Oct 29th & Nov 1st: Recipes!

Recipes: Seasonal Sensations

So, I don't know about anyone else, but I am not really a turnip fan. But last year, I got a bunch from the winter share, and since I hate wasting food I was determined to use them. I found this recipe for Turnip Gratin from Gourmet magazine and let me tell you, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever made! Trust me on this one and give it a try.

FoodNetwork.com has recently given their website a complete overhaul, and there is a cool new section called In Season Now that is basically like one-stop shopping for seasonal recipes... check it out for some good ideas.

EatingWell's website also has a handy guide for cooking winter greens- including kale, swiss chard, and anything else you might get in your CSA share.

For this past weekend's core meeting I brought Chocolate Glazed Pumpkin Cookies from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine. They seemed to be a hit, and if you like chocolate and pumpkin I think you will like them too.

This recipe for Glazed Apple Lattice Coffee Cake has been on my list of things to make for a while... doesn't it look amazing? Now I just need an excuse to make it.... hmm.

Recipes: Marvelous Mains

We've got a bevy of great fall main course recipes for you this week. These are some of my favorites:

• Winter Squash Risotto
• Whole Wheat Penne with Butternut Squash and Beet Greens
• Whole Wheat Pasta with Kale and Fontina
• Spicy Squash Pasta
• Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard
• Chicken with Leeks and Pine Nuts
  
• Apple and Fennel Roasted Pork Tenderloin

Meal of the Week: What I Cooked Flickr Group

Be sure and join the fun (and the csa culinary creativity) in the What I Cooked Flickr group.

Personally, I really want core member Rebecca to come over to my house and cook me this!

Need some inspiration for what to do with your kale? Check out this yummy looking dish.

Oct 29th & Nov 1st: Important Info

Topics in this post are:

• Low Income Fundraising Brunch
• Winter Share Information Now Up!
• News From Our Farmers
  
• FYI: Things of Interest
  
• Join the CSA Core Group

Click here to see this week's share.

Low Income Fundraising Brunch

Thanks to everyone who came out to our second fundraising brunch this past Sunday. The food was even more delicious than the last one (if that's even possible), and the Low Income Fundraising Committee is well on their way to having enough money to supply the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen with fresh, local, organic veggies for the winter. Stay tuned for details on the next brunch.

Winter Share Information Now Up!

Visit the news section of our website for info on GoE's winter share, and start looking forward to a winter's worth of hearty greens and beautiful root veggies and squash. Remember that the winter share program is run by the farm and distributions are at the Saturday Farmers Market in McCarren Park. The GWCSA does not have any involvement with the winter share so please contact the farm directly to sign up or ask any questions-- we won't be able to help you if you email us!

News from our Farmers

Farmer Chris is a movie star... and a magazine star. We can't keep up with him!

Chris Kaplan-Walbrecht of Garden of Eve Organic Farm is in a documentary film- Farming the Future: Farm Life on Long Island. The film was produced by Ron Rudaitis in 2004 and is being shown as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Green Screen series.

Farming the Future will be the first of two one-hour films shown on November 3rd at 6:00pm at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center (65th Street and Broadway). Following the films there will be a panel discussion which will include both Chris and producer Ron Rudaitis, among others. Visit the FSLC website for more info.

And, Chris was photographed this past weekend by New York Magazine for an article on winter veggies which will run November 3.

FYI: Things of Interest

If you haven't read it yet, make sure to find some time to check out "Farmer in Chief", Michael Pollan's open letter to the next president that was published in the NYT magazine several weeks ago. It's a long read, but well worth it.

On Sunday November 9th at 7PM, our friends at the Brooklyn Kitchen will be celebrating their 2nd birthday at Union Pool. They are hosting a special recession-themed cooking contest: ramen noodles! Show off your most creative way to turn that cheapest-of-cheap meal into something with a little more pizzazz. Details here.

