August 13th, 2008 by Margie

After many weeks of searching the countryside, begging farmers for food, and embarrassing myself with my ignorance of some raw forms of food, it is finally time to start bringing you fresh-picked, locally grown bounty!

I was told I could not find enough product to start this service but luckily my mother raised a very stubborn young woman and the notion of not giving up when I truly want something has paid off for all of us!!  I found a great farm, Full Moon Co-op run by Jason Mann (seen above) and he will be providing us with beautiful fresh veggies through the fall.  I will be getting some items from other farmers as they experience bumper crops of items.  By the way, I only learned what a “bumper crop” was referring to about two months ago.  I am not a lifelong farm girl but I am a lifelong foodie, and a vegetarian on and off, depending on how good the cut of meat is that you offer me.

I share my lack of farming background with you because I want all of you to know that I am LOVING getting closer to the source of my own food and I hope I can share some of that with you.  I could let a head of lettuce from the commercial grocery store go bad as I eat out every night… but when I have seen the fields, and met the farmer that has walked the rows in the hot sun to nurture and pick each bean that fills a bag in my fridge, there is no way I can skip over that produce until it goes bad!  I feel a moral obligation to enjoy the food that someone worked so hard to create for my health.  Sound sappy?  Well, I am a little sappy when it comes to the appreciation of good healthy food but hopefully it will show in your basket or bag each week.  Enjoy your veggies!!!

Oh yeah, I have to share my most embarrassing moment so far with my farmers:

I have been testing product from several farms around the region so I could find produce I could get behind and bring to you.  One week my new friend Linda at Scharko Farms had provided me with a selection of beans.  I came back to her the next week telling her how good everything was and how I prepared each item.  Of course I did have to share some critique, as well.  The beans I cooked were very stringy.  I had removed the ends prior to cooking but they were stringy all the way through.  She walked over to the container with bags of beans and asked which ones they were.  I pointed to a bag and she laughed and said, “Margie, those are field peas!” Ooops!  I might have enjoyed those a lot more if I had taken the pea OUT OF THE SHELL!  In my defense, it looked a lot like a variety of bean called a rattlesnake bean that I was able to eat the entire bean the week before.  The embarrassing part was I was trying to “help” her by telling her what was wrong with her produce.  lol For those of you that do know what fresh field peas look like, forgive me.  For those of you that don’t, feel free to call me before cooking anything you have in your bag.  I promise I will know what it is and how to prepare it easily.

cheers!