2015 begins!

We are all ready to welcome you to our storefront CSA pick-up tomorrow!

We are all ready to welcome you to our new CSA pick-up tomorrow!

Hi! Are you totally new to our CSA? Let me introduce to the weekly CSA newsletter. It’s an important part of what we offer you as your farmers — it connects you to the work we do out here and helps guide you into a fabulous CSA experience. Each week the newsletter goes like this:

  1. Fun essay related to current happenings on the farm (with photos)
  2. Any important news or reminders (upcoming payments due or farm events)
  3. Sometimes a recipe or two
  4. The list of available vegetables and extra goodies for the week — this is where you’ll find a lot of useful information about the most basic cooking preparations for vegetables and other food products. If you’re new to seasonal eating, at least read this portion of the newsletter each week!

And, now onto our first newsletter of 2015! …

Here we go again: tomorrow is our first CSA pick up of the season! Since we operate a 45 week CSA, our first day comes quite early. As we are now entering our tenth season, I can’t help but reflect on that very first year (2006) and how at this point in January we were only just beginning to realize that we’d have a season at all. We were finishing up graduate school programs in Bellingham, Washington and didn’t anticipate how quickly our farm dreams would come to fruition. But a series of very happy events led us to McMinnville to farm that very year (in fact, we moved to McMinnville before I had even defended my thesis!).

This year feels very different indeed. We’re here. We’ve been here for years now. We’ve got fields full of winter vegetables; coolers full of storage roots and apples; a freezer full of butchered meat; and a long list of new and returning CSA members excited to enjoy the year with us. And, yet, this is a beginning too. Way back in that first year, we couldn’t possibly imagine what it would feel like to sustain this farm season after season, through nature’s vagaries, through the results of our mistakes; through the evolution of our community. Certainly, we experienced a continual level of exhaustion in those start up years that we only rarely experience these days (thank goodness!), but the work continues. I have great respect for any long-term small business owner these days, because the sustaining part requires every bit as much of intention as the starting. We are also more grateful than ever for the customers who have supported our farm up until now and who continue to do so (because, heck, I’m sure that long-term CSA membership requires intention too!).

2015 feels like a significant new chapter in our farm’s story as we continue to grow and fine tune our CSA. We’ve spent most of this last week setting up our new storefront pick-up, and it is looking awesome. We’ve dreamed of hosting our CSA in a downtown storefront for years, but it was hard to imagine how to make it a reality — rent is expensive and we didn’t want to create a “hole” downtown on the days we didn’t use it. We were so excited to build a relationship with the folks at Yamhill Valley Dry Goods to rent the back portion of their space (which was not being used at the time)! HUGE thank you to Sylla McClellan (owner of YVDG) for believing in us and trusting us to share the space! A lot of other folks helped turn that little space into a cozy CSA pick-up: my dad Steve Bledsoe built the crates that will hold our veggies (on a tight deadline, no less!); Mitch Horning made the gorgeous wood sign above our awning; Nathan Garrettson built the wood benches that we will have inside and out; and Copy Cabana printed our beautiful door sign. We live in an awesome community where dreams can come true. We can’t wait to host you all there tomorrow afternoon. CSA pick-up is 2-7 pm (every Thursday)!

As you arrive, please check in with one of us (there will be three of us working most of the time), and we will orient you to the new set-up. Old timers will recognize the foundation of the pick-up — our signature long table of CSA veggies. Hopefully you will have brought a bag or basket to fill, but we’ll have extra bags available too, just in case.

But we will also have extra items at pick-up for purchase. In addition to listing each week’s veggies at the end of the newsletter, I’ll also list those extra goodies. They will be things like eggs, meats, fermented veggies, flours, nuts, and extra fruit & veggies (items we know people might eat a lot of, like apples and potatoes) — you can see this week’s list below. If you would like to buy flours or kimchi, we recommend bringing your own jars (the kimchi prices are based on pint or half pint jars — so clean canning jars are perfect!). We’ll have some jars for purchase for the kimchi if you need them (the flours can also go into plastic bags too!).

