A farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.
To sum it up even more: It's awesome.
Yesterday was the first day of our first box from Jubilee Farm and I'm thrilled with the decision. It all started as a knee jerk reaction to "Food, Inc.". We had considered farm shares about two years ago when we first moved to the Northwest, but never got around to it due to cost and indecision. "Food, Inc." left denizens of the house horrified and grossed out, so the next day I searched for local CSA programs. A notably helpful site is LocalHarvest which has listings for a whole lot of farms across the country.
We picked Jubilee Farm because it has a six week Late-Spring session which is less of a commitment than the longer Summer sessions. We also picked them because I was antsy and didn't want to wait until summer.
The entire cost is paid up front and comes down to about $30 a week. This seems to be pretty standard across farms, although some offer bigger or smaller shares with varying levels of commitment. We went with a "3/4" box rather than a full box. Boxes are either picked up at the farm or delivered to homes of various volunteers around the city so you can pick them up there.
Contents of Box #1:
One Dozen Eggs Burdock Root Fuji Apples Petite Shiitake Mushrooms Kale
Braising Mix Curly Parsley Onions Pears Oregano
Last night we made Italian Pork Tenderloin. I picked the recipe because it looked delicious, but also because I thought we had sage! Turns out the "sage" is oregano which works for me. Swapping sage for oregano, adding garlic (always add garlic... seriously), doubling the prosciutto and adding extra sun-dried tomatoes made for a very, very tasty meal. We sautéed some kale with salt and lemon juice and served it all over pasta. Delicious!
Last but not least, check out these rocking ukuleles:
The CAPTCHA I added is broken in Firefox and will tell you you've typed it in wrong even if it's correct... which means you can't comment using Firefox. It works in IE though... maybe Chrome.
Ah, Pokemon. I took a bit of a break, but it's easy to come back to, fun to play, and doesn't require any more time than you want to put into it. Overall the game is quite fun. Catching them all is a bit overwhelming, so I've settled on adoring just a couple. One of them is my new Togekiss! It's adorable!
The game
continues to remind me of its
intended audience with characters named "Youngster Joey" or "Picnicker
Liz" that shout things like "Let's battle for courage!" or "Hi! I like
shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!" And yet at the same
time you
have Uncle Ralph calling you to tell you that he spends more time with
his Pokemon than his kids. There's an interesting mix of
characters you
come across- all mindlessly chatty.
I can't justify a full set of place settings, but I can certainly appreciate them from afar and maybe even pick up a teacup or two if the quality is high. I'm going to sneak over to a store this week and give them a closer look. I can dream, right?
Second thing- It seems that baking things in jars is not a new concept on the internet, but I wasn't aware of it until Not Martha made these tiny little Pies In Jars.
They seem like a lot of work, but the idea is so freaking cute that I'd be up for trying it. Think of having tiny little pies in your freezer, ready to be baked! Adorable. Take a look at the tutorial up on her site. She also made Cobblers Baked In Jars, which look delicious as well.
Otherwise I had a busy weekend- nothing crafty to show for it.
I finally made the skirts for the steampunk costume! It's the first time I've worked on it since December and I'm happy to be finally getting somewhere again. It was a big step to finally decide on the underskirt fabric and trim, but I'm happy to have done it. The original fabrics I chose still feel a little dark (especially with the brown lace) but I think there's still a lot I can do to make it a bit less frumpy. I took these pictures before I actually finished the underskirt, but it's close enough.
Front, and Back (Bustled)
On another note, here's that bag I made when I was stuck sick at home last week:
Slouchy bag- with a cat to make it more interesting?
I had a lot of that rooster fabric left over from the pot holders, and some nice mid-weight purple fabric from my mom so I decided to make a cover for my sewing machine. After I cut out the pieces I realized I didn't have quite enough of the purple fabric left to line it, so I made it smaller, switched a few things around and made a grocery-style bag instead. I made sure it fits perfectly in my bike's milk crate since summer is coming up, and summer brings farmers' markets. We tend to bike on the weekends, so it will be a nice addition to my milk-crate/bungee-cord setup.
Bonus: Made it without a pattern. The shapes are super simple, but I'm getting better at this!