Looking for a fun and rewarding way to spend some weekend time? City Harvest has a huge need for volunteers right now- they are a great organization and I've been volunteering with them for about a year. Check out their website for more info.

Join the Core Group

If you're interested in getting involved in running the 2009 CSA season, now is the time to start attending core meetings. Stay tuned for the next meeting date, which will be in November. Any member who wishes to be more involved in the organizing of the CSA is encouraged/welcomed to attend. A core meeting runs 2 hours long (at least) with an agenda that covers our farm relationship, community event planning, fundraising, distribution logistics, sign up, and other areas of focus that fall into the community supported agriculture arena. It is a good time to put your voice into the mix, your ideas into play, and some work into creating a sustainable community in your own backyard. There is a lot of work and organization that goes into the sign up process and if you are interested in being involved on that level, typically one starts attending core meetings in September (& October & November...) RSVP for more information on the agenda. (Subject; Core Meeting) The meetings are held at the Lutheran Chuch of the Messiah @ 129 Russell St (you know, our Wednesday distribution spot) We found that bringing yummy food to share helps those two hours just fly by...

Oct 29th & Nov 1st: This Week's Share

This week's Vegetable Share will be 8 items for a total value of $23.25.

• 1 lb green peppers ($3)
• 1 bu broccoli rabe ($2.25)
• 1-2 heads broccoli ($3)
• 1 bu turnips ($2.25)
• 1 bu kale ($2.25)
• 1 bu Swiss Chard ($2.25)
• .5 lbs pea shoots ($3)
• 1 head Napa Cabbage ($2.25 – look for the pictures of Chris with Savoy cabbage in New York Magazine Nov 3)
• 2 lbs beets ($3)

Possibly 1 pumpkin or winter squash ($4-5)

The Fruit Share will be 2 lbs golden delicious apples ($4), 2 lbs bosc pears ($4)

The Egg Share will be 1 dozen organic eggs.

The Flower Share: Unfortunately, last week was the last week for the Flower Share. We had a very hard frost (i.e. temperatures in the high 20s) which killed a lot of the flowers. The share was only planned to run through the end of October anyhow.

Winter Share Info

While we at the Greenpoint-Williamsburg CSA don't run a winter share, Garden of Eve Farm offers a winter share to be picked up 1 Saturday per month at the McCarren Farmer's Market from December through May (6 months).

This year they are offering 2 different shares:

“Garden of Eve” share includes only produce and eggs grown at Garden of Eve. Vegetables are certified organic and eggs are from our hens that are pastured and fed organic feed. We can also give you a vegan share, without the eggs and with extra vegetables, on request.

"Shopping Basket" share will also include produce and eggs from Garden of Eve, but in smaller quantities, i.e. 10 lbs of vegetables instead of 20 lbs of vegetables, 1-2 dozen eggs, and the remaining value will consist of New York State organic grain products (i.e. cereals), NYS organic dairy products (i.e. Evans Organic Farm/Skytop yogurt, possibly cheese) and non-organic NYS apples and juices.

For more information or sign up materials, visit the Garden of Eve website or email the farm.

If you are interested in other winter shares, Winter Sun Farms, which offers frozen summer vegetables, has pick ups in Chelsea and Cobble Hill.

Remember the Greenpoint-Williamsburg CSA does not run a Winter Share, please email the farm for more information.

Oct 23rd & 25th: News from the Farm!

from Eve at the farm ...

Digging Potatoes, the Medium-Hard Way

Chris cut his hand last Saturday while trying to fix the potato digger.

After trying to decide whether it was worth sitting in the emergency room for 4-6 hours to get a few stiches, I bandaged him up at our house with some peroxide, gauze and band-aids.

Then Chris drove himself back out into the field, to direct me and Farm Apprentice Margaret how to fix the digger - and trying to do it himself too, one-handed, because apparently we were too slow. Although we are married it's hard for me to understand sometimes how such total impatience and stoic persistence can coexist in one person.

