Full Shares:  Red Butterhead Lettuce, White Cauliflower, Yukon Gem Potatoes, Purple Broccolini, Sungold tomatoes or shishito peppers or eggplant, Carrots, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Basil, and Cucumbers

Partial Shares:  Everything in smaller portions, and no cauliflower

Hello CSA Members!

Hard to believe it’s the beginning of August already!  Last week was a real butt kicker on the farm, as the days were hot and the harvest is getting bigger and heavier.  And in addition to our normal harvest for CSA, market, and wholesale, we also harvested 11,000 bulbs of garlic to cure in the greenhouse.  Nope, I didn’t misplace a comma.  Team Two Bear really buckled down and got the job done in three afternoons.  Now the garlic will cure for a couple of weeks before being trimmed and cleaned.

Just as I was beginning to feel a bit run down by the work, I had the opportunity to fill in as server at a wedding for a long time CSA member this weekend, which also happened to be catered by our food truck Farmer and Chef.  It was a beautiful setting with perfect weather and a lovely bride.  It was also fun to see the food truck in action with Chef Josh at the helm, and  how excited all the guests were to be eating “real food”.   Picture quinoa salad with beets and lacinato kale tossed in a vinaigrette, Organic Chicken grilled with Flathead Cherry BBQ sauce over grilled summer squash, Roe Ranch Beef with Chimichurri sauce over red roasted potatoes, and a mesclun salad with green goddess dressing and edible flowers.  Everything made from scratch, either from Two Bear Farm ingredients, or other producers around the valley.  Organic or sustainably sourced, and absolutely no GMO’s.  People devoured it!  The photographer said it was the best meal he’d had in about 6 years, and he does weddings every weekend.  One couple from Wisconsin said every wedding back home was basically fried chicken, and so they usually ate dinner before attending. And what really got me was that this is what food is supposed to be!  In so many cultures, good food, and the care that goes into it’s preparation, is at the core  of community and celebration and tradition.  At the center of life.   In this country, not so much any more.  We slap a few hot dogs on the grill and buy some potato salad with 130 ingredients in it at the grocery store, and call it good.   The entire reason we started Farmer and Chef, and Two Bear Farm, for that matter, was because we are not satisfied with the status quo regarding food in our community and our country, and we wanted to provide a convincing example.  Eating a seasonal diet, from local and ethically raised foods is often considered unrealistic or a sacrifice, and we wanted to show people otherwise.    There were certainly some stressful days this winter when we were having personnel issues and looking for a new chef that we wondered why we even bothered with this venture.  But we are passionate about food and where it comes from, and we think the message is important.  Why do people travel all the way to Montana to take in the amazing landscape, and then go buy food trucked in from some processing facility in another state or produce from the central valley of California?   Wouldn’t it be a more unique and complete experience to enjoy Montana, and it’s sense of place not just visually, but to actually eat from the landscape? Enough with the generic, cookie cutter approach to everything!  Many of you know one of my favorite sayings is “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”…..well, I guess I had to take a dose of my own medicine on this one.

OK, OK, that tangent had nothing to do with your CSA, but it was a big part of the week and really a culmination of a lot of hard work at he farm, so I thought it should be shared. So what about the CSA this week?  Well, you are going to start seeing some of the summer favorites showing up.  With the cool summer we’re having,  the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are taking their sweet time.  You will be receiving one of these items this week, varying by pickup location.  Over the next week or two, we will rotate who gets what, until there is enough to go around for everyone.  Cucumbers and basil are back in the share, as well as some head lettuce.  We’re hoping to have salad mix once again on tap for next week.  You’ve all had a Graffiti Purple Cauliflower at this point, so now it’s time (for full shares this week) to try the more well known white variety.  The potato variety this week is Yukon Gem (basically the same as Yukon Gold).  And the ubiquitous carrots.  Surely, someone will get tired of carrots this season, right?

Well, thanks for listening, sorry my rant took away my time to find recipes, but I’ll do better next week.  See you at distribution!

Todd and the Two Bear Farm Crew