Georgia Collards, Fall 2009
Waiting
I guess you’re thinking “It’s about time we got a newsletter”, although maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part…... I believe Shakespeare when he wrote “Too easy winning maketh the prize light.” ** Rohan, however, doesn’t. I quoted this to him the other night in an effort to put our stalled month and a half into perspective & he said “Bull, if all I did to get 84 million bucks was buy a lotto ticket – that prize wouldn’t light.” Well….. I had to agree – and yes, we did buy a couple of tickets when we were on vacation. Why do we buy lotto tickets when we’re on vacation? Because we wanna stay on vacation. (For the record, we hath not won).
To backtrack, we went to contract on a property in Cabarrus county the first week in September (this is the excuse for no August or September newsletter) and while I would love to say we have some news about the property, we don’t. How can that be you say? A closing should only take 30 days. Well, not in this case, we’re now on our third closing extension and we haven’t even had the house inspected yet. Yea, I know, crazy isn’t it? Limbo is pretty tough no matter what, but it’s really hard for us as growers. Where do we plant our garlic? Here? In anticipation that things won’t work out at the new place? (Pessimistic – could jinx the whole thing.) There? In anticipation that all will work out & we’ll close when we’re supposed to? (Foolish – why would we make the effort to plant on land that isn’t ours yet?) So thanks to all of you who’ve been asking us about this at market, especially since we’ve just been rolling our eyes and saying “Don’t ask.” We really don’t mean that, we just wish we had something to tell.
** I don’t generally sit around quoting Shakespeare, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but somehow this quote seems so much more positive than saying “Oh for crying out loud, suck it up, all this hassle is just gonna make it all the more worthwhile in the end.”
October Recipe of The Month
This is a recipe we printed about two years ago, and we constantly get great feedback from it.
Tatsoi & Scallop Soup
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups home made chicken broth or canned low-salt chicken broth
1 1/2 cups (packed) thinly sliced tatsoi (about 2 ounces)
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
10 ounces sea scallops, halved horizontally
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Melt butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add bell pepper and onion and sauté until almost tender, about 3 minutes. Add broth, tatsoi, cream and crushed red pepper. Cover pan and simmer until tatsoi is tender, about 3 minutes. Add scallops and simmer uncovered until just opaque in center, about 3 minutes. Mix in basil. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls and serve.
2 Main Course Servings
What’s New?
I was listening to a radio quiz show a couple of months ago and one of the questions was: Name the activity that’s not like the others –
a) rappelling b) tug of war c) rowing d) cycling
The answer is cycling – in all the other activities, you progress by going backwards. Well, we seem to be doing a fine job of that at Small City Farm. So despite the fact that we seem to be in pretty much the same situation as we were last year, we do have some great looking fall crops coming up. Radishes, collards, turnips & their greens, arugula, salad mix, tatsoi & beets to name a few. We hope to see you all this weekend at Yorkmont!
Thanks so much for coming out to market, buying from us and other local vendors, we sure love to see you each & every time.
Kim & Rohan & Pork Chop