In the wet and weary months of January and February it seems eons away. In March, as the snow begins to melt into slush, the idea that food could grow in the hard-packed earth seems dubious. But by April, as the crocuses finally begin nudging their way to the surface of the lawn in our yard, it seems entirely possible that we might once again be able to eat vegetables procured from the ground. May is four weeks of torture, and then, finally, early June rolls around, and we’re fairly champing at the bit to pick up our first CSA distribution at Caretaker Farm.

This year, I was greeted at Caretaker by Pip, a teeny-tiny three-week-old Nigerian Dwarf goat. He was as tame — and as small — as a kitten, but had the energy level of an overcaffeinated kindergartener on a pogo stick. After ramming his tiny goat head into my palm — also sort of like a kitten — and hamming it up for the camera, he headed into the distribution area and sidled up to a chalkboard propped on the floor announcing the day’s distribution helpers. Before anyone really knew what was happening, Pip was running up the side of the chalkboard and somersaulting his way back down again, sort of like a skateboarder on half-pipe. His little hooves clack-clack-clacked up the board over and over while a smattering of CSA members stood, slack-jawed, in a wide semi-circle around him.

Is this what goats are supposed to do?

Having had enough of that, Pip retired to Maribeth’s arms, where he rested contented, at least for a little while.

Below, some more photos of our first day back at Caretaker.

Among many, many other things, we got salad greens — including oak leaf lettuce, romaine, yukina, mizuna, baby lettuces, and arugula — bok choy, rhubarb, spinach, and many herbs.

You know when people describe a type of food as being like ambrosia? Food of the gods and all that? And you roll your eyes because, c’mon, it really can’t be that good.

My friends, these strawberries really were that good. They tasted like sugar and flowers, and I ate my allotted handful while I stood there in the field, smiling in the sunshine.

The root cellar is in the basement of the barn that serves as the distribution area. We’re lucky to be able to continue to pick up storage and root vegetables for as long as supplies last.

It’s slightly humid in the root cellar, and a little bit warmer than outside. The humidity has washed all the notes off the chalkboard.

For a while there were potatoes and garlic and onions in the root cellar, but now it’s just carrots and beets.

Not sure what’s in these bags. At the beginning of last season, the bags were stuffed with rutabagas, and Dan and I had the unpleasant task of rooting through them after they’d been stored all winter — some of them were less-than-fresh. Dan took to singing a 1920s-inspired tune called “Rotten Rutabagas!”

On the way out, I saw a cat resting in a sunbeam.

Outside, a cow relaxes before a backdrop of bare branches on the lavender-gray hillside.

See you next year, Caretaker!

Every week or so I receive an email newsletter from my CSA. I look forward to reading it; it’s always a well-written, thoughtful take on sustainable agriculture in action, and it helps me understand the reality of life on the farm when I know the farmer doing what it is that he does.

This week, Don reflected on his family’s recent trip to rural Chile to visit friends. All was not quite bucolic:

While in Chile, I was constantly struck by an uncomfortable present reality. Yeah, my Spanish wasn’t as great as in the past but it didn’t seem to matter that much. Of course, sleeping with our children in small twin beds for 2 months wasn’t ideal, but over time it just seemed normal. The problem was the sprayer. Almost every week, a tractor (correctly identified as a Massey Ferguson by our three year old son Micah) came down the dirt road and sprayed the peaches and apricots that were within 50 yards of the family’s house where we stayed. This was a boom sprayer and the smell would linger in the air for about 1 hour. Then, there were the mornings when the grapes in the valley were sprayed from the planes. During these days the smell was much worse as was my anxiety wondering how a person has the permission to spray over their vineyard yet fill the entire valley with a chemical fungicide.

