Farm share week 9, with food notes

• a head of lettuce (smallish, green leaf)
  
• a head of fresh garlic
  
• a head of cabbage (mini to small, green or purple; I got purple)
  
• three peppers (purple with green undertones, bell shape)
  
• an eggplant (some colors, mostly white)
  
• a pound of carrots (purple, orange, and/or white/pale yellow)
  
• a pound and a half of tomatoes
  
• a quarter pound of basil
  
• a pound of summer squash (no zukes, apparently)
  
• six ears of corn

I brought home a somewhat different assortment than this would imply, having left a bunch of the salad stuff at my Shabbat lunch hosts' house (lettuce, a tomato, a pepper, half the basil), taken their summer squash (allergies), and been gifted an eggplant by yet another person (a vegetarian I know; I'm surprised at the lack of eggplant love, actually).

The corn is from Warner Farm, in Sunderland, since Red Fire doesn't grow enough corn (actually, I didn't realize that they grew any; corn is hard to grow organically).

The farm is growing more tomatoes than ever, but one of the eight tomato fields is gone: there are black walnut trees on the edge of the field. Black walnut roots give off something called jugolone, which is toxic to some plants, including tomatoes. So paste tomatoes (Federle, San Marzano) and some red slicing tomatoes will be hard to come by.

Eggplants are obviously female. The most recent newsletter included photos of the different kinds with their names: Bianca (light purple, lobed), Clara (white), Dancer (light purple), Nadia (dark purple, 'regular'), and Calliope (streaked light purple and white).

I stopped at Trader Joe's tonight, and found that they're carrying organic Empire chicken! Whole, boneless skinless breasts, and boneless skinless thighs (! for some reason this has always been a difficult cut to find kosher). I mentioned to the cashier how happy this made me, and he said that TJ's has the first contract to distribute organic kosher chicken from Empire.