Summer 2021 CSA - Week 9

Full Share: Summer Squash, Golden Beets, Celery, Cucumber, Eggplant, Tomatoes, Garlic, Cilantro, Lettuce Heads

Half Share: Summer Squash, Golden Beets, Celery, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Garlic, Lettuce Head

This week we have our crew member Anastasia telling you about her experience with us.

I have been coming to Rocky Creek Farm and have been a CSA member for several years now. I am a sculptor from Vienna, Austria and spend a lot of my time cooking. Food and cooking influences my artistic practice in many ways so it just felt natural to me to start working at the farm this summer to learn. Sculpture is, for me, a poetic vocabulary of materials and ingredients, just like in cooking. In Korean, the word “Son-Mat” describes “hand taste”, the living yeast and bacteria that lives on a cook’s hands, making each dish uniquely specific to the person who prepared it. I think the same can be said about the produce from Rocky Creek Farm. The beautiful vegetables and many heirloom varieties’ flavors tell stories of the local landscapes and hard seasons, all grown by Matt and Jacy’s magic touch.

I am very grateful to be spending my days here picking flowers and vegetables, making flower arrangements and witnessing how much love and care goes into each piece of produce.

I can’t wait to meet you all at the market stand!

We’ve been asked on better ways to store produce, so here are some helpful tips for keeping items fresh! Beet and carrot tops can always be discarded or for beets, you can sauté them as you would chard. Topless “hard goods” store better. Cucumbers and zucchini I would put directly in your crisper drawer, no bag, to let them breathe but not let too much air to them or they will get soft quickly. When I bring produce home, I primarily take everything out of the bag and put them in the drawers.

The rain yesterday made for a messy harvest. We tried our very best to clean off the soil from all the goods but the celery and beets didn’t come out as clean as we would have liked. Due to the extreme heat, the celery’s inner stalks fried and we didn’t think they would come back from it. So it’s not as stalky as we would like but great in soups or the infusing salt with the leaves (a great addition to the spice cabinet!).

For a recipe this week, the eggplant would be great sliced and grilled or every sautéed alongside the squash. I enjoy making baba ganoush with the limited amount of eggplant (only 1 for each full share). We have garlic in the box and parsley in the stand.

Cheers friends, Alley