Week 2: June 8th
It's been an incredibly somber week in the world with the continued violence against the black community and those demanding change. Despite the widespread injustice we have been feeling, the sun somehow continues shining and vegetables continue to reach for it. We hope our offering of vegetables this week fuels you for the fight against racism!
Share information:
Full Share:
- Lettuce Mix
- Cabbage
- Kale
- Kohlrabi
- Turnips
- Cilantro
- Dill
- Parsley
Half Share:
- Lettuce Mix
- Kohlrabi
- Cabbage
- Cilantro
- Parsley
Kohlrabi: The Quintessential CSA Vegetable
When people ask me to explain a kohlrabi I usually say it's like a cabbage and a potato had a baby. It's crunchy and has that classic green cabbage flavor but is a bit more starchy and can be roasted like a potato. It's not a very common vegetable for people to have at their house or purchase at the average grocery store, but almost every CSA program will have kohlrabi in their shares at some point. They are relatively easy to grow as they have low pest pressure and do well in both cold weather and heat. Kohlrabi is also very versatile in how you can eat it. It's great to peal, slice up, and dip in hummus or on top of a salad. You can substitute it for potatoes in most dishes (kohlrabi au gratin is delicious). I've even made it into kimchi! The root portion (with greens removed) will stay good in your fridge for well over a month. The greens can be cooked down like collards or turned into veggie stock. We hope you find your own creative ways to enjoy kohlrabi!
Recipe Time!
The recipe for this week comes from my favorite cookbook Ruffage by Abra Berens. The cookbook is broken down by vegetable, so it's a great way to get inspiration based on what you are getting from the farm. Plus Abra also helps operate a farm here in Michigan, so everything is very relevant to our locality. I chose the recipe "Kohlrabi Potato Gratin" because it's a delicious and easy way to have a decadent meal using the unique vegetable. I think adding in some of the parsley from this week's share would make it super exceptional! So here it is:
Field Notes
This past week ended up being a challenging one on the farm. Our walk in cooler that we use to store our vegetables broke on Tuesday night, causing us to scramble to save around 250 pounds of vegetables. Luckily a fellow farmer friend had space in her walk in cooler so we were able to save most of the harvested produce from spoiling. Andy has been working extremely hard to get the cooler working again, hopefully even better than before, while Amy manages the rest of the farming tasks solo. Though it is not ideal, putting out these small fires is a very real part of farming that is often overlooked!
However, this inconvenience pails in comparison to police brutality and rampant violence as a result of long standing white supremacy. While we are constrained by the demanding hours of the farm to be able to participate in the protests; we were able to be introspective about how our own actions, words, reactions, and especially career have unintentionally caused harm towards the black community. We were reminded of our neighbors' stories: about a Black Panther house being bombed in the neighborhood, cars with black people in them being crushed by tanks, a grandson being murdered who was raised in a house on the exact spot our garden is, and little girls having guns aimed at their heads by police. And of course our land and our successes being available because of black families losing their houses as a result of white supremacy and racist systems. We cannot continue to devalue black lives, which is why we have to start putting radical changes into place. It is not the responsibility of the oppressed to make these changes, it is up to us as the inheritors of supremacy to make Black Lives Matter, and to make them flourish.