I am ready to release my final newsletter into the world as I jump into my last week of work at Red Dog Farm. I think it’s time to get nostalgic and emotional about all of my dear friends who make up the Red Dog Farm. Farming allows the space and time for intimacy and intention within your farming community and reflection on how you work with this community. There are no screens, desks, glass doors or walls dividing me from my co-workers. We are confronted at the very beginning of our time together with really getting to know each other, whether that means goofing off with a big group of lettuce harvesters or the more intimate nature of tomato harvesting in the hot hoop-houses. Conversations have evolved from surface level pleasantries to reflections of values and dreams and further to weird recurring joke loops. It’s just fun!

Something that has been a thread through all of us is the sharing and coming together around food. It may be the actual sharing of your cheese puffs at lunch, the figurative sharing of excitement for a meal with a new vegetable we’re harvesting or the communal sharing of a group lunch. I have very vivid snapshots of food experiences this summer, which have all started from the landscapes of vegetables that we have grown.

A few of these vivid snapshots of food that has brought us all together: Rae’s fried green tomato sandwich; Lizz bringing me a delicious potato breakfast to work because she knows I didn’t allow enough time for breakfast; me bringing a curry to work and asking everyone to try it to tell me how to make it better; Lee and Amy’s delicious and creative ferments; Lane and the thickest toast slices I have ever seen; all of us trying to stuff as much gluten and butter into our mouths during our ten -minute morning break as we can; Corey and her deep love of cheese puffs; Blake once sharing his chocolate covered raisins with me in a moment of late-afternoon, desperation hunger; David and his love of sandwiches; Peter and his hearty soups; Britta and the excitement in her eyes when she tells me about the menu she will create for dinner that night; John and his big container of mixed nuts that he shares; Karyn leaving big boxes of fruit and popsicles in the break room for us; Siobhan and her pickles; Courtney at the Farmers Market with her dahlia flowers and her Thai food lunch; Thom and his soft spot for cake from the Corner Store; all of us dreaming of group lunch, imagining what it could be and arriving in the break room to find the most decadent taco table one has ever seen; talking about canning plans, hopes and dreams; and sometimes, we experience the farmer’s dilemma, being surrounded by delicious vegetables and just having peanuts and beer for dinner.

To share these little moments of food thoughts has brought a tenderness to the more rugged and intense work that we all do.

– Julia

October CSA

Happy Fall to you all! Now that we have passed into the new season, October is just a week away! We still have shares available for the rest of the 2018 CSA season. As there are three months left in the 2018 CSA season this will be the last opportunity to receive the 5% discount for signing up for three months at one time. To sign up for October, or all three remaining months, please do so my noon on Friday, September 28th. Thank you all for being part of our CSA program this year. It has been great to share so many food moments with you all! Red Dog Farm CSA Info

This Fennel Tastes Like Licorice!

Yes, fennel does share an anise-y, licorice-y flavor with the candy; however, it is not actually a relative of the plant which licorice is made from. It is in the same family as: anise, carrot, parsley, celery and dill, to name a few of its many relatives. Fennel is cultivated world-wide and can be found in many cuisines- from Italian sausages to Indian candies. Check out our collection of sweet and savory fennel dishes here!