That's A Wrap

Happy Tuesday everyone! 

Today marks the final week of our Fall CSA season and oh what a season it has been. Frankly (and we know we don’t have to tell YOU this!) this has been a year like no other, for us and our farming friends. 

Some longtime members have asked us about hard squash and persimmons, and other mainstays of the fall agricultural calendar. After all, how can it be October without a bevy of dark greens and plenty of butternut squash!? The more-than-ample rain of this year has made farming life extremely challenging. The surplus has damaged crops and washed away beneficial insect repellants necessary to raise healthy and abundant crops. We promise that the persimmons are coming but are easily several weeks away, which puts their arrival closer to Thanksgiving than Halloween. 

This is the one constant of farming life: CHANGE.

We pivot and adjust, shift and retool, reconnoiter and rethink — not unlike what many of you do each week when it comes to menu planning. You get it, just like we do!  This week’s basket is a pure reflection of this ability we all have had to foster, of adapting midstream. It means we embrace the late season muscadine and tomatoes from Georgia while getting super excited about new potatoes from Minnesota (which arrive far earlier than ours in the South) and rattlesnake beans from Blount county. We get excited about the lady peas and butterbeans, and pull out a ham hock from the freezer to add to the potlikker. 

We’ll pair those muscadine with Rome apples from Athens, GA in this salad recipe. Or make a batch of this muscadine apple-cider for cooler days ahead. The rattlesnake beans — so named for the way they coil when they grow — will be ideal in a simple made-from-scratch casserole like this one.

This is a beautiful thing about life in the South: our innate sense of tradition, wrapped in mutability. It is why we pickle and put-up canned goods. It is why we make dishes like buttermilk pie and why our biscuits just taste better here. We take what the soil and the farm give us and we honor that by serving with love and gratitude, no matter the bounty. 

Note:

We did not have enough eggs this week for our Pepper Place members, but we will be sure to double up your egg shares next week! If you are not continuing into the Winter Season, you can swing by next week for eggs or we can offer you a gift card of the same value.