Time to sign up for a CSA near you.

Silence Dogood here. You all are probably sick of hearing me rant about the joys of CSAs, but steel yourself: Here we go again. If you read all the way to the end, you’ll be rewarded with a really great leek recipe. Consider it the carrot at the end of the rant!

“CSA” is shorthand for the awkward bureaucrat-speak “Consumer-Supported Agriculture.” What that should say, we think, is “Community Farm Cooperative” or “Community Food Farm” or “Community Farm Shares.” Here’s why: A CSA is a privately owned farm that produces a season-long supply of diverse, usually organic produce. But, unlike most privately owned farms, a CSA grows its produce on shares. The farmers decide how many shares they can reasonably grow on their property with the amount of labor on hand, and then they offer these shares to the community at a subscription price. People join the CSA by paying up front for their season’s produce, usually the fall or winter before (which is why I’m writing this now). By receiving payment in advance, the farmers know how much to plant, and they can afford to buy the seeds, plants, fertilizers, and equipment (such as row covers) they need to make each growing season a success for everybody.

Every CSA is different, in terms of their pickup arrangements, the length of their season, what they offer, whether they expect their members to put in a certain amount of co-op work on the farm, what else they offer. Rather than endlessly generalizing, let me tell you about the CSA our friend Ben and I belong to, Quiet Creek Farm, and how it’s set up. If you’re not drooling by the time you finish reading this, you must be in a coma (or you really do hate vegetables)!

Quiet Creek is an organic farm run by farmers John and Aimee Good on property they lease from the Rodale Institute just outside nearby Kutztown, PA. They offer both half and whole shares, which you can pick up at the farm on either a Tuesday or Friday from 2 to 7 p.m. Each week during the season, which typically runs from the end of May or early June through the end of October or early November, you arrive at the farm and select from bountiful bins of incredibly fresh, vibrant seasonal produce. The selection changes from week to week. This week, in mid-October, Quiet Creek offered salad turnips, arugula, spinach, Asian spinach, kale, beets (red and orange), gorgeous carrots, three kinds of head lettuce, celery, Savoy cabbage, leeks, potatoes, onions, garlic, and an incredible assortment of multicolored bell and frying peppers.

And that’s just the beginning. One of the great joys of Quiet Creek is its huge U-Pick garden, where members can help themselves any time except Sunday mornings. Through the season, it offers an incredible selection of herbs, flowers for cutting, strawberries and raspberries, snap, snow, and English peas, cherry and heirloom paste tomatoes, green, yellow wax, and ‘Dragon Tongue’ heirloom beans, edamame, and a huge assortment of hot peppers. The immense stands of fresh basil and cilantro—two herbs our friend Ben and I can’t get enough of—alone would justify a CSA membership in my opinion.

But there’s more. You can buy an enormous assortment of free-range, organically grown meat and eggs, wild-caught salmon, raw-milk cheeses, yogurts, and cheese spreads, organic whole and white spelt flour, organic honeys, handmade soaps, raw goat’s and cow’s milk, and even handmade nature-themed jewelry at the CSA barn when you pick up your weekly share. best of all, to us, John and Aimee have partnered with an organic orchard, North Star Orchard, owned by Ike and Lisa Kerschner, to offer weekly shares of fruits—heirloom apples, pears, Asian pears, plums, and peaches—that you can pick up at Quiet Creek when you come to get your produce share. (John and Aimee grow an amazing assortment of melons to round out your fruit options.) Ike and Lisa also offer homemade fruit butters and additional fruit if you want to stock up.

Even now, I’m not done. You get a Quiet Creek Farm logo cloth bag to hold (some of) your produce. Aimee provides recipes to help you make the most of your seasonal produce, both in take-along sheets at the farm and via e-mails. Every week, you get an e-mail letting you know what produce you’ll be getting in that week’s share, as well as recipes, cooking tips, and farm news. (If you join the fruit share, you’ll also get a weekly e-mail from Lisa with descriptions of the week’s varieties, storage tips, recipes, and orchard news.) You can even buy cookbooks at the CSA compiled by other CSAs, by Mennonite communities, and by other veggie-friendly folks.

Speaking of friendly, there’s another benefit of belonging to a CSA. Of course, the farmers and staff are friendly and helpful. But the CSA itself is one of the most family-friendly places I’ve ever seen. Watching toddlers lurch across the U-Pick plot, shrieking with excitement at the prospect of picking raspberries or flowers, or older kids seriously contemplating the produce bins in the barn as they help their parents (and yes, often both parents come, making it a real weekly family event) select the week’s produce, is so inspiring. Here is where that word “community” comes in, where people actually meet their neighbors, join them at the annual CSA potluck, take a class together, like the wonderful canning and drying workshop Aimee offered last year. I loved this class, and just imagine the thrill of attending, then going out to the U-Pick garden and harvesting boxes of paste tomatoes to can for salsa and sauce! Talk about instant gratification.

