Circle M Farm

I’m beginning to get excited about Thanksgiving. We’ve got over a month until the celebration proper, but of course we’re already planning our menu, cutting clippings out of magazines and making lists on our messy wall-sized kitchen blackboard. We’re warmly anticipating the annual visit from our Chicago “urban family” of special friends who trek out every November to share a weekend of food and catching up. Certainly the advertising media have been focused on the holiday for weeks already, though by the time November 22 rolls around, everything will have already transitioned to Christmas. As a nation, we’ve got lots of mixed feelings about a holiday that puts our colonial empirialism into such sharp focus. And as individuals, we’ve each got a stew pot of family and food memories to digest every year. But as a fledgling market farmer, I’ve got a very new, or perhaps a very old, perspective on the harvest festival this time around.

I suddenly get what it means to be thankful for food in late autumn.

Truth is, there isn’t much to harvest this time of year. Harvest has been happening at a galloping rate since May’s load of lettuces. But now, things are quite a bit slower. What food there is in the garden has survived the heat and drought of early summer, the floods of late, and whatever disease and pests have been able to get a foothold in the soil and plants during the growing season. These heroic crops, nurtured along by accommodating weather, lucky timing and good fortune, are the ones for which I feel the most thankful.

I guess those early pilgrims and their native friends had seen their share of starving winters. Finding that they had a surprising variety of delicious foods available for a party at the tail end of the growing season had to be a real cause for celebration. I will be extra thankful to join in their feast this year. Here’s what’s in the box this week…

Well, we didn’t get this cauliflower, but we are eating the leaves!

In The Box: Box 9, Madison Delivery, October 4, 2007

Cauliflower Greens – The sleeper hit of the season for me. I’ve been waiting forever for these purple cauliflower to head up, and they just won’t! So we’re really enjoying them as greens. These are perhaps the most tender greens I’ve ever cooked with. They are ready in a soup in under 15 minutes. In my web research to find out why these haven’t formed florets, I learned some pretty cool information about them, though I never did figure out why they failed to form heads. But I did discover that purple cauliflower is actually a wild variety that is extra healthy. Like all cruciferous vegetables, or Brassicas, they help fight cancer and are packed with nutrients including vitamin C and folate, potassium and selenium, fiber, chlorophyll, and antioxidants, flavonoids and phytochemicals, carotenoids, lingnans, phytosterols, isothiocyanates, sulforaphane and glucosinolates (the sulfur compound that makes these veggies zing), and indole-3-carbinol. But the purple ones contain the same compounds that make red cabbage and red wine antioxidant tonics!

Butternut and Buttercup Squash – Butternut, the beige colored squash, is the easiest of all squashes to prepare, with skin so thin it can be peeled. Let this one sit for a while, as the flavor improves after a few weeks of curing. Buttercup, the green turban-type, is among the sweetest of all squash, but you’ll have a tough time cutting into it once it cures.

Cooking Pumpkins – These are heirloom eating pumpkins, with firmer, drier flesh than the typical jack-o-lanterns we tend to see in stores this time of year. The best way to get a pumpkin ready to eat is to quarter it, then scoop out the seeds and slice the flesh off the skin with a good strong knife. Cut the flesh into pieces under 2 inches, and cook covered with water just as you would potatoes. The pumpkin is done when fork-tender. At this point, you can puree it and use in pies, or soups, or bread. But you might want to under-cook it and fix a delicious Indian curry by cooking the cubes further in olive oil or ghee and seasoning with your favorite curry or garam marsala mix.

Parsley – It’s soup season, and this should be in every soup you cook this fall.

Broccoli – These are “side shoots:” heads that form off the side of the main stalk. So they are smaller, but much more tender than the middle heads that form. So, when you cook with these, go ahead and slice up the stalk and include it, because it won’t be woody. This variety was supposed to be purple and you can just barely see a purple tinge to the florets.

Radish – Don’t be afraid! These crazy gigantic radish are late-season varieties meant to be enjoyed large and crisp. There is one each of Black Spanish, oblong white German Beer and the perfectly round Red Meat that has a splash of fuchsia in the middle when you slice into it. Enjoy these sliced and sauteed, or spread thin on buttered bread for sandwiches.

Baby Beets – These little beets are Chioggias, with rings inside when you cut them open. My favorite! Sweet, and predictable, these are the only variety that made it through the flooding in our lower gardens. Don’t forget to enjoy the greens sauteed or ribboned into hearty soups.

Celery – This is the first time I’ve grown celery in any of my gardens. Frankly, I was surprised at the flavor! I think of celery as tasteless, generally, though pleasantly crisp. This stuff is yummy and not so watery. I think you’ll find it holds up surprisingly well in soups and pasta sauces. We’ve still got lots of celeriac sizing up in the garden, and hopefully it makes it before it gets too cold. Celeriac is a relative of celery that grows one big round root, pushed half up out of the ground like a turnip. You use the root, rather than the stalks, to cook.

Nasturtium Leaves and Blossoms – These came back after the frost! The few stems that were growing underneath the canopy of leaves survived the frosts and have poked up through the blackened plants to grow again! See the September 14 post, “Let Them Eat Flowers” for several delicious recipes employing these spicy greens and flowers.

Basil – These, too, survived as tiny leaves underneath those that took the frost. Now they’ve sized up enough to provide a nice garnish for pizza, Caprese salads or pasta.

Serrano Peppers – VERY HOT. These have come through the frost with a few soft spots that will rot before too long. So use them soon!

Goat Cheese