strawberries – rachel leff

Week 2. As shown above, this week we got mixed greens, salad turnips (hakurei?), garlic ramps, red leaf lettuce, pick-your-own strawberries, kale, and oregano.

As I wrote in my week 1 rundown, last week I wasn’t able to stick around to pick strawberries with my daughter. This time, I could. And it was a lot of fun. I think she ate all of the ones she picked (sorry, farm!). At first I tried to fight it—it was wrong, the strawberries were dirty, I need to control my kid better, and so on. And then, I figured, what the hell? She’s a happy, sweet kid, and she’s having fun eating some strawberries. Let her enjoy herself. And that’s what I did. Last week, my husband and daughter picked the strawberries that came home. This week, I was the picker, and I brought, let’s say, a more exacting standard to the task. Here are a few shots:

I’m looking especially looking forward to the turnips, which can be eaten raw, and the turnip greens, which I’ll saute. And those garlic ramps—so beautiful! In fact, I kinda thought this whole group was great looking. I took close ups of them all:

We finally did it—we bought a CSA share. Kinda hard to believe it’s our first time. Honestly, I’m not sure why we’ve never done it. But now we have, and I’m pretty excited.

Our share is at an organic farm in town. Pickup is at the farm, which is as quaint and charming as you could imagine. An old farmhouse and enormous barn on acres and acres of lovely fields with open views of distant hills. The farm store carries the shelves of CSA items that you grab yourself (or containers for pick-your-own options—this week, you could pick your own strawberries). There are also additional items for sale from the farm, as well as items from other local producers. It’s the kind of place you’d love to have your kid remember when she grows up. I hope my daughter remembers it. I’m glad she can have this kind of experience buying food. I’m glad that I can have it. Here are a few pics:

As the picture at the top of the post shows, our first share included spring garlic, choice of cilantro or chives (we went with the latter; we have cilantro all the time, and I couldn’t remember the last time we had chives in the house), pick-your-own strawberries, radishes, arugula, pea tendrils, and kweik buttercrunch lettuce. My husband, my daughter, and I all went to the pickup together, but, unfortunately, I had to run back to work and couldn’t join them for the strawberry picking.

I’ll post images of some of the things I make this week on Instagram.

Tag: strawberries

CSA, Week 2

CSA, Week 1