above: Some of the last bees and fireflies of the season enjoying our straw flowers.
Our first CSA week of the... ever!
I feel like I have so much to say! First of all, thanks so much for supporting Good Dog Farm this Fall/ Winter/ indefinitely into the future. We may be trying to change the way people think about CSA, but the bottom line is still that the farm subscription concept is vital to the growth and success of a vibrant local agricultural community. As small farmers, it's a lot of work trying to reach new customers,build a brand people trust, and position ourselves in a food system that was not built with our business model in mind. So we can't stress enough how much it means to small farmers like us to have customers like you who are willing to put money down up front, put their trust in us, and show they have our backs while we do the other lifting. No matter how the food system changes into the future, it's hard to imagine a time when that type of connection and support stops being the cornerstone on which businesses like ours are built. And so, really, thank you!
Plus, CSA is just more fun! Nick, Joanna, and I have been farming for a while. We love to find and grow new varieties of familiar crops and share them with people who care about food as much as we do. And we hope this CSA will be a great opportunity to share that attention to quality, detail, and variety. Specifically, I'd like to use these newsletters to give you a little taste of life on the farm each week (like those adorable pollinators hanging on to the last little bits of warm weather) in addition to highlighting a few items that we've been enjoying lately in our kitchen. Let's start with a simple one:
Last night's dinner:
Rockfish with brown sage butter, roasted fingerling and baby potato medley, and "spicy" salad mix with miso-ginger dressing.
It's probably silly, but for me, something just seems so special about having several dishes on a plate at once. It's probably all the years living in big group homes making giant one-pot meals. Now, I still love a huge gumbo, but the old starch-salad-protein combo just feels... nice.
Anyway, I bring it up because I just wanted to point out how a few fun varieties can really bring some new joy into the old favorites. I mean, they're called old "favorites" for a reason. Roasted veggies and a salad is like a farmer's "Thunder Road". Or "Jolene." Or really it's our "Scarlet > Fire" jam if you're not embarrassed to go there. But in any musical analogy, it's an opportunity to show off just how big a difference our products can make.
The salad is sliced Easter egg radishes and our "full flavor" salad mix, which I really encourage you to try. A few of the greens have a tiny bite, but toss them with dressing and you won't even notice. The other added flavors and textures you get from the mustards and Asian greens included are well worth it. For a dressing, I love something miso-based. In this case, 4 oz. olive oil, .5 oz. lemon juice, 1 oz. aged rice vinegar, 2 tbs. sweet white miso, and 1 tsp. sesame seeds, all shaken up together real good, with black pepper to taste.
The roast is a half-pound of our sweet potato fingerling mix (pictured below) along with a half-pound Papa Cacho and French fingerling potatoes, all cut into 1-inch pieces, tossed with oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted at 425 F for 30 minutes. We love the fingerling sweets for roasting. They're quicker to prepare, you get lots of crispy skins, and they look beautiful on a plate. It's also a great opportunity to sample our different sweet potatoes and their unique textures and flavors.
Fingerling sweet potatoes. Longest tuber pictured is about 5 inches.
Left to right: White Hamon, All-gold, Hernandez, Covington, Beauregard, Murasaki, Adirondack blue.
So that's it, our first CSA newsletter is in the books! So I'll say thanks again, and please keep in touch. We're always happy to answer any questions you have by email, and we've enabled comments on these posts if you ever want to share your own recipes or experiences with our produce. We'd love to hear them. Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Bryan, Joanna, and Nick