shoots, new potatoes, tomato puree from last season's tomatoes, green garlic and chives. I bought a dozen eggs from free range chickens to add to my share. I thought about an organic, free range soup chicken but decided to wait until a different week.

It was tempting, especially since I have been reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma again. I finished the section about organic farming and have started on his discussion of foraging.

In addition to reading, I have also done some needlework. I finished SamSarah's Embrace and have been working on my Noro Sweater. Embrace was fun to stitch once I really got started on it. It will be added to my collection of snowmen. I posted progress pictures of the sweater on Ravelry. I will post here when I make some more progress.

Heirloom tomatoes and more socks

Today's CSA share included heirloom tomatoes -- they look interesting and taste very good. All of the tomatoes from the grocery store taste the same but each one of these has its own unique look, texture and taste. The Tomato Jubilee is in a couple of weeks -- then I can go and pick all the tomatoes I want.

I have been experimenting some more with combinations of the Take a Stitch Tuesday stitches. My cast on stitches are improving but I do not think it will ever become a favorite stitch. I used crested chain, scroll stitch, french knots, straight stitch, wagon wheel and detached chain or lazy daisy stitch on this piece.

I have been doing more knitting than stitching and have been busy for the past week. Friday, I went to Stitches Midwest and took a class in lace knitting. I learned about Orenburg Lace and how it is made. I also did some shopping and bought a ball of Opal sock yarn and have been knitting the rainbow ripple sock in the picture. I also went to the family night for the football program. Saturday I spent at a Church Leadership Retreat and at the Chicago Sky Game. Sunday, I went to the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild Meeting and saw Margriet Hogue's slides of antique samplers in European museum collections. This weekend is not going to be as busy.

Flower, Fruit and Vegetable share

I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements the other day to play with. Above you can see the results applied to a photo of my latest flower, fruit and vegetable share. There are pie cherries, blueberries, peaches, yellow beats, green peppers, dill, cucumber, basil, spring onions, zucchini, eggplant and lettuce.

Fruit and Flower Shares start . . .

I finished a 4th of July project today it is a Silver Needle Secret Needle Night kit. Yesterday, we had a fairly quiet, family oriented day. We had 4th of July food -- hamburgers, hot dogs, macaroni salad, potato salad and strawberries. Then we went and joined the neighbors to watch the fireworks. Our dogs stayed home and protected the house.

Today the fruit and flower shares started so in addition to vegetables, I picked up a bouquet of flowers and fruit. The vegetables selections included beets, Japanese turnips, cippoline onions, garlic, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, arugula and broccoli. The fruit includes organic blueberries, sweet cherries and black raspberries. I cheated and didn't keep the beet and turnip greens because I still have kale from last week and we will be on vacation part of next week but the newsletter had a delicious recipe for beet greens in a coconut curry sauce with pasta that I may have to try next time.

The flowers, as always, are beautiful and I enjoy having them in the house. We have flowers in our garden, but we grow random perennials and do not have much of a cutting garden. I love all the different colors of sunflowers that we get throughout the summer, you can see a deep red one on the right side of the arrangement.

As I have been shuttling kids to karate and back, I have been reading. I finished Sara Gruen's book Water for Elephants yesterday. It was very good -- she presents the main character in his 20s and 90s and presents both well.

More vegetables and a quilt . . .

I took the time to photograph my vegetable share this week -- red kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, zucchini, radish and buckwheat sprouts and garlic. Next week I will start getting fruit and flowers as well as vegetables. I love the taste and smell of fruit that has a chance to get ripe on the tree or vine. I will have to use up the rhubarb in my garden while I wait for my fruit shares to start.

I also got my first package in the quilt block of the month program that I joined. I ordered it from Keepsake Quilting. I need to felt the wool and then I can start assembling the first block. I am pleased with the colors. The pieces are blanket stitched onto the background and will form a full size bed quilt when it is completed. I can either put it in the sewing room/spare bedroom or add more fabric around the edges to make a Queen sized quilt and put it on my bed.

Still Life with Vegetables

Two versions of my vegetable share this week. The real vegetables with red leaf lettuce, garlic scapes, sage, zucchini, radishes, sugar snap peas, kohlrabi, strawberries, rainbow swiss chard, and tomato puree. A quilt version with strawberries, radishes, squash, peppers, eggplant, tomato, and carrots.
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I created the quilt using EQ6 tonight while waiting for my daughter's karate class to end. I am not completely satisfied with the quilt but I was limited by the blocks in the library and I only had time to play with one layout.

Why am I a CSA member?

