| Recipes |
Don't forget to send in some winter recipes - we could all use more ideas on what to do with WINTER SQUASH! Besides, we love getting recipes from our shareholders!
Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Don't be shy -- let us know!
For more information, see our Recipe pages. |
| Fun for the Kids |
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Story Time on Tuesdays, 4-4:45
Boudicca Hawke (age 9) will once again do Story Time on the farm for children of all ages. It will be held each Tuesday from 4:00 to 4:45 at the meeting shelter. She will have a selection of books that are related to farms and the creatures that live on farms, however if anyone has a favorite book they'd love to share, please bring it as she will be happy to read that too.
Kids, please join us for free play, old-fashioned games, story hour (see above), nature drawing (bring supplies!) and a nut-free snack. About once a month, we'll do a special activity such as tour bee hives and chicken coops, inventory birds and insects, make cornhusk dolls and our famous Silly Olympics. Parents, nut free snack contributions would be great! Look for Anastacia near the distribution shed at 3:30. |
Apple Shares
If you've signed up for Apple shares from Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton please remember to pick yours up when you come to the farm.
To see what's in the fruit share this week, click here.
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| CSA pickup schedule for the week
Tuesday, October 20 from 3-7 PM
Thursday, October 22 from 3-7 PM
Saturday, October 24 from 8 AM to 12 noon
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This is the last week of CSA distributions for 2009!
What's in the share this week...
 Please note: this list is prepared the week before you receive your share. Some guesswork is involved! We do our best to predict which crops will be ready to harvest, but sometimes crops are on the list that are not in the share, and sometimes crops will be in the share even though they're not on the list.
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Pick-Your-Own Crops
 Shareholders are welcome to pick-your-own anytime during daylight hours. Please remember to always check the white board on the red kiosk for updated PYO information.
- Perennial herbs and flowers (including mint and thyme)
- Flat and curly parsley
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Harvest Potluck at
Waltham Fields Community Farm
Saturday October 31st, 11am - 1pm
We're having our Harvest Potluck on Halloween this year, on Saturday, October 31, 11-1pm -- and YOU ARE ALL INVITED! Come in Costume!
Our annual Harvest Potluck for members, supporters and friends of the farm will be even more family-friendly this year, held during lunchtime. Event will feature live music, children's activities, prizes for best costumes and a raffle!
Potluck Suggestions (organized by first letter of last name) - A-G: drinks or dessert; H-N: a salad of some sort; O-R: an appetizer or side dish; S-Z: a main course.
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Winter Share Distributions
2009 winter shares will be distributed Saturday, November 14 and Saturday, December 5 from 1-4 PM in the greenhouse at the farm. If you've signed up for a winter share, you will receive an email newsletter the week before with more information about the share, including storage tips. We look forward to seeing many of you then!
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Salsa with Fatali and Ahi Dulce
Shareholder Joel wrote in to say "We enjoy this with chips and quesadillas, but its fruity flavors would go well over chicken or fish or pork. Be sure to have something fatty like sour cream or cheese on hand because it will burn more than a little."
1 yellow fatali
3 yellow ahi dulce
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1/4 cup orange juice
2 wedges of lemon
Finely
chop the peppers. You can leave the seeds and white veins in for more
spicy heat, or leave them out (they can taste a little bitter). Mix
the onion and peppers in a bowl, squeeze the lemon juice over them, add
the OJ. Allow it to rest a few minutes for flavors to blend.
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Broccoli and Tofu in
Peanut Sauce
Shareholder Barrett kindly sent in one of her favorites.
The Sauce
1/2 cup
unprocessed peanut butter
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons
tamari or soy
sauce
2 tablespoons
blackstrap molasses
1/2 teaspoon
cayenne pepper or
sriracha hot sauce
The Sauté
1 (1 lb) bunch
fresh broccoli
1 small
bunch of greens (bok choy or other asian greens are great)
3 tablespoons
oil
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb tofu, cut into
small cubes
3 dashes salt
2 cups
thinly-sliced onions
1 cup
coarsely-chopped raw peanuts
Bean sprouts
(optional)
2-3 tablespoons
tamari
The sauce: In a small saucepan, whisk
together the peanut butter and hot water until uniform in consistency. Whisk in
the remaining sauce ingredients and set aside.
The sauté: Cut off the bottom
half-inch of the broccoli stems. Shave off the tough outer skins of the stalks
with a sharp paring knife or a vegetable peeler. Cut the stalks diagonally into thin slices. Coarsely chop the
flowerettes. Coarsely chop the greens as well and set aside.
Begin heating a large skillet. When it is
hot add 1 tbsp of the oil. Add half the garlic. Salt lightly. Sauté over
medium heat for 1 minute, then add the tofu chunks. Turn the heat up a little,
and stir-fry the tofu for 5-8 minutes. Transfer
it, including whatever liquid it might have expressed, to the saucepanful of
peanut sauce. Mix together gently.
Wipe the skillet with a paper towel, and
return it to the stove to begin heating once again. Add the remaining garlic. Salt lightly. Add the onions, and some black pepper. Sauté, stirring frequently, over medium heat, until the
onions are soft. Add the
broccoli and 2-3 tbsp tamari.
