Beet It

Weird Al Yankovic comes to mind more than Lil' Mike but either way this segue into the land of sugar and fuschia is pretty lame. Yeah, this is not the usual clever, erudite, and overall swanky entry to this otherwise cool blog. No. This time it's the other half. The yang to her yin, the jelly to her peanut butter, the fury to her sound, the crap to her holy.

Getting on with it: Stacy collected our first CSA distribution on Tuesday. For some of you this may foster fond remembrances of Jefferson Davis and Bull Run, but in our neck of these southern woods, it is community shared agriculture. Yesssirreee! We be farmin'! At least we saw the farm once. Some nice fellow by the name of Stufflebeam (I kid you not!) has been doing the hard work of tilling the land, planting the seed, and keeping the critters away so that we can enjoy, every week for the spring, summer, and fall, the fruits of the earth, organic-style. None of them pesky pesticides, or frumious fertilizers. This is "righteous food!" Clean, pure, and mother-earth good! Brad has this charismatic style that makes my homage a grammar school rant to his Gettysburg Address, when it comes to understanding what goes into good farming and good farmers. For more information check him out at Home Sweet Farm.

So we got our loot on Tueday. First there were the beets. Never been a big beet man. Never. Really. But, hey, for Stacy, I'll try anything at least once. Oh, and these beets were great. Like wow backwards! More on this later.

Next came the Swiss chard. Haven't cooked it yet. Looking forward to figurin' out what to do with it. Stacy'll probably come up with something good first.

After that was the celery. Nice stuff, and homegrown no less! Where's the peanut butter? Or maybe I should be asking for the Bloody Mary mix. Forget the mix, we're already working on a more natural "organic" BM. Mmmmm mmmmmm.

Finally we rounded off our first 1/3 of a CSA share with some arugula and Bibb lettuce.


All in all a fun first feast. And generally happy bowels. The portions are a third of a usual share, and a share costs $300.00 per season. The food is from local smaller farms and is completely organic, using good farming principles, not just a lot of hoopla to make bigger sized crops or larger harvests. Just honest farming. And that's especially nice.

OK, so what to do with this the first night? Roasted whole beets, garlic, and parmesan served with gnocchi, of course! (Duh!) Yup, we cut up the beets (a delicious source of sugar, vitamins C & A, folate, calcium, etc.) and used the whole thing, leaves, stems, and roots! Even if you're not a beet fan -- as I once wasn't, sadly -- you WILL find this enticing. And if you're in an extra lucky minority (10-15% of the general population) you may have beeturia. Beets make everything red! I mean, these colors run, so look out! (Note the gloved hand as I sliced these babies.) It was a great Tuesday, a great early harvest, and a great all-natural meal, with all natural company. Expect more great posts as we continue our adventures in community shared agriculture. You should check it out too!

All the best,

Nature Boy