First it’s Autumn and then September is gone and it’s already October. The older I get the faster it all goes. This week brings a blessed end to the summer squash for all of you. You’ve been good sports about it and we thank you, and now we switch it up to winter squash varieties. We will still be harvesting smaller amounts of summer squash for market, so you can buy some if you just haven’t had enough, but I suspect that most of you have. We brought in the delicatas last week, and I, dutifully, have been tasting one every day since then to see if they are getting sweet enough. Sadly, they are not. Happily, they will. I know that they will become more sweet the longer you wait. Having said all of that, I must also say that sweet is not the only flavor. These first delicata have a wonderful smooth, firm texture and true winter squash flavor. I’ve been eating half of mine and then chopping the other half into whatever soup is going at the time. Chunks of squash are a welcome addition to any soup or casserole. You can bake or steam delicata, and the tender striped skins are not only edible, but delicious. If you roast them in the oven with a bit of oil, the skins turn into some kind of garden candy treat.

Farmer Colin is entirely responsible for the crazy radishes we are about to present you with. Well, I guess I had something to do with it, giving my ok, and even ordering and planting the seeds, but it was his idea first. Nero Tondo is a special black Spanish type, large, black skinned, and round, with crisp white hot flesh. They are full of vitamin C and B vitamins, and have an antibacterial effect on the digestive flora. You could pickle them or make them into Kim Chee. Here is a recipe that I found on a website called French Foods and Easy French Recipes.
Salade de Radis Noir
Peel the black skin off one pound of black radishes, then finely grate them. In a bowl, mix 7 ounces Crème Fraiche with the juice of half a lemon, and the radishes. Stir in some ground pepper and a generous amount of salt. If you don’t have crème fraiche, you can use either soured cream or just ordinary cream.

“Close relatives of the onion, shallots have a flavor that is more intense than that of sweet onions, and at the same time less hot. This means they can be used more readily raw than onion. They do not, as some say, taste like a combination of onion and garlic. Although their flavor complements these other alliums, shallots have a distinctive, piquant character of their own.” –Alice Waters, in Chez Panisse Vegetables.

I spent way too much time searching for a poem I read years ago about the black Spanish radish. I couldn’t find it anywhere, but it sure was a good one. Here is one almost as good. And potentially inspirational…

Write a poem about a radish
Too many people write about the moon
The night is black
The stars are small and high
The clock unwinds its ever ticking tune
Hills gleam dimly
Distant night hawks cry
A radish rises in the waiting sky.

-Karla Kushkin