The reason I ask is some of you may not know I post pictures of produce on our page, as well as updates about what we are picking and where to find us…check out Stillmans Farm on facebook, or link from the blog!
City Growers of Boston called us for lettuce transplants. They told me they had called everyone, and no one had plants. It makes me wonder about all the lettuce I see at the farmer’s markets; I mean, how do they do that without having plants all the time like us? We take it for granted sometimes that all the food we offer is grown by us, after all, it IS important for us to know where our food came from too. When I tell you here is no spray on the lettuce, it means something and we take it seriously. We can say that because we grew it. Yes, we are making a living, but we are doing it honestly. We take pride in what we do. We take pride in offering a CSA comprised of produce we grow; I hope you feel pride in preparing it 
This week you should see more of the yummies you have been seeing, as well as potatoes and eggplants. The potatoes are mainly the white Superior or Red Norlands (white flesh, red skins), and the Yukon gold with their golden yellow flesh.
They are absolutely beautiful fruits I admire for all their wonderful skin colors
Zebra Eggplant and sliced Purple Blush
and provided inspiration in the kitchen . Italian eggplant: Of course, there’s your basic dark purple variety called ‘Classic’, but then we begin to mix it up a bit with the original white skinned (thus the name ‘eggplant’) ‘Tango’ – a very tender, white fleshed variety; Purple Blush – white to lilac skinned large softballs and a farm favorite; Neon – a magenta skinned elongated egg shape; Zebra – a magenta-purple striped with white; Round Mauve an heirloom variety – pinkish-purple skin, Bride – slim, light rose with white stripes; some other elongated white one who’s name escapes me now; Rosa Bianca an heirloom variety- round with rosy-lavender streaks. Then there’s the Asian types: Little Fingers and Orient Express– dark purple skinned, long cylindrical; Machiaw – magenta, very long, and skinny; Oh yes, that wasn’t quite enough…let us round out the selection with Green Goddess, whose name tells all. Well, what’s what? At first sampling, the Purple Blush, Rosa Bianca and the white are distinctly tender and sweet; they also cook faster. The others really have to be sampled side by side, and yes, they are different. We hope you can have fun with them as we do: baking, sautéing, grilling….
I made zucchini pancakes tonight and served them with tzatsiki sauce (posted last week) and a side of hotdogs. Yes, we’ll have hotdogs for sale at JP and Quincy! I added a little minced tarragon and a handful of feta to the pancakes and we had hot and spicy chard on top of the hotdogs.
Hot and sour chard on Beltie Dog, zucchini pancakes with Tzatziki Sauce
Farm Dirt
This week we watched the Cedar Waxwings fledge. It was wonderful to listen to all the whistling to each other and see mom and dad return with red berries for the young. The second day, Reid rushed back to the house to tell me there was a baby bird on the lawn. We picked up the precious thing and Glenn climbed a ladder to return it to the tree. The next day they were all competent enough flyers to be gone.
Cedar Waxwing fledgling
The farm is looking pretty—it’s a nice time for a visit. We aren’t big on self promotion because there are always things we wished looked better or are a work in process and we approach life with a certain amount of humility. BUT, to quote a professor of mine, “You’re not good enough to be humble.” On that note, the CSA boxes are really great: week after week of beautiful lettuce, plus some form of berries and peas or beans!
Did you now most CSA require their membership to pick their own peas and beans and if they have fruit, it is part of a separately purchased fruit share?
Please, do come out and enjoy the land where your food is coming from, establish the connection with your food and your farmer and nourish your soul.
Eat well, Geneviève Stillman
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