The two-row digger we have is a big improvement on the one-row digger we used to use (and just sold), which in turn was a big improvment on digging potatoes by hand. However, it was made in the 1940's and is pretty much a moving junkpile. Can you imagine going to the office, and trying to get your work done on a computer from the 1980's? That's pretty much what potato digging is like for us. Better than doing it longhand, but filled with pitfalls.

As Margaret and I walked alongside the digger, watching for clumps of weeds that might be getting stuck in the chain, which could jam the digger up and break it, I thought about how much easier our life would be if we used Roundup, the most powerful herbicide, as pretty much all of our neighbors do. By killing the potato vines and weedy grasses before they dig their potatoes, they eliminate a lot of the weed clumps and dirt clods that cause our digger so many problems.

Just the day before I had driven by our neighbor harvesting his potatoes (about 200 acres worth - we grow about 1 acre) which seemed to be scooped effortlessly out of the ground by his (also aged) digger, carried up a conveyor belt, and dropped with amazing speed into a huge (also 1940's probably) potato truck. Things always look effortless from the road, as you drive by a farm, while equipment is working.

You're usually long gone when that moment comes that something goes wrong and it all breaks down. Even if you were there to see it, the anguish of the delayed harvest and the tortuous problem of 70-year-old machines needing to be diagnosed and nursed back to health wouldn't affect you, the way working people's malaise don't affect you when you're on vacation.

At the point when I joined the project, one tire on the digger was mostly flat, a spool keeping the digger chain in place fell off (complete with 5 washers and various nuts and bolts, spread around in the dirt behind us) no fewer than two times, another spool had been replaced with a much smaller one, making the digger tilt to one side, and the belt jammed a couple of times, bending metal links, which we then had to remove and then hammer back into place.

Chris of course wasn't supposed to use the hand which I had just bandaged up, but he insisted on digging to then end of the potato row. Most people don't realize that a profession in such an "idyllic" landscape as farming can literally make you hold your breath with tension, watching the digger creep forward ever so slowly, dreading hearing the grinding sound of broken metal on metal just inches away from the task being completed.

It reminded me of the time Chris and I depended on our first farm vehicle, a cargo van with about 120,000 miles on it that we used to get our produce to our farmers markets. The brakes had given out on the week before, and he'd had an accident. When I called Chris on his cell phone after that week's market, I said, "Any surprises?". "No, no surprises," he said. "Well... the window fell out on the way to the market... I guess that was a surprise."

But the story ends happily. We made it to the end of the row, Chris's hand is healing, we won't give in to the temporary temptation to use herbicide and will stick with our organic growing practices. The potatoes are being stacked in the barn, and in your CSA share this week, and the good news is, at least we didn't have to dig them by hand!

Oct 23rd & 25th: This Week's Share

This week's Vegetable Share will be 8 items for a total value of $20.50.

• 1 bu arugula ($2.25)
• 1 bu Collards ($2.25)
• 1 bu white radishes ($1.50)
• 1 sweet dumpling winter squash ($3)
• 1 delicata winter squash ($2)
• 1 lb sweet potatoes ($2)
• 1 bu carrots ($3)
• 2 lbs potatoes ($3)

The Fruit Share will be 2 lbs golden delicious apples ($4), 2 lbs bosc pears ($4)

The Egg Share will be 1 dozen organic eggs.

The Flower Share will be a bouquet of snapdragons, African marigolds, celosia, cosmos, zinnias, and others.

Oct 16th & 18th: This Week's Share

This week's Vegetable Share will be 8 items for a total value of $19.

• 1 bu arugula ($2.25)
• 1 bu Collards ($2.25)
• 1 bu white radishes ($1.50)
• 1 sweet dumpling winter squash ($3)
• 1 delicata winter squash ($2)
• 1 lb sweet potatoes ($2)
• 1 bu carrots ($3)
• 2 lbs potatoes ($3)

The Fruit Share will be 2 lbs golden delicious apples ($4), 2 lbs bosc pears ($4)

The Egg Share will be 1 dozen organic eggs.