We can accept cash or personal checks for the extra items. If you’d prefer to avoid the hassle of bringing cash or checks each week, you can write us a larger check to put money on an account, which we’ll keep track of at pick-up. We’re super excited about these “extras” — these are items that we began producing a few years back and are only now offering to all our customers (and actually, even if you’re not a current CSA member, you’re welcome to stop by and purchase some of these good things too!).

I’m going to spend some extra time describing this week’s vegetables and “extra goodies,” so I’ll end this welcome newsletter with a little checklist for you to use to prepare for you first pick-up of the year:

Your CSA pick-up checklist

  • Know the time? (Thursdays, 2 – 7 pm)
  • Know the place? (Storefront on 2nd Street parking lot, between Davis and Evans — backside of Yamhill Valley Dry Goods)
  • Posted yourself a reminder somewhere (calendar, cell phone alarm, etc.)?
  • Packed bags or baskets for your CSA vegetables?
  • Packed extra containers for flours or kimchi? Egg cartons for eggs?
  • Packed cash or checkbook for buying extra goodies?

We can’t wait to see you all tomorrow! We’ll be present to answer questions you have during the process. So, WELCOME! We are so glad you have joined us for another fabulous year of eating! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

Have you made your first payment yet? Here’s a friendly reminder to deliver to us your first CSA payment of the year (either full value or 1/5). You can bring a check with you to pick-up tomorrow if you haven’t already sent it in the mail! Thank you!!! These first payments help us do important things like order our seeds!

~ ~ ~

Meet this week’s vegetables: Since we have so many new members coming tomorrow, I just want to write a novel about each of these vegetables so that you can quickly learn to love them all. However, my time and your time is limited, and so I will hit some highlights and keep visiting different veggies each week this winter (and keep working on that cookbook!).

  • Brussels sprouts
  • Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi — Ah, kohlrabi … the vegetable people love to hate. Or so it seems. And, I’ll admit. Sometimes kohlrabi can be rough to enjoy. But honestly, it’s an awesome vegetable. Really, truly, we want you to love it too. Which is part of why we prepared a kohrabi kimchi for this week. Here are a few tips for enjoying it at home. First of all, if you have any kohlrabi reluctance, I recommend NOT cooking it. It is a hard vegetable to prepare well, in my opinion. However, it is delightful eaten raw and has a light crispness that is wholly welcome in the midst of winter. First you’ll have to peel it, which is about half the battle with these big winter kohlrabis. I use a large chef knife to cut off chunks, which I then peel using a paring knife. I hold the kohlrabi cut side down on the cutting board (so it’s very stable) and peel down the sides. One thing to keep in mind is that the root end of the kohlrabi is where it is more likely to develop a fibrous texture. If you’re sensitive to that, favor the top portion of the kohlrabi and feed the bottom portion to the chickens. Once peeled, I like to chop the kohlrabi up very fine and use it as the base for a cole slaw type salad. I call these “chopped salads” and will include other finely chopped veggies too: carrots and cabbage are great, as well as apples. I usually make the dressing myself by using my hand blender to quickly emulsify olive oil and apple cider vinegar together (with a bit of salt and pepper). I like to make a big batch of salad like this so we can eat it at several meals without having to cook again (in fact, I like preparing large batches of food as a general rule!). But sliced kohlrabi also just makes a really great dipping vegetable. Hummus + kohlrabi = yum.
  • Winter squash mix — We’ve got a few different winter squashes available this week. We can talk you through the differences at pick-up if you’re interested. This is the tail end of winter squash season, so enjoy these while they last!
  • Beets
  • Parsnips
  • Carrots — We will have carrots available as part of your share, but we’ll also bring extras for purchase too if you want more ($2.50 lb).
  • Potatoes — We will have potatoes available as part of your share, but we’ll also bring extras for purchase too if you want more ($2.50 lb).
  • Garlic
  • Apples — We will have apples available as part of your share, but we’ll also bring extras for purchase too if you want more ($3 lb). We also have #2 apples (bruised or whatnot) available if you want to buy them for making sauce ($1.50 lb).

