Britt’s last mini season

My box contained:
1 pint of blueberries
1 bag of lima beans
1 pint of grape tomatoes
2 light-colored zucchini
4 dark zucchini
2 italian eggplant
4 japanese eggplant
2 medium tomatoes
4 yellow squash
2 bell peppers
2 onions
1 watermelon

2 years ago when I got wind of the Raw movement, I bought two books. One of which was “The Uncook Book” by Juliano. In it he had a sprouted hummus recipe that was pretty good. I experimented with making a raw baba ganouj due to my surplus of eggplant in this weeks CSA.

In a bowl:
chop eggplant finely
add 2 tbspns nama shoyu
1tsp-1tbspn apple cider vinegar [Bragg’s]
cut a dried cayenne or two very finely
add a scallion or two if you have them
toss and let it sit in your fridge until you are ready.
I left mine for two days, though one working day would have been enough.

Break out the blender and add:
Your marinated eggplant
One heaping spoon of raw, unsalted tahini
1 or two small garlic cloves
Lemon or lime juice

Blend until smooth.
Taste. It tastes pretty similar to hummus, with a slight eggplant flavor.

Raw Baba Ganouj

I didn’t have time to make any raw crackers, so I ended up using some whole wheat mini pitas and tomatoes. For good raw cracker options, check our Sarma Melngailis’ book- “Raw Food, Real World”.

In a mixing bowl beat and egg, add some breadcrumbs, herbs, salt, pepper, cumin- whatever spices you like. Add the grated zucchini. You should have a mixture that isn’t too wet and not really too stiff.

* If you don’t have breadcrumbs- leftover rice worked for me. Although, that made me think of arancini or suppli…maybe I will make some arancino with the next CSA box.

Heat a shallow pan with oil and drop in cookie-sized fritters and brown on both sides. Salt and drain on paper towels.

Zucchini Fritters

Figs are delicate and you can get your fill by eating them fresh. I didn’t have enough to make a preserve so I made a light desert.

Balsamic, basil, brown sugar on halved figs. Carmelize under the broiler and serve with ice cream or solo.

Figs, basil, balsamic, brown sugar

Take a whole egglplant and rub some oil on the exterior skin. Bake in the oven until the eggplant looks “deflated”.

The tender inside is scraped out and cut. Cumin, garam masala, onions, chillies, chopped tomatoes ginger and garlic are added and all is cooked together.

I had some leftovers and made a “pizza” and topped with balsamic, fresh mozerella and basil and broiled it really quick.

Bhaingan Pizza

Indian bittermelon

My sister would soon visit, so I wanted to practice making one of her favorite dishes. It had been a while since we both enjoyed it together and I wanted to make sure I still remembered. She first had the dish during the summer of 2003 when we traveled along the Okinawan Islands. I had some of the most amazing food I had eaten in my stint in southern Japan. Okinawan food was rich, more like what you would associate with “homestyle” cooking, and even sometimes spicy. The pride in the ingredients can be seen in these recipe cards. (I’ll scan them soon:) ) One of the prized ingredients was “goya” or bittermelon. And peppers- that had a tiny kick to them-” Togarashi”. Wow, I think I found my second home. Two veggies, I can’t live without :).

Okinawa: Goya Champon/ Goya Champaru

The dish my sister loved was called “goya champon”. My mom would later be pleased- because it was the only way my sister really ever enjoyed bittermelon. For my sister bitermelon was probably the equivalent to the proverbial brussel sprout- even if the taste was masked with spices and mommy’s spice love. Champon in Japanese means “a mix of” or things that are simply “thrown together”. Although, like most things Japanese- there is of course a method.

The picture I have here is the recipe I used sans pork. If you want to use the original and go decadent, use a few slices of pork belly. Other less fatty cuts of pork work, too- use what you have.