The Flower Share will be a bouquet of snapdragons, African marigolds, celosia, cosmos, zinnias, and others.

Oct 9th & 11th: Important Info

Topics in this post are:

• REMINDER: First Four Wednesday October distributions changed to Thursdays
• Final Farm Visit - Gleaning the Fields on Oct. 12
  
• Upcoming Events: Harvest Dinner
  
• Get the GWCSA news via RSS and Explore the Website!
  
• Join the CSA Core Group

Click here to see this week's share.

REMINDER: First Four Wednesday distribution on THURSDAY - This week's on Thursday, October 2^nd.

Can you believe it's about to be October? Make sure to double check your calendars yet again. Our Wednesday pick-ups are moving to Thursdays for the first four weeks of October. That's Oct. 2, 9, 16, and 23! Time and place stay the same. Thanks again to everyone for being so flexible! The farmers and the Core Group appreciate everyone's willingness to make this necessary change a smooth one.

Wednesday Distributions in October: October 2, 9, 16 & 23.

Final Farm Visit - Gleaning the Fields on Sunday, October 12th

Our third and final Farm Trip of the season will be SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12. Visiting Garden of Eve Farm is an experience not to be missed to grasp the full journey of your veggies from the farm to your table and to get to know your farmers. Plus this trip offers a totally new farm experience: gleaning!

Gleaning is the act of collecting the remaining crops from the fields after they have been harvested. Often, the harvesting machinery will leave behind parts of the crop that are perfectly edible, but need to be collected by hand. The food we collect during this farm trip will be donated to charity. The gleaning also leads up to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which has agricultural origins. After our potluck lunch, volunteers from the local synagogue will be building a traditional sukkah, a hut where meals will be eaten for the coming week. Members of our contingent can continue to explore the farm grounds, watch the building of the sukkah, or venture down the road for tastings at Roanoke Vineyards.

Garden of Eve Farm is located on the north fork of Long Island in Riverhead, about 80 miles from Greenpoint/Williamsburg. Because LIRR schedules are limited on the weekend, we recommend CARPOOLING or participating in our VAN SHARE to maximize your visit. Friends and families are welcome!

SCHEDULE:
8:30 AM: Depart Brooklyn to arrive the farm at 10 AM. If this feels way early, just think how much our farmers do before 8:30 everyday!

MIDDAY: Potluck picnic: Bring a sandwich/main dish for yourself (and utensils/plate) plus a side/dessert to share
3:00 PM: Depart farm for return to Brooklyn.

HAVE A RIDE?
Will you be driving? Please send an email with the subject: FARM TRIP DRIVER with the number of seats you can make available and your neighborhood as soon as possible. You will be notified by follow-up email of your riders. Also, just let us know if you will be going out independently, so we can keep track of our Greenpoint-Williamsburg contingent.

DRIVE A VAN?
We need volunteers who are comfortable driving a 15 passanger van and are available to pick up Saturday night in midtown Manhattan and return vans Sunday after the trip. Please send an email with the subject: VAN DRIVER as soon as possible.

NEED A RIDE?
The goal is to match everyone who needs a ride into a carpool. If we have more riders than can be accommodated, we will be renting vans, and these seats will cost $20 each. If you are interested in being matched for a ride or buying a van seat, please send an email with the subject: FARM TRIP RIDER with your neighborhood and mention if you are not positive you will attend (you will not have priority for the van, but you will not risk paying for a seat you won't use- see below). You will be notified by follow-up email of your ride arrangement.

Note: While van seats will be payable at departure on October 12, reservations for the van are NOT guaranteed to be refundable. If you or a stand-in can't make it at the last minute and the reserved seat is left empty, you will have cost someone a ride and our farm trip volunteer part of the rental fee. You will owe at the following distribution for unused seats. Please understand your commitment in advance.