I have mixed feelings about commercial agribusiness -- on the one hand, there is the fact that we have made huge advances in food production:

"In 1830, it took 300 hours of labor to produce 100 bushels of wheat on five acres. Today, it takes 1.5 hours to produce the same number of bushels on two acres." (Gourmet, June 2007, p. 61)

On the other hand, it is almost impossible to find tomatoes that taste like tomatoes or apricots that taste like apricots in the grocery store. I grew up with produce from Japanese farmstands and fruit we picked ourselves in the spring. The vegetables and fruit were ripe and tasted real. However, this bounty came with a price in arid Arizona. Orchards and vineyards were cropdusted and the farmers mined water in some cases causing the water table to drop 30 feet a year.

Now, I drive a few miles out of my way each Thursday to pick up my CSA share. I buy fruit and vegetables that are grown locally in sustainable ways rather than transported halfway across the country or the world. The produce types change seasonally and I am surprised every week by what is in my share. My husband has found he loves swiss chard and likes beets and turnips, my son eagerly awaits the summer tomato crop, and my daughter looks forward to fresh peas.

This week we will be eating radishes, carrots, green garlic, rhubarb, leaf lettuce in two colors, spinach, arugula, and bok choy.

Take a Stitch Tuesday -- on Thursday

Here is a Take a Stitch Tuesday post before Monday night -- I used the crossed blanket stitch to make this free embroidery snail. The snail is stitched using left over needle necessities threads and kreinik metallic blue. The snail is very vibrant in person. The crossed blanket stitches were easy to make into a coil, although the metallic blue base for the snail could be more even. The rest of the snail is stem, or outline stitch, long stitches and french knots.

I also picked up my CSA share this afternoon -- between work and my last elementary school chorus concert. As you can see, the weather has been good and the produce harvest and variety are increasing. Red and white spring onions, multicolored beets, asparagus, thyme, bok choy, napa cabbage, lettuce, fennel, and rainbow chard. I am thinking salad, stir fry, and maybe tomato/asparagus risotto again this week. The newletter from Sandhill Organics included recipes for chicken stuffed with greens and chicken salad with napa cabbage that sound really good.

Not all vegetables are green . . .

My third weekly CSA share included dandelion greens, spinach, Japanese turnips, asparagus, chives with flowers, rhubard, and potatoes. The colors are a sharp contrast to the all green share from last week. I am going to use the asparagus for strata for a church breakfast. I have to bring an appetizer on Saturday night -- it will be something with spinach in it. The new issue of Gourmet came today -- the back page features potato salads. Laurie Colwin would be thrilled -- I will have to try one of her recipes as well as the recipe in Gourmet for a potato salad with horseradish. I am open to suggestions for the rhubarb -- in addition to the rhubarb in my share I have a huge rhubarb plant in my yard -- it is outside the electric fence so the dogs can't chew it up and the rabbits don't like it so it is doing very well.
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In addition to my vegetable share, I finished stitching Ewe & Eye & Friends Pea Pod Scissors Companion tonight. I have about a dozen of their scissor companion patterns -- two finished as scissor fobs, others stitched but not finished or unstitched. I picked this one for the Cross Stitch Pals May Stitch-a-Long since the theme is kitchen. Instead of stitching something for my kitchen, I decided to stitch something that might be found in my kitchen.

Second Week CSA Share

This week's share is dominated by greens -- spinach (2 bags), arugula, lettuce, and sorrel, with dill, asparagus, pea shoots and bok choy. I am thinking lemon flavored rissoto with asparagus, chinese or thai noodle salad with bok choy, salads, spinach pie, and a spinach omelet. I ate most of last week's share during the week -- I have some potatoes left, a couple stalks of green garlic and some chives. I think that there are some radishes too.

We have had a lot of pretty finches in the yard including some small, very yellow male gold finches. I imagine that soon they will start looking for mates. I love watching them while I sit at the kitchen table. Abel and Holly also love watching them through the glass door. Both dogs, Cain and Abel, like to watch Bob in the yard. Bob the Bunny is out and about this time of year and he knows where the dogs go and where they don't. He looks like he is teasing them by staying just outside of the electric fence boundary and twitching his tail at the dogs.

Community Supported Agriculture

This week was the start of my vegetable shares for this season. The picture shows the vegetables in my share from Sanhill Organics (http://sandhillorganics.com/2007_sandhill_organics.htm). I pick up my shares once a week at Prairie Crossing which is a few miles north. I enjoy the fresh taste of the vegetables and fruit that I get in the shares, I like supporting local agriculture and knowing where my food came from, and I like the surprise of picking up a different assortment of produce every week and planning dinner around it.

This week the share included green garlic, asparagus, chives, salad greens, radishes, red potatoes and tomato puree. Friday, I had a salad for lunch with radishes, salad greens, cucumber, tomato and tuna. Then, I made tomato/asparagus risotto for dinner with some of the garlic, the tomato puree and the asparagus. Potato side dishes and radish garnishes are planned for the rest of the week.