This time last year I was whining about how cold it was, how unfair that I was still chained to my winter fashion choices. This year I’m not complaining, I’m just commenting, it’s hot! The plants love it; everything here is growing like crazy. Normally we wouldn’t think of salad greens as a CSA item, as they take a long time to cut and wash and pack, but we have rows and rows of them stacking up out there in the field and decided to share them up for you. We wash them here at the farm, just like all the produce in big tubs of clean well water, but you should give them a wash in your kitchen before eating them. We just try to get most of the dirt off, but we don’t have any rubber gloves or stainless steel anything, so you should wash before eating.

Did anyone notice a mystery item in the box last week? Baby bok choy made an undocumented appearance in the first share of the season. I hope you all just ate it up with no descriptions or recipes needed.
This week we are featuring the mama bok choy, JOI CHOI is the name.
We always keep a pair of JOI CHOI in the fridge here at the farm in case the littlest farmer won’t eat his veggies at dinner time. We normally serve salad with dinner, but sometimes Nigel doesn’t like it, doesn’t want to eat it ,whatever, so we say you can have a bok choy instead, and he brightens up and eats a half or a whole plant of JOI CHOI. We like it, too, the crunchy juicy white stems and the peppery green leaves are just so refreshing. The New Laurel’s Kitchen Cookbook calls Joi Choi a super food because of its nutritional make up. If you don’t eat it all instantly and you still have some and are wondering what to do with it, try “Ants on a Log”. Spread nut butter on the white part, stick some raisins on it, fold the leaf over and wrap it around and enjoy. Bok choy means green vegetable in Chinese, I think. I could be wrong, but I think I read that somewhere. There are many types of bok choy, baby bok choy, red choy, standard choi, and everything in between. Bok choy belongs to the same family as broccoli and radishes and arugula, the brassica family. Most people are familiar with the idea of bok choy in a stir fry.

You might be looking askance at the size of your bunches this week, but rest assured I have my reasons. This week was the first pick on fresh beds of Italian kale, collards and scallions, and at least in the case of the greens, I wanted to maintain the health and vigor of the plants for future picking, so we went light on them this time. Plan on bunches sizing up as the season progresses. PS. The JOI CHOI is gigantic, so I figure it all evens out.

Collards are traditionally prepared with fatback, or bacon, and we like some onions chopped up and sautéed in there, too. If you are vegetarian or for whatever reason wish to avoid all the deliciousness of pork, then you can use some nice olive oil to sautee your onions and collards. Because this is the first pick of the season, they are at their most tender. Usually we grow collards as a late season crop, but this year, a new business called “Empowerwraps” approached us and asked for them, so we started them early. You can do something like what they are doing and use the collard leaf as a wrapper to hold fillings of your choice, sort of like a burrito, but green, and lacking in the carb department. Look for “Empowerwraps” in the deli cooler at the Olympia Food Coop soon.

Next week on Monday June 15th we will be harvesting chickens. Some of you have ordered already and we thank you so much and we are looking forward to seeing you Monday night between five and seven. If you haven’t ordered yet, there’s still time. There are about a hundred chickens still available, and we also have a second round coming for fall. The cost is five dollars per pound and the average bird weighs around five pounds. We do save out the livers and gizzards if you want, but you don’t have to take them if you don’t. You can send in the order form from last week’s box or call the farm to reserve your chickens, 352-3590.

Other bird news:
The turkey pen was completed and so the little dears were finally able to move outside this week and they are so happy. Farmer Colin is a seriously sweet poultry papa, taking good care of all the birds on the farm, but the turkeys especially seem to adore him, perching on his finger or shoulder while he feeds them. I mistakenly thought this meant that turkeys are sweet and would also love me, so I volunteered to help move them out, but they flapped and pecked and squawked all over me. I guess they just really like Colin. They know who holds the feed scoop. We also have a pen for our laying flock of 15 hens, 1 rooster, and several assorted ducks. They are all getting along splendidly and the rooster has started practicing his crowing. We hear it and think “what was that sound? … Oh, it’s the baby rooster trying out his voice…cute…funny.”

Also in the box this week you will find a brochure for Daisy Chain flower CSA. You are not likely to receive flowers in your Kirsop Farm CSA because we are not so great at growing them, and we like to stick with what we know, veggies. Sue Lundy knows flowers and I highly recommend her CSA called Daisy Chain.

I seem to have run out of room for printing an actual recipe this week, but if you can check our website, you will find recipes for each item in this week’s share.