Upcoming Events:

Remember you can keep an eye on events anytime by checking our calendar!

Harvest Dinner - date TBD in November

A pre-Thanksgiving potluck dinner and silent auction held in the Williamsburg area. The money raised will go to Just Food. It will be attended by our farmers, Chris & Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht and is open to all members. More info coming soon.

Get our news feed through Google Reader or another RSS reader! Explore the Website!

If you use RSS or a feedburner, you can get CSA news that way! Here is the feed

Explore the Website

Keep up with events and pick ups with our online calendar or check out the newest CSA photos - farm trips, pick ups, events, and more.

Join the Core Group

The next core meeting will be on Sunday, Oct 19th. Email us for details (Subject: Core Meeting).

Any member who wishes to be more involved in the organizing of the CSA is encouraged/welcomed to attend. A core meeting runs 2 hours long (at least) with an agenda that covers our farm relationship, community event planning, fundraising, distribution logistics, sign up, and other areas of focus that fall into the community supported agriculture arena. It is a good time to put your voice into the mix, your ideas into play, and some work into creating a sustainable community in your own backyard. There is a lot of work and organization that goes into the sign up process and if you are interested in being involved on that level, typically one starts attending core meetings in September (& October & November...)

Oct 9th & 11th: This Week's Share

This week's Vegetable Share will be 8 items for a total value of $21.50.

• 1 bulb garlic ($2)
• 2 green bell peppers ($1)
• 1 bu Swiss Chard ($2.25)
• 1 bu easter-egg colored radishes ($1.50)
• 1 bu kale ($2.25)
• 2 lbs beet root (beets without tops) ($4)
• .5 lb mesclun ($4.50)
• .5 lb braising greens ($3)

The Fruit Share will be 2 lb golden delicious apples ($4), 2 lb bosc pears ($4)

The Egg Share will be 1 dozen organic eggs.

The Flower Share will be a bouquet of snapdragons, lettuce seeds, celosia, burgundy okra, cosmos, zinnias, others.

Oct 2nd & 4th: Recipes!

In this post:

• This Week's Recipe: Learning to Love Beets!
  
• Eggplant Recipes
• Check out the CSA Flickr Group!
  

Click here to see this week's share.

This Week's Recipe:
This is a posting from the recipe forum at the Farmers' Diary of the Garden of Eve website:

The New York Times list Beets as #1 on their list of "11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating."

The Times also recently referred to beets as an "improbable super food," rich in anti-oxidants, and akin to spinach as a rich source of folate.

My first time eating a beet was... two days ago. I figured if I was supposed to convince others to try them, it would be hypocritical to hold my own nose up at them. Honestly, it wasn't so bad... beets are actually sort of good!

For those who do not love beets, please give the fresh ones you got in your CSA a try. They are not as bad as you may think or remember, but sort of slippery, earthy and sweet.

Apparently the health benefits from beets are best when they are eaten raw, which is good news because that is how I most enjoyed them. Below are three super-easy ways to enjoy this super-food.

RAW: wash, peel and grate your beets into a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, and mix in half a teaspoon of a whole-seed dijon mustard. Or just salt and pepper.

BAKED: Bake with skin for 45 minutes (approx) in a 400 degree oven. Enjoy the sweet insides.

BOILED: wash, boil until tender (about 20-40 minutes, depending on size). Run under cold water- skins will peel off easily. Chop up and toss with grated onions and your favorite vinagrette for a delicious beet salad. Try adding walnuts or goat cheese for a more gourmet twist.

You can also steam beets: best to peel and cut them up to manageable size first…the water still turns red, but I am a believer in steaming over boiling to reduce nutrient loss.

And I'm also a believer of the suggestion of goat cheese with beets, especially with a splash or two of balsamic vinegar. Yum-O! (apologies to anyone who hates RR).

More Recipes!

Wondering how to make your Eggplant dishes as fun and colorful as the Eggplant itself?

