Pick Your Own Lunch

Family meals are fresh. Fresh like cool and fresh like picked today!

Our summers usually consist of meals bursting with local flavors, from the tomatoes to the onions, eggs, and meat. Every week we go on a much anticipated excursion to our CSA, Riverland Farm in Sunderland Mass. to pick up our share of the weeks bounty. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and buying a share means you become a member of the farm, basically supporting the planting, growing, tending and harvesting of a whole lot of seasonal fruits and veggies. You then show up weekly from about June - October to pick up your share (ranging in size). Some farms offer pick your-own crops which are a real treat. I consider the hour we spend picking our own beans, tomatoes, herbs and flowers my therapy for the week. It is incredibly meditative and relaxing. Eat a little, pick a little, watch the kids navigate the long rows of crops... pure bliss.

If you haven't investigated a local CSA near you, take a look here http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ and start planning on signing up for next summer (winter shares are also popping up all over the place), you will be so happy you did! Most farms have refrigerators and coolers filled with local meat, eggs, cheese, yogurt, milk, butter, pestos, sauces and lots more. It is entirely possible these days to eat locally for all seasons. City dwellers, there are many CSA's which have designated urban pick up locations, so don't let that stop you!

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Picking some of the sweetest snap peas we have ever tasted...

Medicinal bouquets of Calendula

Home again, home again...


It doesn't take much time to create a local feast...

Local egg salad with pastured eggs, fresh dill and spring onions, a sprinkling of cumin, salt and pepper. A salad of just picked greens and a farm fresh slaw of kholrabi, cabbage and carrots with green apple and cumin lime vinaigrette. Enjoyed with or without a slice of locally baked bread.

Farm Slaw

A carrot or two, thinly sliced

1/4 head of cabbage, thinly sliced

1 Kholrabi, thinly sliced (or celeriac)

1 green apple, thinly sliced

small bunch of cilantro, rinsed and chopped

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Dressing

1/2 cup olive oil

4 T fresh squeezed lime juice

1 T agave or raw honey

1 teaspoon ground cumin

salt and pepper

Mix up dressing and toss with the slaw. Salt and pepper to taste.