Springfield Locavore

It's a Boy!

Okay, I know I'm ridiculously behind on posting stuff here. (Blame it on the recent release of The Sims 3.) However, I did want to make a quick post that Garrick Veenstra (of Veenstra's Vegetables) is now the proud papa of a baby boy! I've no other news than that. Andy Heck was handling the CSA pickup at Decatur, while Andy's friend Nancy was handling the pickup in Rochester, so I got the news from her.

Congratulations, Garrick! As if you didn't have enough to do already!

I promise to write a real post soon!

Veenstra & Heck CSA Week 1

Saturday we went to the Old Capitol Farmers' Market preview day; Sunday we planted about half of our garden; Monday night something ate nearly all of our strawberry plants. But that's not what I want to talk about this time.

Today was the first pick-up day of Garrick Veenstra & Andy Heck's CSA! Andy gave me a nice tour of the farm, and I took plenty of photos, which I'll be posting later. For now, I'll just show you what we brought home.

(clockwise from lower-left) Chives (with flowers!), stir fry mix, red lettuce, arugula, red spring onions, Pink Beauty radishes, and collards.

We decided to go with a half-share this year. We signed up for a full share last year, and found that we were just overwhelmed with how much we got each week. I think a half-share will work out much better, giving us a nice steady supply of produce, which we can then supplement with whatever else catches our fancy.

And here's the salad that I made from part of this for my lunch tomorrow!

It's made from buttercrunch lettuce, red lettuce, Pink Beauty radishes, red spring onions, and chives, including the flowers! All of these were grown by Garrick Veenstra and Andy Heck on the Vincent Family Farm (just east of Rochester, Illinois). The salad dressing, alas, will be a very non-local Kraft Catalina. (I've looked at a couple of recipes for making catalina dressing, but they tend to involve very non-local ingredients, which isn't much of an improvement!)

That's all for now. I've got plenty of news (I found local butter, and possibly local wheat!), but that will have to wait for next time!

Garrick Veenstra and Lindsay Record on WUIS

Our local PBS radio station, WUIS, is holding a pledge drive this week, teaming up with the Buy Fresh Buy Local Central Illinois campaign of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. If you make a pledge to WUIS, you will receive a WUIS Buy Fresh, Buy Local Membercard, which provides discounts at numerous area restaurants.

While I was listening during my drive home from work, I was pleased to hear that they had Garrick Veenstra (of Veenstra's Vegetables) and Lindsay Record (of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance) on the air helping out!

If you enjoy listening to WUIS, but haven't yet made a pledge, please do so now. You can make a pledge online. I'm donating $10 per month, which is a painless way to donate $120 to the cause!

By the way, I have an update about Garrick and Andy's CSA, which I'll be posting soon!

Hill Street Farm CSA for 2009!

I talked to Andy Heck of Hill Street Farms yesterday. He'll be doing another CSA this year, this time with Garrick Veenstra of Veenstra's Vegetables. Rather than pickup being at the Old Capitol Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, pickup will be at the farm near Rochester on Tuesday evenings.

I'll be signing up for a half-share this year, in part because we just weren't organized enough to use up a full share last year, but also because I'm hoping I'll be harvesting some food from our own garden this year!

I don't yet have all of the details (e.g. cost), but Andy and Garrick will be sending out a letter and contract soon. I'll post more about it when I get it!

Oh, and if you don't know what a CSA is, you might want to ready my earlier post, What the Heck is the Hill Street Farm CSA?

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 20 Share

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 20 Share, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

The share we picked up on September 27 included kale, garlic, Dragon's Lingerie beans, basil, eggplants, radishes, patty pan squash, and (new since last week) turnips, a purple variety of beans, and walnuts!

I'm not a huge fan of raw walnuts, but Dawn loves them. When she was young, she used to get them from a tree at her grandpa's house, so these brought back some fond memories. Our 3-year-old son loves the walnuts in a McDonald's fruit and walnut salad, but those are coated in sugar (and, of course, very much not local). He showed no interest at all in these. Besides, they didn't come with a licensed plastic toy! (Possible future idea for the CSA: "Inexpensive plastic nicknack included with every week's share!")

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 19 Share

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 19 Share, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

The share we picked up on September 20 included apples, kale, garlic, Dragon lingerie beans, basil, sweet peppers, radishes, and (new this week) bok choy and mint.

We've never had bok choy before, but I'd never had Dragon Lingerie beans before, either, and they were very good!

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 18 Share

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 18 Share, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

The share we picked up on September 13 included red Russian kale, potatoes, garlic, Dragon's Lingerie beans, cucumbers, Genovese basil, sweet peppers, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, leeks, and (new since last week) radishes and 3 varieties of apples!

Unfortunately, I had just picked up apples the previous week at the farmers market, so we now have lots of apples! That's okay; I suspect we'll find a use for them!

And with that, I am finally caught up on posting out our weekly shares from the Hill Street Farm CSA! I'm not planning on moving ever again!

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 17 Share

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 17 Share, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

The share we picked up on September 6 included potatoes, peppers, garlic, cucumbers, two varieties of eggplant, and (new since week 15) leeks, rapini, Dragon's Lingerie beans (really!), and heirloom tomatoes!

First, we were a bit confused by the green variety of eggplant. "Perhaps that's the rapini?" we wondered. A quick check on the Internet showed us what rapini looked like (the leafy green stuff on the right). Then I did a search on "green eggplant" and found numerous photos showing just that. Who knew? Well, obviously lots of people, but not including us.

Then I had to double-check the name of those beans. "Dragon's Lingerie beans"? Really? Again, the Internet informed me that I hadn't misread the name.

Most importantly, tomatoes! Woohoo! In case you've never tried eating a yellow heirloom tomato, yes, it really does taste like a "normal" tomato.

All of the tomatoes were eaten fairly quickly, in part because they didn't require any cooking! Our new kitchen was still pretty much buried in unopened boxes.

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 16 Share

No picture for this one, because we didn't pick up our share on August 30. We didn't even have a friend pick it up. In fact, we completely forgot about it until a day or two later, because we were on our final push to get moved out of our old house and into our new house by the end of the month!

Actually, we didn't quite make it out in time. Late on the night of August 31, while getting the last pickup truck load, Dawn tripped, fell, broke her glasses, and got a cut over her eye that required a trip to the emergency room and 6 stitches! Luckily our former landlord was very understanding, so we went over the morning of September 1 and moved the last of our stuff out -- including the contents of the refrigerator, which included much of the CSA stuff we had picked up in recent weeks!

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 15 Share

Hill Street Farm CSA Week 15 Share, originally uploaded by Wally Hartshorn.

The share we picked up on August 23 included onions, chard, potatoes, peppers, garlic, cucumbers, and (new since week 13) scallions and patty pan squash.

In addition to being right in the middle of our move to our new house, this week's pickup date was also notable because it was the day that Barack Obama was here in Springfield to make his first public appearance with Joe Biden. The event was taking place on the grounds of the old state capitol. The normal CSA pickup location is at the Old Capitol Farmers' Market, which was canceled due to the security and inevitable crush of people that would be there.

Instead, the pickup was at Food Fantasies, the local health food grocery store. Because we were distracted trying to get moved, I was late getting away and got there just after the 11:00 AM cutoff time. Luckily Andy was still there and was able to dig out my share!

Not that our kitchen was in any shape to cook anything! We still have the 2 patty pan squash, which we haven't yet researched for cooking ideas. Any suggestions?

P.S. An estimated 35,000 people turned out for the Obama/Biden event.