Weekly
Weeder
Weekly
Weeder
Olin-Fox
Farms Volume No. 8 Issue No. 1 January 10, 2007
www.olinfoxfarms.com Winter Season Week 1
STANDARD REMINDER
Please be sure to wash your weekly share thoroughly before serving. To preserve freshness, it is NOT ‘table ready’ (i.e., pre-washed). We deliver your Olin-Fox Farms’ produce right from the fields to ensure highest quality.
This Week's News From the Farms
Welcome to Olin-Fox Farms 2007 Winter Season! We hope your holidays were as happy as ours, here in the peaceful hinterlands. During the holiday break, we have been busy preparing for the 2007 season. For all our sakes’, CSA President John Cooper made his annual road trip to Florida [in the process, getting a concentrated, soul-jolting over-doze of the frantic ‘sluburbs’, passing through the swarming megalopolis sprawls of Jacksonville, Orlando, and Daytona in a 17-hour marathon drive!] to pick up your organically grown citrus for the first delivery of the Winter Program. Hats off to Farmer John in salute who---even in his somewhat disoriented, groggy and piquéd state of gradual recovery after such a harrowing foray into Frenzyland---still happily reports that this year he discovered a real treat to share with us: blood oranges*, despite the fact that he saw grove after grove of citrus trees uprooted and disappearing under pressure from development and the deadly canker disease that is decimating Florida’s citrus industry, now being gradually replaced by pineapple and macadamia nut plantations. Mission accomplished, escapee from a mind-numbing ‘gubmint’ job at the Treasury Dept. in DC that he is, you can be sure John is acutely grateful to be re-mellowing, safely back home in the bucolic backwaters of Virginia’s Northern Neck. Well done! (Please note: even though these blood oranges are conventionally grown, in these parts, they are truly a rare gourmet delicacy; so we are very pleased to be able to add them to the shares for your enjoyment.)
While dodging bumper-to-bumper ‘snow birds’ in Florida, John also found time to venture off the insane eight-lane beaten path to visit an apiary where he met with the beekeeper to discuss starting our own hives. That meeting gave him the golden opportunity to pick up yet another special treat for us---pure orange blossom honey, for the winter shares (to be included in the January 24-26 share distributions).
“Tofu metallics, noodle-soup plastic. Vile cheap imported garbage: to think that we Americans, in our blindness and stupidity, should throw our own people out of work, shut down our great mills, let the Forest Service clear-cut our forests and the BLM strip-mine our hills and the beef industry gnaw down our rangelands to the bone in order to produce raw materials to trade to those … ant people in exchange for their bright cheap slick robot-manufactured electro-mechanical junk, none of which, not one single item of which, we actually need.”
Edward Abbey, The Fool’s Progress: An Honest Novel, Avon Books, New York, 1988. p. 74.
NEW Website feature
In a few weeks, you will be able to take a ‘virtual’ tour of the farms and farm life by visiting the Media Center on our website. We’ll let you know when it is up and running.
Crop Report
December’s balmy weather is notably responsible for turning 2006 into the record-breaking warmest year this country’s seen since 1998. With the recent spate of unusually warm weather, many of our growers are concerned that crops could go to flower prematurely. So far, it hasn’t happen, but if crops do bolt, this will produce some yummy edible flowers for us all to use in soups, salads, or as garnish. Crops showing good progress for the winter shares are: Arugula, bok choi, lettuces, radishes and kale, to name a few.
Weekly Weeder, January 10, 2007 Page 2
In Your Produce Basket This Week
Naturally Grown Arugula/Salad Mix from Olin-Fox Farms; Free-Range Eggs; Pure Orange Blossom Honey from Florida; Conventionally Grown Blood Oranges* from Florida; and Certified Organically Grown Hamlin Oranges, Tangerines, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Limes, and Field-ripened Tomatoes from Florida.
* Where Do They Get That Color?
Blood oranges contain a pigment called anthocyanin which is not typically found in citrus but is rather more common in other red fruits and flowers. Not only is the inside of the orange darkly pigmented but, depending on the variety, the outside may also have dark washes of red.
Blood oranges are great for juicing and using instead of common varieties. The dark red color of the juice makes it a good cocktail ingredient. Use fresh blood orange segments in salads, sauces, sorbets, granitas and compotes. Did you know that Spanish blood oranges are used in special English marmalades too?
Recipes
Arugula Citrus Salad with Citrus Fruit Dressing
2
tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2
tablespoons honey
4 cups torn lettuce & Arugula
1/2 cup
chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley or watercress
2 tangerines, peeled & sectioned
2
blood oranges, peeled, sectioned, drained*
2 oranges, peeled,
sectioned, drained *
2 ruby red grapefruits, peeled, sectioned,
drained*
1/4 - 1/2 cup pine nuts, pecans or walnuts
Citrus Fruit Dressing
3
tbsp. lime juice
3 tbsp. orange/grapefruit/blood orange juice*
3
to 4 tbsp. salad oil (something light – extra virgin olive/
sunflower/ safflower)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. sugar
Optional: ½ tsp. dried or fresh basil
Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour over a fruit salad. Makes one-half cup. Makes 6 servings
Watercress Salad with Blood Oranges
3 tbs. blood orange juice 2 tbs. red wine vinegar 2 tbs. Extra virgin olive oil
2 tbs. walnut oil 2 tbs. hazelnut oil 3 cups watercress, stemmed
3 blood oranges, segmented 2 tbs. chopped garlic chives or reg. Chives
Using a hand blender, blend first 5 ingredients in medium bowl until well blended. Season dressing to taste with salt & pepper.
Toss watercress with dressing to coat. Season to taste with salt & pepper. Divide watercress among salad plates. Arrange blood orange segments on salad. Garnish with garlic chives and serve.
Newsletter and Recipes by Ethan Brent, Official Newsletter Focalizer
Bon Appetit!