• Pan-Fried White Eggplant with Onion, Caper, and Herb Sauce
• Eggplant Caviar
• Pasta with Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Bread Crumbs
• Roasted Eggplant and Pepper Pasta Salad A double whamy with eggplant AND peppers!
• Cold Eggplant Salad with Sesame Dressing
• Eggplant Tartines with Hummus and Arugula Another double whamy!
• Feeling adventurous? Roasted Eggplant, Red Pepper, & Pear Soup Sub Green Peppers for the Red
• Eggplant Souffle and Apple Cider Onion Sauce
  

Meal of the Week: What I Cooked Flickr Group

Check out these Braised Greens!
Many delicious photos to choose from as always, but I was impressed by how good these braised greens looked. (When I cooked mine, they looked more like the kind of slimy overcooked greens that kids worldwide refuse to eat.) The chopped up red stems of the rainbow chard look like candy; if I was a kid, I wouldn't refuse these greens!

Be sure and join the fun (and the CSA culinary creativity) in the What I Cooked Flickr group

Oct 2nd & 4th: Important Info

Topics in this post are:

• REMINDER: First Four Wednesday October distributions changed to Thursdays
• Final Farm Visit - Gleaning the Fields on Oct. 12
  
• Upcoming Events: Worms and Wine/King Corn/Harvest Dinner
  
• Get the GWCSA news via RSS and Explore the Website!
  
• Join the CSA Core Group

Click here to see this week's share.

REMINDER: First Four Wednesday distribution on THURSDAY - This week's on Thursday, October 2^nd.

Can you believe it's about to be October? Make sure to double check your calendars yet again. Our Wednesday pick-ups are moving to Thursdays for the first four weeks of October. That's Oct. 2, 9, 16, and 23! Time and place stay the same. Thanks again to everyone for being so flexible! The farmers and the Core Group appreciate everyone's willingness to make this necessary change a smooth one.

Wednesday Distributions in October: October 2, 9, 16 & 23.

Final Farm Visit - Gleaning the Fields on Sunday, October 12th

Our third and final Farm Trip of the season will be SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12. Visiting Garden of Eve Farm is an experience not to be missed to grasp the full journey of your veggies from the farm to your table and to get to know your farmers. Plus this trip offers a totally new farm experience: gleaning!

Gleaning is the act of collecting the remaining crops from the fields after they have been harvested. Often, the harvesting machinery will leave behind parts of the crop that are perfectly edible, but need to be collected by hand. The food we collect during this farm trip will be donated to charity. The gleaning also leads up to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which has agricultural origins. After our potluck lunch, volunteers from the local synagogue will be building a traditional sukkah, a hut where meals will be eaten for the coming week. Members of our contingent can continue to explore the farm grounds, watch the building of the sukkah, or venture down the road for tastings at Roanoke Vineyards.

Garden of Eve Farm is located on the north fork of Long Island in Riverhead, about 80 miles from Greenpoint/Williamsburg. Because LIRR schedules are limited on the weekend, we recommend CARPOOLING or participating in our VAN SHARE to maximize your visit. Friends and families are welcome!

SCHEDULE:
8:30 AM: Depart Brooklyn to arrive the farm at 10 AM. If this feels way early, just think how much our farmers do before 8:30 everyday!

MIDDAY: Potluck picnic: Bring a sandwich/main dish for yourself (and utensils/plate) plus a side/dessert to share
3:00 PM: Depart farm for return to Brooklyn.

HAVE A RIDE?
Will you be driving? Please send an email with the subject: FARM TRIP DRIVER with the number of seats you can make available and your neighborhood as soon as possible. You will be notified by follow-up email of your riders. Also, just let us know if you will be going out independently, so we can keep track of our Greenpoint-Williamsburg contingent.

