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MEADOWLARK FARM SUMMER CSA NEWS 7-6-10 Dear friends, Summer is here indeed. Today Greg Griswold is here checking on the bee hives and it looks like he has some supers full of honey! He is selling his friends the bees' hard work(i.e. honey) at the Mercato farmer's market in Traverse City on Saturday mornings and so if you are looking for some lovely local honey you can find him there. The bees have been thirsty and so have the plants. We dive back into full time irrigation duty and work to keep plants thriving in this heat and wind. The bees like to drink out of our drip irrigation lines, and we keep a couple of buckets at the ends of various gardens with rocks inside and water. The bees would drown in just a bucket of water, so the rocks give them a landing pad. They are active and friendly. We and the many flowering plants of the farm are so grateful for their hard work. They are responsible for the cornichon cucumbers in your box today, as well as the lovely zucchini and sugar snap peas. We hope that you are getting excited for the ANNUAL MEADOWLARK FARM GARLIC HARVEST. Please come tomorrow (weds. july 7th)sometime after 9:00 am and we will be working to harvest, bundle and bring in the 20,000 heads of meadowlark red garlic for 2010. Come for an hour or come for the morning or afternoon, but don't come too late in the day, because we may finish in the early afternoon if we have many hands. There is work in the fields and work in the shade. Bring a water bottle, sunhat, gloves and hand pruners if you have them and we will surely put you to work. The garlic harvest is a fun community event that pulls together many lovers of garlic, young and old. If it rains hard, we will cancel so check the csafarms.org website to see up to the minute reporting on the day's weather. Today's boxes include: a bunch of purple/rainbow carrots, a bunch of beets with nutritious, delicious greens, a bulb of fennel with frondy greens attached, garlic, sugar snap peas, zucchini of various color and shape, cornichon spiny cucumbers(great on salads or for snacking out of hand),rainbow chard, a bag of salad mix and cilantro. Premiums receive more of all, slicing cukes and broccoli. Fruit shares receive organic dark sweet cherries from the Weavers in Omena. For those of you who have never tried fennel, we pass along this favorite recipe. It is easy and scrumptious and proves that fresh food doesn't need a lot of fanciness to taste good: GOLDEN FENNEL WITH PASTA -1 large fennel bulb, including greens -2 TBL unsalted butter -1 TBL olive oil -salt and freshly ground pepper -grated zest and juice of 1 lemon -2 garlic cloves minced -3/4-1#fettucine -parmigiano-reggiano Cut off the fennel fronds and greens and wash bulb. Cut into quarters and then slice thinly(the core can be left in, it will melt into tenderness). Heat a large pot of water for pasta. Melt 1 TBL butter with olive oil in a wide skillet. Add fennel and sauté over high heat, stirring occasionally until browned in places, 7-10 minutes. Season with 1 tsp. salt. Toss with lemon juice and then add 1 c. water. Reduce heat and cook, covered, until liquid has evaporated. Add another ½ c. water and continue cooking in this way until fennel is very soft and deep golden, about 25 minutes in all. Season with pepper. Chop a handful of fennel greens(1/3 c. worth) with garlic and lemon zest and set aside. Add salt to pasta water, cook until al dente. Scoop out noodles and add to pan with fennel. Taste for salt, lemon and then finely shave cheese over top plus more fennel fronds chopped fine. Fennel is also delicious grilled, but you should blanch it for 10 minutes first then you can either marinade it in something simple or just coat with olive oil and salt and grill until caramelized. See you tomorrow! Love, the meadowlarks ***nancy's farm blog: farmfoodleelanau.blogspot.com
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