Fresh, organic produce. Support for local farmers. I know it sounds too good to be true. Are there any drawbacks? Of course there are. The most obvious is that you have to pay upfront at a time when you’re not getting anything in return, and probably won’t for many months. (John and Aimee try to take the sting out of this by offering a five-payment option as well as the deposit, then pay-in-full option. And they offer half shares as well as full shares if you just want to dip your toes in or are single or a couple but still want to participate. In case you’re wondering, between me, Ben, the chickens, sending friends home with goodies, and the Friday Night Supper Club, plus canning, we’ve been able to manage a full share.) But there’s a flip side, too: For all those months when you’re scarfing up tons of fantastic produce, you’re not paying anything. Good deal!

There are two other drawbacks. The first is obvious when you think about it. When you go to a farmers’ market or grocery to buy produce, you get exactly what you want, and exactly as much as you want. When you pick up your weekly share at the CSA, you get what they have, in the quantity they offer, which may be either more or less than you’d like.

I like to think of this as a challenge, since it gives me the opportunity to create new dishes featuring produce we might not normally eat, or perhaps a bit more of something or other than we might normally buy. I think it’s actually fun, and there’s no better way (besides, of course, growing your own) to learn about what’s seasonal in your area. Want to eat locally? Bingo! As for the things you’re not getting (mushrooms spring to mind) or not getting enough of, it’s not like you can’t go to the farmers’ market or grocery and make up the shortfall.

The second drawback involves the very nature of farming itself. As every gardener knows, growing your own food is a risky business. Your crops can get hit by a late-spring hail that shreds leaves, batters fruit, and (in our case this year) shatters the roof of your chicken coop. Plants may be attacked by insects and diseases, decimated by drought, drowned by endless rains. Late-season frosts or relentless scorching sun may stunt plants and set crops back. In food raising, there are no guarantees. And when you’re part of a CSA, you agree to share the bad times as well as the good.

Fortunately, there’s usually a silver lining to every weather-related cloud. A cool, wet spring may delay the tomatoes and reduce the strawberry harvest but prolong the harvest of lettuces, arugula, and spinach. A hot, dry summer may mean smaller onions, but it also means sweeter melons, disease-free tomatoes, and happy basil, not to mention well-cured winter squash and pumpkins. A cold fall may bring an abrupt end to the bean, basil, and tomato harvest, but give new life to the fall greens, broccoli, cilantro, and radishes. To everything, there is a season.

If you live anywhere near us (in the Allentown-Trexlertown-Fogelsville-Kutztown-Breinigsville-Emmaus PA area), you should look into Quiet Creek Farm (goodfarmers@enter.net) and North Star Orchard (lisa@northstarorchard.com). Otherwise, we urge you to find a CSA near you. We think you’ll be glad you did. And now is definitely the time to do it, when the CSAs are taking members for next year’s growing season. Go for it!!!

Still with me? I promised a great leek recipe, right? I myself use leeks, which look like giant scallions and are part of the onion family, as I do all onions: as seasoning for other dishes. Leeks are so luscious if you wash them well (they tend to get a bit muddy between layers) and then slice them in rounds. They’re beautiful, delicate, and fun. Cut off the tops—the tough green leaves—and the very bottoms, with the roots, and compost them. You want the stout pale green and white stems. Slice them in half-inch rounds and halve each circle (you can quarter really big ones). Add them to soups, stir-fries, pasta and rice dishes, omelettes, and casseroles. They flake apart into delicate tendrils of mild oniony flavor. I enjoy their subtle, delicate flavor and beautiful appearance.

I myself have never served leeks as a dish by themselves. Like onions and garlic, which I know people also prepare as stand-alone side dishes, leeks are seasonings to me. But this week our CSA farmer-chef, Aimee Good, handed out a leek recipe that looked so enticing I just may be forced to try it. (This week’s handouts also included a winter curry, baked acorn squash with apple stuffing, and Carolina kale.) See what you think!

          Braised Leeks

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 bay leaf

4 coriander seeds, crushed

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 1/2 tablespoons white wine

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 sprig thyme

4 peppercorns

1 clove garlic, crushed

8 small leeks or 4 large leeks cut in half lengthwise

Put oil, wine, tomato paste, sugar, bay leaf, thyme, garlic, coriander seeds, peppercorns, and 1 cup water in a large saute pan. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add leeks in a single layer and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover pan and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until leeks are tender. Remove leeks to a serving dish. Add lemon juice to saute pan and boil rapidly until liquid is syrupy. Strain to remove herbs. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour over leeks. Serves four. 

Ready to sign on? I hope so! Ben and I think supporting community businesses like CSAs is the very best thing you can do for the economy. You’re keeping your money in your community and helping your neighbors. Is it worth it? As someone who’s recently risen to political notoreity might put it, you betcha!

       ‘Til next time,

               Silence