In our life here in South Williamstown, I am not accustomed to the norms of conventional agriculture. You know, the methods that are used to produce the vast majority of the food that is available in our country. The majority of those sprayed peaches, apricots, and grapes aren’t going to be on the tables of Chileans, but rather are destined for supermarkets around the United States. According to the organic trade association, organic food now accounts for 2% of U.S. food sales. Two percent, that’s it! And, it’s not just the food that carries the repercussions of spraying. How about the workers, the neighbors, the water table, the land, and the natural environment? We are very fortunate. I’ve never experienced a plane dropping chemicals on our valley. We have returned from Chile with a renewed appreciation and understanding of the importance of sustainable agriculture. And, we are champing at the bit for the start of the season.

It is sometimes hard to remember, when your little canvas bag is stuffed with lush, organically grown goodies, pulled from the earth by someone you know by name, that you are a very small blip in a very large system.

Indeed, we are very fortunate.

Sometimes I wonder how I ever accomplished anything before quitting the world of nine-to-five. (Or ten-to-six, as the case may be.) And then I remember that I lived in Manhattan, where stores are open all night and events are planned accommodatingly around the schedules of most working people.

Not so here in the greater Williamstown-North Adams metro area. (Ha-ha.) Here, events are planned accommodatingly around the schedules of wealthy stay-at-home moms, arts-advocate retirees, and students. In other words, things take place at stupid times, in the middle of the day. For example, Dan and I went to see the classic Japanese film Ugetsu a few weeks ago at The Clark, at 4 PM, and were somewhat surprised to find ourselves the only two brown-haired patrons in a sea of powdery gray and silver. We felt fleeting terror at the prospect of actually having to live around here, among the elderly and trust-funded, for more than a handful of years, but that feeling subsided quickly once the growing season began and we started making the weekly trek down to Caretaker Farm for our CSA pick-up.

And it was Caretaker who organized this week’s free, middle-of-the-day activity that, thanks to my flexible schedule (or, more realistically, my lack of paying work), I was able to attend. The subject at hand? Pickling Demystified.

The workshop wasn’t actually called Pickling Demystified, but it might as well have been. Our instructor, Dianne Lamb, works as a Nutrition & Food Specialist with the University of Vermont Extension in Bennington. In clear, simple language, and with much enthusiasm, she essentially shined a big bright light on what, to me, had been a somewhat mysterious and intimidating process — canning and pickling. By the end of my two hours in the Caretaker kitchen, I’d canned some dilly beans, learned a new technique for making yogurt at home (more on that later), and received an offer for a personal lesson on making kimchee.

Plus, I took pictures. Here’s a glimpse at what went on.

See the rest at my Flickr page »

“This is the best bok choy I’ve ever grown,” said Don, head honcho at Caretaker Farm and provider of 95% of the vegetables that land on my plate from June through November. I was giddily stuffing fistfuls of spinach into my canvas bag, but paused to regard the small, pale green bunches of bok choy that Don was now encouraging into two unsuspecting new CSA members’ bags. The two women glanced at each other with vaguely worried looks as Don happily headed off to tend to another farm task.

“But what do we do with it?” one woman asked the other, sotto voce, as several small children eddied around them, tugging on pant legs and waving stalks of rhubarb. The other woman offered a small shrug of unfamiliarity, and the two of them, and their brood, shuffled in the direction of the baby salad greens.

Meanwhile, I’d sidled up to the bok choy. Don’s glowing review notwithstanding, bok choy (also called pak choi, or Chinese cabbage) is one of my favorite vegetables, especially when it’s young and tender, as these sweet little bundles were. Bok choy is great, because it’s like two vegetables in one: the crisp, pale green stalks, and the supple, spinach-like leaves. You find it most often in a Chinese style stir-fry, where its two-for-the-price-of-one allure really stands out — the stems cook up tender and translucent while retaining their crunch, and the leaves wilt to a soft, dark green.

I hoped that those two as-yet unenlightened women would take some bok choy home with them that afternoon. They’d never know what they were missing.

