Looking to a new season

Green grass, white cat, golden sunshine — January bliss!

At the end of our family’s field walk on Sunday morning, the sun came out. The world was sodden — the earth squishing beneath our feet with all the rain of the previous days (and memories of the wind still ringing in our ears) — and so that burst of golden sunlight was a bit of a revelation. Ah, yes, spring will come.

But, first, more winter. Winter is a challenge. I forget this during the in-between months. In July, it’s hard to even fathom being cold again, let alone remember a season when rainy or wet or cold or windy weather can so dramatically affect our life and the farm. I have realized as I get older that my emotional state is also closely linked to the weather (perhaps it has become increasingly true?), and so when the days are dark and bleak, I have to put a little more push into my energetic way of being. Winter has its role in reminding us that these challenges are also a part of being alive and being in the world. July cannot exist without January, just as true joy cannot exist without the possibility of loss and vulnerability. The yin and the yang.

January also forces the question: how much do we want this? But, really, how much? Because as we are annually positioned at the start of a new season, we also find ourselves in the grip of these hardest moments. The seed catalogs arrive in our mailbox, and we say, once again: YES. Yes, we are going to continue embracing work that plunges us deep and constantly into the rhythms of this world. Yes, we are going to continue riding those highs and lows, holding on with the deep hope of spring and everything green.

I think about these things now because they are true in January, but also because recent days and weeks have brought us news of other businesses and relationships that have chosen to stop saying yes. Sometimes ‘no’ is the right answer, and I trust (with some sadness) that this is the case for our friends who have to step back, to reprioritize, to move on — whether it be from a beloved business or a decades-long marriage. Of course, even if these are the right choices for these people, I’m sure there is mourning too, for lost dreams and possibilities.

While Casey and I hold these people in our hearts, we are also reminded again of the challenges. If our life balance of farming and family feels hard, it is because it is hard. Recognizing this truth is a helpful thing as we plot our season and life in those limited hours between the kids’ bedtime and our own.

2013 was another enlightening year for us here on the farm. Certainly it couldn’t hold a candle to the stress of 2012, but perhaps we spent 2013 processing the aftermath of that year. We caught up in every sense to everything we’d launched into motion — new enterprises, new parts of our family, new experiences for us … Much of the big work of 2013 was emotional work for Casey and me as we continued to mature into the roles we have taken on in life and learned what it means to be real. Much of that work was deeply personal and certainly not appropriate for sharing in such a public venue, but we came out of it feeling more humble and more confident.

Among other things, we realized that as a farm we need to focus our energy on doing what we love — and do that work well. This seems so obvious, right? But, as a farm and a business, it has been easy at times to get caught up in the game of trying to please/impress everyone, all the time. Distinguishing the difference between people-pleasing and marketing is tricky, but we have learned that aiming to please is a distraction from our original goals of growing nourishing food for our community. As we enter our ninth season as a farm, we are newly understanding and accepting who we are: one small farm, eager to feed its members good food. Again, perhaps this seems obvious, but over the years we have tried to be something different — to provide the kind of consistent options that people have come to take for granted from going to fancy farmers markets or shopping at the grocery store for produce.

What we’ve learned is that competing with those markets is a losing battle. Because that’s not who we are. It’s not what we’re good at. It’s not what we love.

Here is what we love. We love the seasons. And, we love experiencing those seasons in our diet. Really and truly. To taste winter in the carrots and cabbage on our plates. To truly miss certain foods when they are temporarily gone and then to savor them more when they return.

We also love to share these experiences with our community. Our close community. Did you know that we have never sold a single produce beyond the geographic boundary of Yamhill County? When we moved here in 2006, we started putting down roots, committing to living and farming and loving here for a long time. We are continually amazed by what a providential choice it was to move here, as we fall more deeply in love with this place and its people every year. We love to connect people deeper with this place as well, through their experience of eating.

What does all this even mean? Well, it explains some of the changes in this year’s CSA program, as we “return to our roots” of offering one share size, selected by the farmers. After tinkering with our program over the last few years, returning to this traditional model feels right. Something about it feels more intentional, more celebratory, more gracious. It feels as though you have chosen to connect to this one farm here on Grand Island, and in return we bring you a carefully selected gift of the seasonal fields each week. This is what we love to do. It isn’t the right way to shop for veggies for everyone, but we trust that it is right for enough people.

Our 2014 Vegetable CSA season begins tomorrow, and with our priorities and loves back at the forefront of our minds, we are excited to begin again. To continue doing this amazing work that challenges and enriches us in every way.

You’ll notice in the veggie list below that our first share is very wintery indeed — just a handful of delicious items that survived the extreme cold of December (mostly by being in storage). Yes, this is winter. Join us in savoring its forced simplicity. Join us in the hopeful wait for spring. Join us, friends. And, thank you!

Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

~ ~ ~

Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Cabbage — If you can believe it, our household consumes at least one cabbage per day right now. Long time CSA members will remember that Casey and I begin every day with cooked greens and eggs (such a wonderful breakfast!), but since the cold put a pause on our chard and kale’s regrowth, we have been eating cabbage instead! Our favorite way to prepare cabbage is to “fry” or sauté it. I put plenty of cooking fat (butter, etc.) in the pan and then saute onions or leeks, followed by finely chopped cabbage. If I’m cooking a big cabbage at once, I usually add it to the pan in stages, cooking down the first bits first (just so it will all fit!). Properly frying a winter cabbage takes patience and a good amount of fat. But, if you can keep at it, the results are so satisfying. I like to cook the cabbage until it is soft and some of it has started to caramelize. This time of year fried cabbage is the base of many of our meals — add some meat and other veggies, and it becomes a delicious dinner! (If I’m adding other veggies, such as chopped root veggies, I just add them with the cabbage. They’ll cook by the time it is done.) I also enjoy making chopped salads with cabbage, but I’ll save that for next week.
• Carrots — This is a vegetable that needs little introduction!
• Beets — This winter, our favorite way to eat beets is roasted. I chop them into even sized small pieces and put on a roasting pan with some butter to cook at 425° until tender inside and crispy outside. Beets take longer to roast than other root vegetables, so remember to chop them small or start them early!
• Sunchokes — Also known as “Jerusalem Artichokes.” Sunchokes are a flexible root vegetable that can be used in any preparation you might use with carrots: eaten raw in salads, chopped and roasted, baked and pureed into soups … I love them roasted. A prep tip: chop first and then clean by dunking in water and then briefly scrubbing off any remaining dirt. They also take longer to roast than one might expect, but the results are divine.
• Pie pumpkins — You can use these pie pumpkins as you would any squash. If you want to prepare the flesh for use in pumpkin recipes (such as pie or muffins), you can bake it whole on a baking sheet at 350° until it is tender when pierced with a knife. Then pull the squash out, cut open, and let cool. You should be able to easily peel off the flesh and scoop out the seeds so that you’re left with just the good cooked flesh. We’ve made this almond flour pumpkin muffin recipe several times this winter and love it.
• Leeks — If you want to fill your house with the aroma of bliss, melt some butter in a pan and saute some chopped leeks. Honestly, every time Casey or I cooks leeks, the other one walks into the kitchen and comments on the smell. Then what do you do with the leeks? I don’t know. Use them in anything! Fried cabbage! Sautéed leeks and carrots! Eggs! Leeks are just delicious.