Ingredients
Tofu, weighted to drain water. Do this first and cut and prep your other ingredients
Eggs, beaten in a bowl with a few drops of shoyu and mirin
Onions
Bittermelon, seeded, halved and cut thin
Sake
Mirin
Shoyu

Cook all the ingredients separately:

Start with the pork belly to grease up your pan. (place aside)
If you want to skip the pork belly, add a small amount of oil and start pan frying your tofu. (place aside)
Add a little more oil and scramle the eggs. (place aside)
Fry your onions and add your bittermelon. Add some mirin- this will take some of the bitterness out of the bittergourd. As the water from the veggies evaporate, add some sake. Add chili flakes if you like and toss all the other ingredients back in to the pan. Heat through.

This is good with a bowl of rice and soup or just solo.

Sunset at Epsewasson

Honestly, we were unhappy with the Coon Rock CSA from the beginning - it wasn’t an issue of being upset over the content of one box. Maybe we were spoiled with our spring run with Britt Farm, but even compared to what our friends and colleagues were receiving from other CSAs, the Coon Rock boxes contained considerably less both in volume and balance… and was considerably more expensive. (You can look at our archive of our boxes from Coon Rock and draw your own opinions.)

Archana wanted to cancel fairly early in the process, but I suggested we stick with it. I’ve had some experience with farms and know about the seasonal flows of produce, but our last couple boxes were so anemic that we felt like we needed to cancel. Frankly, we doubted that the boxes would “come around” enough to balance out what realistically was a few dollars of produce the last couple weeks.

If you read Archana’s original post, you’ll see that she wasn’t indicting Coon Rock or questioning their abilities, she was saying that their CSA wasn’t working for her. And it wasn’t working for us. We’re not well-off people and the CSA represented a major portion of our food budget. With Britt Farms, we were getting a week’s worth of food - it was a challenge to eat it all and it was spread across a variety of produce. We would go to the Farmers Market or the store for staples and protein, but other than that, we were set. With our Coon Rock CSA, we were going to outside sources for food as much as we ever needed to before (and with a similar amount of expense).

Basically, our decision to cancel was based on basic economics. We weren’t satisfied with the product and asked for our money back. It happens every day. Beck has some really good points about customer service. Anyone who’s rendered a service has had to deal with a dissatisfied customer at some point. Rule #1 is to try to understand what their complaint is and try to rectify it. A customer who was initially displeased and then satisfied usually becomes a loyal customer.

I appreciate Richard’s decision to refund our money and I agree that we could have approaced him directly first. However, maybe our minds would be changed and our fears that this CSA was overextended and wasn’t coming back around if his reply was more along the lines of Beck’s suggestion that he ask that we stick with him through the season so he could prove that the $24 is fair. Or even something closer to “I’m sorry that you haven’t been satisfied with your CSA. If you want to come talk to me about it, I’ll be at the farmer’s market on Wednesday. Feel free to stop by and maybe you can pick out a little produce to help supplement what you got this week.”

Honestly, I think the notion that if you’re dissatisfied, you don’t understand how things work is truly counterproductive. Sometimes, the slow-food, eat-local, eat-organic movement wallows in moral superiority and caters to a suburban romanticized notion of the farming life. That’s fine, but seems like it will keep the whole industry stuck in a luxury of the upper class rut.

With high gas prices, salmonella scares, and worldwide food shortages, there are a lot of good reasons to eat local. But at some point, one of those reasons needs to become cost-effectiveness and good business sense. For some people, the fact that it’s organic and local will justify unrealistic costs, but for many, it’s creating a pay to play barrier.

He also asked that I post his response to my email on this blog.

Here is his response.
(Also, anyone is free to comment on any blog post.)

Dear Archana,

I am sorry to hear that you are dissatisfied with the CSA. I am also extremely disappointed that you chose to express that dissatisfaction so publicly without first addressing it with me. This is especially the case since your primary complaint that you did not get your $24 worth is based on an erroneous assumption on your part. There was never any claim that each box would contain exactly $24 worth of vegetables, in fact the opposite is the case. You were explicitly informed in the initial CSA email dated 4/27 that not every box would have exactly $24. The following is the exact text from that first email:

Will we get the exact same amount of food in the box each week?

