This week on Monday (our day off) we harvested 25o chickens. Joshua, Marni, Cindy, and Elena came over to help out and we were so grateful to have them. Chicken harvest is a hard days work, harder than any vegetable harvest day, because the birds are alive, and then we have to take the life out of them as gently as we can, and then get them chilled as quickly as we can, and then clean up and then sell them the same day. It’s all the steps in one day. For vegetables, we make it easy on ourselves by harvesting and cleaning one day for the CSA or market, or orders the next day. And then for vegetables, the removing of their lives is less conspicuous. We are not particularly woo-woo about it, but it’s not nothing to take the lives of 250 beings. We don’t take ourselves or the process so seriously, but not lightly either. I think that we have a very appropriate relationship to chicken harvest day and we are suitably tired at the end of it.

The stars did align just so that we could make bunches of three different kinds of beets for you this week! We planted the Golden beets two weeks earlier than the Chioggia beets, but they caught up in time to go into these bunches together. This is a great idea, because you can compare the types and see and taste the differences and similarities. The names of your beets are Golden, Chioggia, and Merlin. Merlin is the red one, Chioggia has stripes, and Golden, well, you know. I am roasting mine right now!! I could hardly wait all day until dinner time to do so. There was some washing and packing of said beets, lettuces, and carrots to do between beet bunching time and dinner time.
Oh, this rainy weather…well, the nice part is that when it rains, we turn on the oven and bake up some comfort. Cake is such a comfort.
Chocolate Beet Cake
1 1/2 cups cooked, peeled, pureed beets 3 oz. Unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs 1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup oil 1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350. Prepare the beets and set aside. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler; remove from heat and cool slightly. In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla, melted chocolate, and beets, stirring well after each addition. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside. Combine the dry ingredients with the chocolate mixture and beat until just blended. Pour into greased and floured 9”x13” cake pan and bake 35 minutes. Cool before frosting.

You can make any chocolate frosting recipe you like, or just sprinkle some nice chocolate chips on top when it comes out of the oven, hot! And wait a bit for them to melt, then use a spatula to spread them around on top of the cake. Then lick the spatula. Nice.



Outstanding in Their Fields September 17

We have enclosed special invitations in this week’s box for our special event on Sept. 17. It feels a bit like planning a wedding to make invitations, think about tables, linens, food, and we really are celebrating the relationship between our farm and this restaurant, Acqua Via. I often jokingly refer to my wholesale clients as “boyfriends” because they are always either pestering me with phone calls, or not calling when I expected them to call, or being demanding, or disappointing. But chef Will Taylor at Acqua Via is a keeper, so we thought we should celebrate with a big fancy dinner! Then we thought that we should give our CSA members first priority as guests. For the next week or so, you will get first dibs on these tickets. After that, we will offer tickets to anyone else who may want to attend. My feelings keep alternating between fearing that we won’t have enough tickets/tables to accommodate everyone, and my other fear that no one will want to spend 150 dollars for tickets. This is how we feel every time we have a party: “What if no one comes?/What if everyone comes?!” We’ll try to just relax and enjoy, but it will require effort.