Recently in Travel Category
As I visited with local farmers, flour millers (Wade's Mill) and vintners (Rockbridge) outside Lexington, Virginia last July, I was surprised that they did not know what a CSA was. You can read about the concept of Community Supported Agriculture here. I have been a member of a csa, The Farm at Miller's Crossing, for 10 years. My recipes are passed out to all of the shareholders, or members, during the 5 month growing season which exists here in the Hudson Valley. That is to help the members use all of the goodies in the weekly share. For example, arugula has a very long growing season, so it appears repeatedly in our harvest. After the first one or two pounds of it, some folks get tired of preparing it the same way, perhaps the only way they know. This is where I come in. I provide four or five recipes with each harvest that are closely matched to the produce in the weekly share. All year long I collect and develop recipes towards this end. I have about 25 that use arugula. Kohlrabi anyone?
I have a dozen ideas on how to get that unusual root on your dinner table. And now they are on the web, as well. Go see here.
We are planning to celebrate the great feast of Thanksgiving in Lexington this year. Yes, I am running away from home for yet another Holiday. I think that's just fine. I am bring some people, my favorite kitchen knives, local organic produce and root veggies from the Farm, and of course, a slew of recipes. That's what a CSA is.
The Tween learned how to fish on the fourth of July. In fact, it seems as though we've created a monster. We could not get her to put the pole down. She had worm guts and fish blood and hook scrapes and line burns all over her hands. "So what?" she said. I estimate she caught, and released safely, 30 to 40 sunnies, bluegills and strawberry bass over the course of three days. She was baiting the hooks with canned corn, cooked peas, worms and anything else she could dig up. Fearlessly she wrapped her bare hands around the wrigglers on the end of the lines and, without getting poked by their fins, carefully removed the hooks. In fact, one fish had an old hook under it's eye, so after she removed the small hook she had caught it with, she took pains to get that hook out as well. I can safely state that no fish were harmed in the making of this new fisherman. When she spotted a really big lunker, she got very excited. But the look on her face made a drastic change when the shiny two foot carp ate the strawberry bass, the hook, the line, the sinker and all in one gulp.
That was one that got away. She tried for two more days to catch it, and finally gave up when she spotted a blue-tailed salamander on the stones, which she proceeded to try to grab. Then her attention was taken by a garter snake which had draped it's body around a red-winged blackbird nest in the cattails. The parents were making a terrible ruckus, and the fledgling had hopped up the stem of the protective reeds to relative safety. There was no lack of nature to hold our attention this week. She named the regular visiting rabbit Steve, and no matter how many white tailed deer wandered around the house, it was definitely Frankie every time. We're heading back to the house in November. The flora and fauna will be waiting, I'm sure.
