You know that old saying about one door closing*? After going through the six phases of grief (five, plus I added one: blogging), the Accidental Locavore found the perfect solution to the weekly farm box, CSA, self-shopping dilemma, almost literally on her doorstep.
Ron (from Stokes Farm) and I met last year, taping the locavore episode of Emeril’s Table. His family farm is in New Jersey and he’s at my local Greenmarket every Thursday. This didn’t used to be very beneficial to either of us (as I would have my box upstate on Fridays), but I would stop by for the occasional head of lettuce and chat. This summer, however, we’ve made a deal, to come by and pick up a box of whatever he thinks is good every Thursday. This week, I dropped off my two EcoPlum Chico Bags before heading downtown and when I came back a couple hours later, they were overflowing with produce!
Carrots, zucchini, summer squash, cherry tomatoes on the stem (smelling just like summer), a pair of big tomatoes, beets (pink and white), garlic scapes and their buddy, green garlic, red romaine and bibb lettuce, and two big bunches of one of my favorites, broccoli rabe.
The cherry tomatoes, lettuces and garlic scape went quickly into my salad for lunch. My friend Serge from Serevan gave me his recipe for roasting the beets (there will be a link). Now, you all know how much I loathe beets. Serge is convinced that I’ve just never had them prepared correctly. He didn’t change my mind about them, but if I was ever going to like beets, his would be the ones. These will go into a salad with goat cheese for my husband who loves them! The broccoli rabe will go with a big chicken I got from the Millbrook farmer’s market. I’m going to stuff it with the garlic scapes and roti it on the grill. There are also a few Italian sausages left from Arch River Farm, so pasta or pizza with sausage and broccoli rabe could also be on the menu. I didn’t know that the pretty yellow flower on the broccoli were edible and can be used in salad. Besides being pretty (you do eat with your eyes, too!), they add a nice bitter-tart crunch to the salad. I’m going to be keeping an eye out for them in the future and you should, too.
So, thanks to Ron, the Locavore is back in business, produce drawers overflowing and salads crammed with everything good!
*Here’s what you probably don’t know about that quote, it’s from Alexander Graham Bell and the whole quote goes like this: “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
your six phases of grief are awesome!
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Some say that sometimes a life’s qualities are measured by the extremeties of its’ incongruities. Only the Locavore could come through such an exptermely incongruous open door with a farm box in one hand and hot dogs in the other.