And this week’s extra goodies from the farm:

  • Corn flour  — $5 lb We grind these flours fresh each week from grains we grow here on our farm. Consequently they are very fresh and offer a vitality to food that we’ve rarely encountered elsewhere. We recommend only purchasing enough to use for one or two weeks. Store in an open container so that the moisture in the fresh flours doesn’t build up and cause premature spoilage. You can also store them in the fridge. You can use both the corn and oat flour in place of all-purpose flour in “quick bread” type recipes: muffins, pancakes, cookies, cakes, etc. Depending on the recipe, you may need to tinker to get the results you like, but we’ve had very good success with both flours in our house. Corn pancakes are a special breakfast treat for our kids. You can read more about the flours (and see a corn pancake recipe) here.
  • Oat flour — $5 lb See notes above about corn flour!
  • Walnuts — $5 lb These walnuts are sold in the shell. They make the best snack. The coolest part of our walnuts is that you can crack them open with just your fingers. Ask us to show you how! Read more about our walnuts here.
  • Kohlrabi “kimchi” — $5 pint; $3 half pint For us, fermented vegetables are such a staple food in the winter. We crave them less in the summer (probably because we’re eating other good things and enjoying lots of sunshine), but in the winter sauerkraut and its relatives are present on our table regularly (Dottie especially loves all these fermented foods and eats them straight out of the jar). Casey made this batch of kohlrabi “kimchi” to offer you delicious winter storage foods in a new presentation. I put “kimchi” in quotes, because this is just a simple made up recipe (and it doesn’t have any hot peppers any it): it’s kohlrabi, carrots, garlic, and salt. The kohlrabi is truly transformed in this preparation. It has the wonderful squeak of a fermented veggie and the savory-ness of the garlic flavor. Wonderful as a garnish on just about anything. We often will just put a jar of this stuff out on the table and let everyone decide for themselves how they want to eat it (again, Dottie eats it by the handful).
  • Eggs — $6 dozen. Eggs will be offered bulk, so please bring a carton (bring extras to share if you have them!)! Did you know that eggs are a seasonal farm product? This last fall, our hens slowed down laying as the sunlight dimmed, and eventually they stopped laying at all. We had several weeks where even us farmers were forgoing eggs at breakfast (which is when we discovered the joy of winter squash for breakfast!). Egg production is very slowly going back up, but we are nowhere near full production yet for our 275 hens. So we will be bringing the eggs that we have, and we know that we will run out before everyone has had some. We are very sorry about this! But before too long, we will have more! Read more about our eggs and egg production here.
  • Ground beef — 1 lb packages; $7 ea. We are so excited to offer you ground beef! We find ground beef to be such a flexible part of our family’s diet. The kids love hamburgers, and we love browned ground beef as the meat in our vegetable stews! We taste tested this ground beef tonight at dinner (Casey just picked up all our meat from the butcher today!), and it was fabulous. Read more about our beef here.
  • Lamb roasts — We’ll have many different cuts available, at varying prices (ranging from $5 – 14 lb). If you’re like I was many years ago, the idea of cooking different cuts of meat like lamb may feel very daunting! I know that there was a time in my life when cooking meat meant sausages. Period! Since then, I’ve learned a lot, and thankfully I’ve learned how incredibly easy it can be to prepare amazing meat. Casey and I have learned that, essentially, all meat is either intended for quick cooking over high heat (like steaks on a grill) or long, slow cooking over low high (like a roast in a low-temp oven). With a little experience, quick cooking is quite easy, but slow cooking is almost fool-proof. Our household’s favorite way to cook roasts in our slow cooker (i.e. “crock pot”). We’ll choose a nice roast and put it in the slow cooker dry with just some salt for seasoning. Turn it on low and let it go for several hours. For a large cut we’ll let it run all day (put it in at breakfast to eat at dinner). For a smaller cut, a few hours will suffice. The meat will self-baste in its juices, and you’ll have the most incredibly tender, juicy, savory meat to eat however you please. We often pick the meat off the bones and add it to vegetable stews; or we’ll just eat it with a salad and another vegetable side dish. Also, I need to note: if you think you don’t like lamb, you need to try this meat! We grow “hair” sheep breeds of sheep, the meat from which has an entirely different flavor and texture from standard wool breeds. Read more about our lamb here.
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