So far this year, I haven’t been able to have that experience. The plant at my house has a small collection of blossoms. The plants at the farm through which I have my CSA have more blossoms, but no fruit. It’s almost August, and I ain’t got no tomato satisfaction.

Such is the way of the world of produce. Some years, the bounty overflows. Others, your garden yields up your first harvest at the very end of the season. Our house is at 3600 feet, so the garden’s timeline for growth is already shorter, and during a year like this, it’s even less.

Thank goodness for the wonders of modern invention, like porch green houses. I wouldn’t even be able to harvest a handful of fruit this year if it wasn’t for that glorious creation. Isn’t it amazing the good that can come from a few metal pipes, shelves, and plastic? (My fresh herbs like it too.)

And thank goodness for local farmers that are just down the hill. Because of those wonderful farmers with their steadier, slightly warmer weather, we just got heirloom tomatoes in the store. While nothing can completely replace a fresh tomato plucked from the plant and still warm from the sun, these come a close second.

Related posts:

1. Mothers’ Day and the Farmers’ Almanac
2. Maybe heaven is polenta with tomatoes.
3. The Future of Farming

The leaves are large and a glossy, dark green. I found that the greens had a lovely mix of flavors — sometimes a dance of dill, sometimes a mustard bite. I enjoyed everything about Komatsuna — the texture, the tastes, the ability to be used in so many dishes.

It was great sliced thinly and added to a salad mix. It was wonderful as a spinach substitute in a breakfast scramble. It was delightful as the main attraction in a stir-fry. It was an amazing new treat for me, and I ate it accordingly. I can’t wait until we get our next batch in some future CSA box… Why couldn’t it be this week?

Related posts:

1. I want tomatoes!
2. Second Saturday Sipping
3. Riverhill Farm Fresh

The warm air was still. A tractor grumbled to the right. Interns busily worked down orderly rows but still took the time to smile and wave as we went up to the farm stand. It’s a very satisfying experience to get to drive out to a gorgeous, industrious farm to pick up your food.

Our region of Northern California has had some pretty funky weather so far this season, so our CSA actually ended up being postponed a couple of weeks. Everything was so fresh and amazing, it was worth the wait.

We had a lovely assortment of veggies. In our box were kohlrabi, spring garlic, braising mix, arugula, fennel, beets, mixed herbs, and a bonus of apricots from Chaffin Orchards and a bag of freshly milled polenta from Grass Valley Grains. Plus, they handed us a strawberry basket, in order for us to go out to the field to fill it up with juicy, ripe, strawberries. Fridays have just become my favorite day of the week.

I hadn’t planned what I’d make for dinner after picking up our box, but this is what I came up with:

Two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

One bulb spring garlic, chopped

One kohlrabi, chopped

Two handfuls braising mix

Two tablespoons Thai Peanut Sauce (we had a sample hanging around the house)

Two tablespoons peanuts (also just hanging around the house)

Throw kohlrabi and garlic in a sauté pan and cook two to three minutes.  Add braising mix and cook just until wilted. Stir in peanut sauce and peanuts and keep on stovetop until warmed-through, about a minute.

Serve on top of some steamed rice, and voila – an incredibly quick and tasty dinner.

Related posts:

1. Farm Fresh Food in School Lunches
2. Heaven and Cherries
3. I want tomatoes!

I know this. There just have to be. Every summer afternoon spent up in my grandma’s cherry tree was a little bit of Heaven. The still, dusty, oppressive heat of the Sacramento Valley would retreat under the shade of the old, wizened tree. I’d scramble up the trunk and sit on my favorite branch, kicking my legs with their perpetually skinned knees as I gathered a bucket’s worth of cherries and consumed another bucket’s worth.

That first taste of a summer-ripe cherry brings me back to those long-gone June afternoons. For the moments that I’m savoring that sweet, plump fruit, I’m a kid again – sitting high in a tree and having pit-spitting contests with my brother and sister. Cherries are one of the reasons that I love June. Though the month may blindside you with a few triple digit days, it always makes up for it in the sweetness of its fruit.

My brother in the cherry tree.>

Pork Chops with Brandied Cherry Sauce

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 15ounces of Mountain Sweet cherries
• 2 rounded spoonfuls sugar
• 4 large, boneless center-cut Llano Seco pork chops
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons Calolea extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large shallot, finely chopped
• Splash of brandy
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons regional butter
• 3 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Put cherries in a small bowl with the sugar.

Heat a skillet with an oven safe handle over medium high to high heat.

Season chops with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil to a hot skillet. Place chops in skillet and sear meat on both sides to caramelize the chops. Place a loose tin foil tent over the pan and transfer the chops to oven to finish off, 7 or 8 minutes, until meat is firm to touch, but not tough.

Remove meat from oven and transfer to dinner plates. Cover chops with foil to keep warm. Place chop skillet back on stove over medium heat. Add a tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan. Add shallots and sauté 1 to 2 minutes. Add cherries and warm through. Add brandy, then add stock. Reduce stock a minute, then add butter in small pieces. Toss sauce to combine and sprinkle in mint. Pour sauce down over chops.

Adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe

Related posts:

1. Maybe heaven is polenta with tomatoes.
2. Riverhill Farm Fresh
3. Love those golden tomatoes

So I did. I don’t have a food processor, (someday, oh one beautiful someday, I shall!) but I do own a blender. The blender worked okay, but I ended up needing to put in about a tablespoon more olive oil to get it to mix together properly.

I tossed the pesto with some al dente fettuccine, sprinkled some extra Parmesan on top, and WHAMO! Talk about a taste sensation – the intense flavors of garlic and greenness danced upon my taste buds in a very pleasing samba.  We paired it with a Viognier from Pilot Peak Vineyard and Winery which was an extremely good call. The garlic amazingness brought out pear flavors in the wine that were lovely counterpoints.

Thank goodness for the adventure of trying new, local foods and getting some terrific meals out of it.

Related posts:

1. The local food scene
2. I want tomatoes!
3. A “Food Fight” You Won’t Want To Miss

Hosking, a wildlife filmmaker, came home to Devon, England to take up the work on the family farm. During the last fuel crisis when costs skyrocketed, she realized that the only way she knew how to farm was not sustainable. Oil isn’t something that farmers are going to be able to rely upon for much longer, but how do you farm to feed the world without tractors, tillers, semi trucks, and jets? Oil is in every part of what we eat, be it in the farm equipment to plant and process to the transportation to the grocery store. When it comes to that fossil fuel dependence, the future of our food looks pretty bleak.

That bleak horizon sent Hosking on a journey of sustainability, and the things that she learned were fascinating. How about having a diverse pasture for your cows and sheep? One family, through a lot of attention to detail and hard work, discovered the diversity of grasses they needed to be able to pasture their livestock year-round without the supplement of alfalfa in the winter. Plus, that diversity created a root structure that was so strong, the pasture wasn’t destroyed by the traffic of livestock. Even more, their discovery of what made their pastures strong and healthy lead to one of the most revolutionary ideas in farming – no tilling! They likened it to taking the skin off of a human being, and their logic was as strong as the land on which they farmed.

The fascinating discoveries continued as she explored Permaculture farms. The biodiversity made the land healthier and lead to high food yields. Plus, it aided in thinking outside the box, such as in using trees as a fodder crop for livestock. Maybe even better, Permaculture farming is low maintenance and low on energy use, and you maintain a healthy, symbiotic relationship with the land. The one drawback to Permaculture is that you can’t grow cereal crops. However, nut crops can grow in this manner and can supply what humans get from cereals. With all of that wild land, though, how can you farm for more than just your family? Actually, and I thought this was wonderfully astounding, Permaculture can yield enough food for 10 people for every acre.

So while the way we do farming now can in no way, shape, or form be how we continue to farm – even in the near future – there are options. Our reliance on oil is a major issue, a scary one at that. But thanks to pioneers like Hosking, we may just have successful farms in the future. Let’s hope so, for all our sakes.

“A Farm for the Future” will be shown in BriarPatch’s Community Room on Friday, March 19, at 6:30 p.m.

Related posts:

1. “Homegrown”

To watch it is to desire to do more with what you have, to strive not to take anything for granted, and dog-gone it — to go out and garden.

It’s a film about a family. A family that is close and caring and devoted to each others’ well being. It’s about the Dervaes Family. They have created a small, organic farm in Pasadena, Calif. It’s not in the outskirts of the city, either. It’s in the heart. They live off the grid, use bio diesel for their car, and are able to harvest 6,000 pounds of produce on a piece of land maybe just a bit more than 1/5 of an acre.

What may be the best thing about “Homegrown” is that it will make you feel warm and fuzzy. This is how feel-good movies should be. Thank goodness we get to experience it in such a nicely thought out documentary.

Related posts:

1. The Future of Farming
2. I want tomatoes!

Robert Trent and I are diving on in. We share office space at Sierra Commons. He lives in town, I live on the Ridge. We’re both committing to eating ALAP – As Local As Possible – and we’re adding an element: we’re gonna see who needs to travel the least to get our already low-traveled food stuffs.

So on Day One Mike Ate: Eggs from my next door neighbor’s farm. Picked roadside blackberries down the street (I made a crumble with my nephew – most of the grains used were local, butter as well.), meat from Chaffin Farms via the NC Farmers Market, and veggies – corn, beans, arugula – from our Mountain Bounty CSA box which we get right up on Tyler Foote.

And my LOCAvore article ran in the LOCAL paper.

Robert – weren’t you on a plane? Any local peanuts in the pretzel snack mix?

Reality check from Mike: Coffee. I won’t – and haven’t given up coffee. I’ll probably down some peanut butter this month, too. More reality checks as the month progresses…

Robert?

Related posts:

1. Day one! Late night edition: regional beer!
2. Coffee and Fridge Rot
3. Day One — And So It Begins