Probably not. The way the produce CSA is priced you get $24 of produce each week for 20 weeks. But in reality, you will get less in the beginning and more in the middle and the end. The reason is simple. Early in the season we have a lot of lettuces and greens and a few roots like onions and beets. Most families don’t really want $24 of lettuce and greens each week. But by July we will have tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, corn, beans, squash, melons, okra, and more. So your July and August boxes will have more in them than your May and June boxes. But don’t worry, you are guaranteed to get your full CSA worth of veggies by the end of the season.

So your complaint that the box did not contain $24 is correct, but not justified as it was never claimed that it would. The contents of each box are dependant on a host of factors including time of year, weather and much more. This week’s CSA newsletter came with a very explicit description of the various mini-seasons at the farm and quite clearly explained that this week was an in-between week where the cool weather crops were ending and the warm weather crops were just starting. The next couple of weeks will continue to be slow and then in early July when the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants come in the boxes will be full again and contain much more than $24 worth of produce.

I also take from your note that you have not been pleased with other boxes. Not knowing the exact nature of your complaint with those boxes, it is difficult for me to comment, but for the most part those boxes were so completely full of the exact produce that the CSA literature said would be in the box.

I will gladly refund your money. Please send me an address to mail the check to.

We work very hard at the farm and believe very much in what we do. It does not surprise me that some customers are dissatisfied, that would be normal for any business and I have always tried to correct any problems that are brought to my attention or to refund purchases to any customer that is dissatisfied. For you to malign what we do in such a public manner without first bringing your complaints to my attention is simply irresponsible, especially given that you apparently don’t pay much attention to the information provided to you about the CSA and are thus writing from a base of bad assumptions.

At a minimum, I would hope you would post this response to your blog so that others can see both sides of the story.

Sincerely,

Richard

After 7 boxes, waiting for my CSA to improve, I requested the remainder of my money back.

I thought in being patient I would see the boxes balance out a little… but instead they got smaller and items that I was expecting would be left out.

Organic farming must be difficult.

I was expecting more from this farm, but I think it may be too enterprizing to keep regular CSA customers feel as though they are getting their money’s worth.

Sorry Coon Rock, I just can’t support the science experiment. And I love science!

I hope people don’t turn on the local food thing. Though, this situation brings up lots of great blogging topics- Can local food keep up? Should we all just diet a lot? Do I eat too much? Should I stop feeding my friends?

Can you see my questions getting more ridiculous?

The last 5 weeks I have gone to the grocery store 2-3 times a week. I don’t buy quantity, I just think this method helps me waste less food (my biggest pet peeve). But, I have opted for the frozen isle many times and imported food in most cases.

So this makes me think, was organic so important to me? Maybe not. I subscribed to Britt Farms previously - they were local and used pesticides when necessary. I went to the grocery store only once a week or two- for tofu or garlic. Supporting a local farming family who kept me a very happy customer was enough for me. Does my food have to be organic? It would be nice, but we have to start somewhere. And local should have been good enough for me.

By requesting my money back, I know I can go to the farmer’s market and really go around and get what I want. In addition to shopping at local co-ops. I still admire Coon Rock’s extensively organic farming methods, but I just don’t want to be a customer for the remainder of the season. It has been an overall, a dissatisfying 7 weeks.

Coon Rock Box #7.

4 matchbook-sized carrots
3 bulbs of green garlic
1 head of cabbage- thank you for stripping the outter leaves off this time.
10 measley leaves of collard greens.

Apparently I was supposed to get some squash, but didn’t.

From Richard’s email
“…If you got beets last week, you should be getting green onions and garlic this week and if you got green onions and garlic last week you should be getting beets.

Cabbage – this is the last of the cabbage. “

$24 bucks for this? Complete rip-off.

Coon Rock Box #7.

Coon Rock Box #7.

Coon Rock Box #7.

Coon Rock Box #7.

Coon Rock Box #7.

Coon Rock Box #7.