Can you say Key-OH-Ja? That’s the official Italian pronounciation of this week’s fancy beet that some might call a candy stripe beet. Chioggia Beets are bright pink outside with white stripes on the inside like a bull’s eye pattern. The greens are a lot like Swiss Chard, very fine quality for steaming. Beets and Chard are in the same family, Chenopodiaceae, which also includes spinach. The greens are rich in vitamin C, calcium, and iron. The roots have vitamins A and C and carotenes. All this in such a sweet pretty package. Today at lunch, Tommy dressed up our usual green salad with grated Chioggias, and we all ate a little more than usual. Then at dinner, Martin steamed the roots and greens together with some butter and that was also delicious.

Gina’s “Grate Raw Beet” Salad – Linda Derrickson, Sunporch Café
Raw beets and carrots chopped fresh parsley
Salad oil and vinegar honey
Or your favorite vinaigrette dressing
Scrub beets and carrots, then grate equal amounts-or whatever proportion you like or have on hand. Mix in your favorite vinaigrette dressing (or make your own 1:1 ratio of salad oil and vinegar). Sprinkle with parsley. Add a touch of honey for additional sweetness if desired. Makes any number of servings.

We have begun a few exploratory potato digs and found some lovely Yukon Golds. We plan to take a few to market this weekend and let the rest size up just a little more to dig for CSA shares next week on Tuesday.

If you somehow manage to not eat up all your snap peas and want a recipe for them, here is one you might like.
Garlic Stir Fried Snap Peas – Oak Ridge Farm
3 cups sugar snap peas 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon oil salt and pepper to taste
2 large garlic cloves minced cooked rice

Heat oil in skillet. Stir in garlic. Add peas; cook and stir 2-4 minutes on medium heat. Remove and sprinkle on lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Serve over rice. Makes 3-4 servings.

Something special is going on in the lettuce patch lately. I plan and plant every couple of weeks so that there will always be some more lettuces coming along, but the odd bit here is that they are all piling up ready at the same time. Since it’s a use it or lose it situation, I called on my produce peddling friends to help and they hooked me up with some big city produce peddlers and that is how it came to be that I was out cutting 25 cases of lettuce at eight pm Saturday night. The big orders came through, but not before the crew had gone home for the day. I didn’t even dream that I would finish that night, I just wanted to get a head start for Sunday and then to deliver them Monday. (Sunday and Monday are days off for Kirsop farmers, mostly, sort of for Colin and Genine.) I was hoping to visit a friend in Seattle after the deliveries on Monday so I thought that it was her when my cell phone rang, but it was Jose. He said, “Hello, we were just driving by and saw you working there. Do you have a big order? Do you want help?” I said yes and yes and then Jose and Elena and Juan Carlos appeared like angels and cut up all that lettuce like a benevolent tornado. I started out looking at an impossibly large task, and finished up giddy with delight and doneness!

It has always been our plan and our pride to market all of our produce locally, within Thurston County. Until now, we’ve been able to do it just fine. This is just a very special lettuce situation that has us scurrying to Seattle to sell it rather than till it in, or try some crazy stunt like stuffing the CSA boxes with 10 heads each. You probably wouldn’t like that very much. Although, if you tried it the Korean way, you might.

Martin showed us the Korean way years ago and we have it regularly. So what you do is make a pot of rice, and set it on the table with your plate full of washed lettuce leaves, and some kim chee, miso paste, and/or red bean paste. Each person takes a leaf and puts a spoonful of rice on it and some of the other stuff, then folds it up into a pocket and eats. It is surprising how many leaves of lettuce you can eat this way and it’s fun to eat with your hands.