Email brown-out

I am taking our children to visit family.  We ask that you limit communication with us from August 2 through August 12.  Please contact us no later than 9 a.m. on August 2 to ask questions, cancel a box, etc.  This is an email brown-out, not black-out.  Steve will check my emails but won’t have much time to respond.  I’ll be back and ready to communicate on August 13.  Thanks for your help with this.  Beth

I will deposit August 1 checks on August 2.  Many of you paid with checks post-dated to August 1.  I will deposit the checks on Friday August 2.

Pat’s recipe featured on NPR.
Our menu chef Pat Mulvey of Local Thyme received an exciting honor this week.  Her Ensenada Slaw recipe and the charming story of its discovery were featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”  Go here to listen to the radio clip and to vote for her recipe.  Pat’s recipe is in competition with three other summer recipes featured in short radio segments this week.  She’d love the votes and, honestly, it’s the best recipe of the bunch.  Keep this dish in mind; we plan to send cabbage again in the next few weeks.

First melons

From left, Noah and Michael toss muskmelons at harvest. It’s the best way to get the melons from the field to the wagon.

We’re glad to have melons to harvest.  During the blazing heat last year, the first week we had melons for everyone was July 19.  This year, they are ready on July 25.  Isn’t that interesting?  The weather was so different, but the plants compensated.  All our squash-family crops have stayed on schedule despite the cold spring, probably because they were sheltered under row cover.  That’s melons, zucchini, cucumbers, pickles, winter squash and pumpkins.

Veggie List and Veggie Notes.

Muskmelon OR watermelon
Green beans, 2 lb
Sweet corn, just 1 ear
Sugar snap peas, 3/4 lb (last of the season)
Cherry tomatoes OR slicing tomatoes
Italian frying peppers, 3
Cucumbers, 3
Pickling cucumbers, a handful
Mixed zucchini and summer squash, about 2 lb
Walla Walla onions, 1 or 2
Basil, 1 or 2 large sprigs
One site will receive globe or Japanese eggplant

Next week’s box will contain sweet corn, melons, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, onions and more.

Sweet corn – We realize that one ear of corn is a tease!  Well, they are ready so we are sending them.  We suggest you cut the kernels into any cooked dish during the final minutes of cooking.  It’s the only fair way to share the one ear.  There should be lots of sweet corn next week.
Pickling cucumbers (small cucumbers with thin skins) – These are excellent in salads because of their think skins.  Children (at least ours) love them as snacks.
Italian frying peppers (green or red, long, slender) – These sweet frying peppers are special.  They contain less moisture than normal bell peppers and therefore can be fried in a small amount of oil, preferably over high heat.  They are unbelievably fragrant while cooking.  If you attempt to fry normal bell peppers, they release juices and you end up sautéing them instead.  Frying peppers are also excellent raw.
Here are several things to watch for on the peppers this week:
– Some peppers have minor sunscald, which appears as a white patch on one side of the pepper.  You can eat or cut around this area.  Sunscald abates later in the year, as the growing foliage shades the developing peppers.
– Blossum end rot. Many of the Italian peppers have a black tip. This is related to calcium uptake in the plants.  Again, just trim off the affected part.
Japanese eggplant (only one site will receive this week) – These eggplant are long, slender, and dark purple.  The skin is thinner on this type than on globe eggplant.  These are traditionally left unpeeled in Asian cooking, and are often cut diagonally.  When cutting lengthwise slices of Japanese eggplant, I find it useful to remove a little skin from the outside slices, as they grill or sauté best when the flesh is exposed.