After 1-2 minutes, add in the greens and stir-fry over medium-high heat until
the broccoli is bright green and greens and broccoli are just tender.
Pour the peanut sauce over the
sauté. On low heat, toss everything gently until everything is coated
with everything else. Add chopped peanuts and bean sprouts, and
perhaps some scallion to the top. Serve
over long-grained white or brown rice (basmati is good).
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Notes from the Field
 This past week's sub-freezing temperatures did nothing to move along the crops that we've been waiting for: endive, escarole, broccoli, cauliflower and storage cabbage remained small and not quite ready for prime time, while other crops, like Brussels sprouts and lettuces, are just now large enough to harvest. Last week, many crops were sheathed in ice when we went out to harvest them; near-record lows for this time of year put an end to many pick-your-own crops, as well as our peppers and eggplant. It's the story of the season, however, that despite many things not going according to our plans, our final harvests for the summer CSA are bountiful, diverse, and delicious -- just not quite what we'd expected.
As always, it's hard to believe that 20 weeks have passed since the earliest distributions in June. And as always, we could not have managed the work of the season without the help of many folks beyond our five full-time farmers. Our wonderful field crew, Amanda, Ryan, Brad, Sarah and Jericho, weeded their way through June and July to bring us some of the best carrots and onions we've ever had. Our distribution coordinator work shares, David, Eileen, and Natasha and her family, greeted shareholders and answered questions expertly throughout the season. Sabine, our amazing perennial garden magician, kept the herb garden beautiful throughout the season, with a little help from a good elf named Jim. Susan, our CSA newsletter editor, was always on top of getting a top-notch newsletter out on time, no matter where she was or what else was going on in her busy life. The loss of our beloved field work share, Cary, in July, broke our hearts. No one could take her place, but the other dedicated field work shares, Ethan, Dan, Emily and Nils, kept the harvest coming and the weeds going. And the non-farm staff of Waltham Fields Community Farm, including Claire, Jericho, Deb, Marla, and the wonderful education staff, keep the other important work of our organization on track despite the farm-season chaos that the farmers wreak around them.
Many, many volunteers contribute to the work in the fields at the farm. In addition to our daily drop-in hours for individual volunteers, corporate, school, and religious communities visit the farm for a morning or an afternoon to get their hands dirty. We owe special thanks, as usual, to Marian, who dug sweet potatoes for three Saturdays in a row, and to Gail, who raised our spirits with apple fritters and great conversation while harvesting. Angela is a connoisseur of fine chocolate, an expert duck and chicken wrangler, and a raspberry weeder extraordinaire. Allison brought us the best lemon squash cake we've ever had. Meena and Hemina, incredible cooks of Indian food, helped us stay nourished with our own vegetables at times when cooking was low on our list of priorities.
At the beginning of this season of thanksgiving, we are also grateful to our hunger relief and food access partner organizations for helping us make sure that no vegetable ever goes to waste on our farm. In addition to our weekly outreach market, which this year expanded to 14 weeks and nearly $13,000 worth of vegetables, we donated a record quantity of produce this year to Food for Free, the Waltham Salvation Army and Red Cross, and Healthy Waltham. We are also happy about our ongoing partnership with the Waltham Public Schools, whose director serves summer squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots from the farm in their elementary school lunches in September, October, and November.
 Finally, we thank you, our shareholders, for making it all possible. We know that making a commitment to a farm for a season (in some of your cases, for many seasons) can be an inconvenience, a challenge, a disappointment -- or a joy, a bounty, an opportunity. While we may do the work the fields, this is your farm as much as ours -- you are nourished by it and, in turn, nourish it with your weekly visits, careful weeding and harvesting fingers, and kind words and good thoughts. The tractors, chickens, and raspberries will miss the weekly visits of many small children. As we put the fields to bed for the winter, I imagine that they dream of the return of the footfalls of the people who love them in late spring of next year.
After a season of long days of intense work and intensive production, when the farm appears to belong mostly to the human population, the fall brings the days of the big skies and transparent hills, when it returns to its true owners, the hawks, the coyotes, and the stars. As our visits to the fields become rarer, when we do go out to harvest, we are startled by glimpses of the busy life of the natural world that exists all around us when we are able to pay attention -- the flash of the blue jay or the kestrel, the sign of the coyote, the swirl of falling leaves or the glow of frost-sweet purple grapes in autumn's messy abundance, the pale sliver of the new moon. I hope that you have some time this week to walk the edges of the fields and feel the deep quiet of winter under the noisy proliferation of fall, and feel the gratitude of the farm and the farmers for your commitment this season.
Enjoy the harvest, much larger than simply vegetables.
-- Amanda
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Warmly,
The Staff of Waltham Fields Community Farm |
Jericho Bicknell, Education and Outreach Coordinator
Amanda Cather, Farm Manager
Debra Guttormsen, Administrative and Finance Coordinator
Paula Jordan, Spring & Fall Children's Learning Garden Assistant
Jonathan Martinez, Assistant Grower
Blake Roberts, Outreach Market Intern
Dan Roberts, Assistant Grower
Erinn Roberts, Assistant Grower
Nina Rogowsky, Children's Learning Garden Teacher
Andy Scherer, Assistant Farm Manager |
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