By Cecilia
After six incredibly fun, challenging, wacky, uplifting, and unpredictable seasons, this is my last week working here. It still feels totally unreal to me. This week has been going along like normal, and it is nice to have the stability of the work day rhythms to keep me grounded during this time of immense change.
Open Field is the place that I have lived longest in my adult life. It truly feels like home to me.
The sunrises here on the farm over the last couple of weeks have been some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. So much time has passed since I started my commute to work across the fields (before the farm road!), but being able to watch the sunrise on my way to work never gets old. I have continued to feel so grateful for my time on this land.
More than anything I am grateful for the incredible people. Friends, mentors, crazy characters, an entire pack of dogs, new babies- they have all made my life so full and will continue to do so far into the future. It is difficult to put into words. It is an embarrassment of riches.
And even though I haven’t met all of you in person, so much of my gratitude goes out to our members. It is your choice to support small organic farms that has made it possible for me to experience all of this.
The pictures for this week’s blog post are a collection of pictures I have taken out in the fields over the years. You would think that looking at vegetables, plants, and bugs everyday for years would make it all start to seem mundane and commonplace. It is just the opposite, and my camera roll reflects this. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see something at work that charms me to the extent that I have to take a picture and show it to as many people as I can. I will deeply miss all the comically tiny pumpkins, weird unidentifiable insects, misshapen tomatoes, and even the most regular old things that bring me so much joy. I wanted to share some of these pictures that are forever draining storage space on my phone.
Upcoming Events: Pancake Breakfast and Walk Saturday February 3rd
CSA Barn Hours:
Winter hours: 2:30-6PM
Summer hours: 2:30-6:30PM (starts the week after daylight savings in March)
Pick List:
Eggs
Sangre Red, La Ratte Fingerling, and Yellow Finn Potatoes
Cortland and Cabernet Red, Cipollini Sweet Onions, Monastrell Shallots
Leeks
Evergreen Hardy Scallions
Yaya carrots
Rhonda Beets
Purple Top Turnips
Purple Daikon and Watermelon Radish
Joan Rutabaga
Mars Celeriac
Hablange Parsnip
Kossack Kohlrabi
Primo Green, Savoy, and Ruby King Cabbage
Rosalba and Castelfranco
Celery
Kale
Ruby Red Chard
Prize Choi
Lettuce Mix
Regiment Spinach
Cilantro and Parsley
Winter Sweet Kabocha, Spaghetti, Acorn, Butternut, and Delicata Winter Squash
Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin
Pick your own herbs, mostly in the herb circle (and maybe a few flowers)
Stoneground cornmeal from our dry corn! FYI: It does have large pieces of the outer skin in it which creates a different texture than the more uniform cornmeal. If you do not enjoy this, you can sift it with the right size screen. (Please BYO jars!)
Tea Blends (Please BYO jars!)
Whole Korean Dried Hot Peppers and Ground Chile Peppers
Beef Bone Broth for sale again! (Made by Olla Products)
Saltonstall Olive Oil for sale (Please BYO jars!)
Revolution Bread is back! We will have bread on Tuesday and Friday.
Open Field Farm 2023 | The "ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW" guide for members
Salt Potatoes, Crispy Potatoes
My final recipe contribution is just going to be me talking about salt potatoes again. If you don’t remember my last post (or two) about salt potatoes, it is a traditional recipe from New York, originated by Irish immigrants working in salt springs. The recipe is basically to take all the tiny bite sized potatoes that everyone always leaves behind, and boil them in lots and lots of salt. Recipes vary, but many say to use a cup of salt for every two pounds of potatoes. They can be eaten right away with butter, but can also be stored without refrigeration for longer amounts of time because the salt forms a strong crust that preserves them. Salt potatoes have their own Wikipedia page that I highly recommend looking up.
All of that is to get to my real point: crispy roasted potatoes. Just like everyone else on the entire planet, I like very crispy potatoes. But every recipe for crispy potatoes tells you that the trick is to boil them first, and then fry them. I am a very lazy cook. Nothing in this world could motivate me to COOK MY POTATOES before I have to COOK MY POTATOES. And then last week I realized, looking at my beautiful colander full of little salt potatoes sitting on my counter, that I already have cooked potatoes! So I cut each tiny boiled potato in half, making perfect bite-sized wedges. I fried them in a cast iron pan on very high heat with lots of oil and lots of Chimayo chili powder. They were so crispy and so delicious. I just felt like I had to share this information with all of you because it has kind of changed my life. The moral of this story is to take all the tiny little potatoes that accumulate at the bottom of the grey bin on CSA day. They are such a treat, and we often end up composting them because nobody wants them. Instead of compost they can be the crispy potatoes of your dreams!