Stir-Fried Bok Choy and Mung Beans with Sesame Noodles

Bok choy’s mildly cabbagey flavor gets along well with stir-fry flavors like garlic, ginger, and red chile. Here, I’ve paired it with cold sesame noodles — one of my favorite, summery, not-quite-junk-food recipes. Don’t let the two ingredient lists deter you — this easy meal comes together in under 10 minutes. You can usually find mung bean sprouts in the produce section, or you can sprout your own at home, like we did. This dish would also be great with small cubes of firm tofu, if you have some on hand.

For the sesame noodles:

1 inch knob peeled fresh ginger
1 medium garlic clove
1/2 c peanut butter
1/4 c shoyu, tamari, or soy sauce
1/3 c warm water
2 tbs rice vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tbs honey
1 tsp chili sauce
1 lb dried udon noodles, or dried buckwheat soba nooodles
small fistful scallions, chives, or garlic chives, thinly sliced
4 tbs toasted sesame seeds

For the bok choy:

2 tbs canola oil
1 tsp sesame oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tsp minced ginger
1 1/2 pounds bok choy, leaves trimmed and reserved, stems cut to 1-inch pieces
2 tbs shoyu, tamari, or soy sauce
1 tsp sambal oelek, or your favorite hot chile sauce, or a pinch red chile flakes
1 c mung bean sprouts
3 tbs roasted, unsalted peanuts

Place the ginger and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times until minced. Add the next seven ingredients and blend until smooth, about two minutes.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the noodles and cook according to package directions. When the noodles are ready, drain and rinse in cold water. In a large bowl, toss the noodles with the sesame-peanut sauce, scallions, and sesame seeds.

Meanwhile, set a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add 2 tbs oil and tilt the wok to coat with the oil. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for just a minute. Add the bok choy stems and leaves and stir-fry for another minute or two, until the leaves have darkened and wilted. Add the shoyu and hot sauce, stirring to distribute. Remove the pan from heat and add the bean sprouts and peanuts, stirring again to incorporate.

Use tongs to distribute the sesame noodles to individual dishes. Top each serving with a generous heap of bok choy and a sprinkling of peanuts. Serve with extra hot sauce on the side.

Serves 4

It was a rainy day, but just about everything was glowing green and gorgeous at this year’s first CSA distribution at Caretaker Farm.

This time, the highlight of the trip had nothing at all to do with Chicago, and instead came delivered in an electronic missive from far off. On Saturday morning, I downloaded an email containing some of my favorite words to hear at the beginning of summer: We are eagerly preparing for the start of this season’s distribution.

That’s right, we’re just two weeks away from the first distribution at my local CSA, Caretaker Farm.

That first email from the farm is a sign that the summer season has begun. So, despite the meteorologically depressing conditions — I was tempted to turn the heat on this morning, it’s that bad — the promise of bales of tender, sweet lettuce and plump baby turnips awaits. Bring it on!

At long last, I’m in real local food territory, with the lucky break of being as close to Vermont as possible without living there. This means, of course, that it’s super-easy to find stunning local cheeses, including this smooth chère from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Co., which I spread over local 8 grain toast from the Rock Hill Bakehouse and topped with local zucchini and pattypan squash (marinated and grilled with non-local EVO and soy sauce) and pea shoots from the Gill Greenery. For dessert, a small bowl of local low-spray cherries from the Williamstown co-op.

- Zucchini and pattypan squash (Williamstown, MA – 5 mi)
- Bread from Rock Hill Bakehouse (Glens Falls, NY – 63 mi)
- Chèvre (Websterville, VT – 157 mi)
- Pea shoots (Gill, MA – 45 mi)
- Cherries (Williamstown, MA – 5 mi)

Western MA is awash in farms, CSAs, and bakeries, and as I get to know the region better, I suspect I will be able to find food that’s even more local — regionally closer — than what I threw together for last night’s mini-feast. Sadly, it seems we’ve arrived just in time to be at the bottom of a thirty-person-long waiting list for the CSA at Caretaker Farm, which, when I stopped by last week, was overflowing with bunches of leafy greens, beans, herbs, and other sundry edibles. I sullenly traipsed off the farm, mouth watering, with a vow to sign up as early as possible next year.