Monday, April 19, 2010

Eggs!


The egg on the right is a cage-free, store-bought, egg. The egg on the left is a locally grown, naturally raised, cage-free, no hormones, antibiotics, etc. The difference is obvious in the picture and even more so in-person. It says a lot about how farming habits affect our food, and consequently affect our health. You won’t believe the difference in taste until you try it.

* Taken from an earlier blog post

What's This All About, Anyway?

One of my favorite things my wife and I have done in recent years is to join a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is basically a group of people who buy into a local farm, or in our case, a group of farms. Katie and I had wanted to join one for some time, but it wasn’t until we met R.J. Caulder at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival that we had an opportunity. In addition to making all-natural, hand-crafted soaps and body products, R.J. and her family run the Breezy Willow CSA and Katie and I have been members for a few years now. We commit to a subscription fee and every week we get to go to the farm and pick up a supply of fruits, vegetables, and occasionally dairy products. All of it is grown locally using organic and/or sustainable farming methods.

The season begins in May/June (depending on the weather) with asparagus, strawberries, and other early harvest vegetables and ends around late October with squash, apples, pears, etc. We get 24 weeks of locally grown produce filling our kitchen and it's awesome. It's basically a surprise each week when we go to the farm and an unexpected benefit is that it is forcing us to cook many things we may never have bought on our own. The first year we joined was my first time to have ever eaten beets, turnips, parsnips, and a few others that I can't remember.

Here's a picture of one week's pick-up. I don’t have a date on this photo, but I know it was a pick-up from late fall.


From left to right: fresh milled bread, tomatoes, beets, brussels sprouts, broccoli, pears, red apples, green apples, Romanesco broccoli, carrots, turnips, and red cabbage. (the onions and butternut squash are left over from a previous week)

This is typical of the amount of food we get each week, and we're pretty good about using it all just in time for the next week's pick-up. The items change each week based on what’s being harvested at the time. I'm very excited that Tiffany and Donna have worked to bring this opportunity to our school community. I'm proud to support local, independent farmers and I love eating healthy foods grown in a responsible, natural way.

* Parts taken from an earlier blog post

Welcome!

Welcome to the Ilchester Road CSA blog. This blog was designed for members of the Ilchester Elementary School/Bonnie Branch Middle School CSA pickup through Breezy Willow Farm. Everyone is welcome to join and encouraged to contribute. We’re really hoping to use this to foster the “community” aspect of this CSA. In addition to supporting local farmers, we wanted a place for community members themselves to gather. Here we can share recipes and other experiences related to the CSA. Just to get things jump-started, I’ve copied and pasted a few blog entries from my personal blog.