DRIVE A VAN?
We need volunteers who are comfortable driving a 15 passanger van and are available to pick up Saturday night in midtown Manhattan and return vans Sunday after the trip. Please send an email with the subject: VAN DRIVER as soon as possible.

NEED A RIDE?
The goal is to match everyone who needs a ride into a carpool. If we have more riders than can be accommodated, we will be renting vans, and these seats will cost $20 each. If you are interested in being matched for a ride or buying a van seat, please send an email with the subject: FARM TRIP RIDER with your neighborhood and mention if you are not positive you will attend (you will not have priority for the van, but you will not risk paying for a seat you won't use- see below). You will be notified by follow-up email of your ride arrangement.

Note: While van seats will be payable at departure on October 12, reservations for the van are NOT guaranteed to be refundable. If you or a stand-in can't make it at the last minute and the reserved seat is left empty, you will have cost someone a ride and our farm trip volunteer part of the rental fee. You will owe at the following distribution for unused seats. Please understand your commitment in advance.

Upcoming Events:

Remember you can keep an eye on events anytime by checking our calendar!

Worms and Wine

The North Brooklyn Compost Group, our Saturday distribution site neighbor, is holding a fundraising event on Sept. 30 6:30-9:00 PM at Urban Rustic.

Mark your calendars to come support composting in the community and at home, learn from No Impact Man and his year-long quest to minimize his family's trash and environmental impact, and participate in the raffle and silent auction!

Sponsors include 3rliving, Brooklyn Kitchen, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Word, Sprout Home, Habana Outpost, Urban Rustic, Lodge Restaurant and Penny Licks.

Screening of the film KING CORN
Followed by discussion with the director
Thu, Oct 2, 8pm – 10pmLutheran Church of the Messiah @ 129 Russell St, between Driggs and Nassau and site of Wednesday CSA distribution.

Come and learn about America's most-productive, most-subsidized crop! King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.

To learn more visit: http://www.kingcorn.net/

Harvest Dinner - date TBD in November

A pre-Thanksgiving potluck dinner and silent auction held in the Williamsburg area. The money raised will go to Just Food. It will be attended by our farmers, Chris & Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht and is open to all members. More info coming soon.

Get our news feed through Google Reader or another RSS reader! Explore the Website!

If you use RSS or a feedburner, you can get CSA news that way! Here is the feed

Explore the Website

Keep up with events and pick ups with our online calendar or check out the newest CSA photos - farm trips, pick ups, events, and more.

Join the Core Group

The next core meeting will be on Sunday, Oct 19th. Email us for details (Subject: Core Meeting).

Any member who wishes to be more involved in the organizing of the CSA is encouraged/welcomed to attend. A core meeting runs 2 hours long (at least) with an agenda that covers our farm relationship, community event planning, fundraising, distribution logistics, sign up, and other areas of focus that fall into the community supported agriculture arena. It is a good time to put your voice into the mix, your ideas into play, and some work into creating a sustainable community in your own backyard. There is a lot of work and organization that goes into the sign up process and if you are interested in being involved on that level, typically one starts attending core meetings in September (& October & November...)

Oct 2nd & 4th: This Week's Share

This week's Vegetable Share will be 8 items for a total value of $22.75.

• 1 lb mixed chinese, black beauty, and rosa bianca eggplant ($2.50)
  
• 2 green bell peppers ($1.50)
  
• 1 bu arugula ($3)
  
• 1 bu easter-egg colored radishes ($1.50)
  
• 1 head bok choi ($2.25)
  
• 2 lbs beet root (beets without tops) ($4)
  
• 0.5 lb mesclun ($4.50)
  
• 1 qt mixed green and yellow string beans ($3.50)

The Fruit Share will be 1.5 lb peaches ($4.50), 1.5 lb apples ($3, variety to be determined), 2 lb bosc pears ($4)

The Egg Share will be 1 dozen organic eggs.

The Flower Share will be a bouquet of snapdragons, lettuce seeds, celosia, burgundy okra, cosmos, zinnias, others.