pease porridge

Moving On

Hey, so, as you may have noticed, my interest in writing a blog devoted to cooking has kind of been waning.  Rather than soldier on and get really annoyed at myself about it, I've started up a new blog which will include the recipes and food advice and pretty pictures and whatnot, but will also include other things like talking about Shakespeare and music and beading and all that.

The blog is called too many hobbies, which seemed appropriate, and I hope to see you all over there somemtime.

Howdy!

Thanks to FoodCandy, pease porridge recently got a mention in New York Magazine's Grub Street.  Their epithet 'farm-loving' is, I suppose, appropriate, considering the recent posting, although I imagine you're all now picturing me in a straw hat and overalls.  I do own a very nice orange straw hat, mind, and pink crocs, but I haven't warn overalls since, um, college.

A Day at the Farm Part 4: The Food

I think the photos speak for themselves:

A Day at the Farm Part 3: The Fields

One of things that you get out of the whole CSA experience, apart from tons of fresh produce and a good feeling about your consumer habits, is firsthand experience of agriculture on (quite literally) the ground.  For city-dwellers (like us), especially those with kids (like us), it's a great resource.  Every week you can observe plants in different stages of development, watch irrigation and pest-control programs at work, and cheer farmhands on in their seemingly neverending battle with obsolete technology (like those tractors above).

Also, it's really, really pretty out there:

A Day at the Farm Part 2: Pick Your Own

This is the pick your own shed at Waltham Fields.  On the white board they list what's available and give you a general sense of where it is, and, on occasion, how to pick it, or how to recognise the ripe from the unready.  There are also scissors, in case you've forgotton yours, and pint baskets, in case you need to measure out a pint or two of something for your share.

This week, among other things, we have: "BEANS green purple & yellow behind the red shed. take what you'll use. frost killed the plants - beans are OK underneath. pick hard - last day."

A Day at the Farm Part 1: The Farmstand

In just two short weeks our CSA experience will be almost over; I say almost because we signed up for an extra winter share that delivers two weeks of root vegetables in late November.  This past weekend when we went to pick up our share I finally remembered my camera and thus begins a photo-retrospective of the CSA experience.

I really could have been better about produce-blogging this summer, but, in truth, I was kind of too busy cooking.  We were really happy with the results this year, and we'll definitely do it again, but it does keep you busy, what with making sure you have time to spend picking up your food, and time cleaning out your fridge obsessively, and time cooking and preserving and whatever else you need to do to keep up.  Once the harvest picked up, we generally had way too much for one family of four, even though we really like our veggies.  We did all right with saving and sharing the wealth, and hopefully what we didn't do so well, we'll do better next year.