Another food post (with a touch of Yom Kippur)

(Because how long can I go without talking about food, after all? ;-)

I found a chunk of cow at the Butcherie labeled "Moc (sic) Tenderloin." Anyone know (a) what this might actually be, and/or (b) how to cook it? I don't have a lot of experience cooking red meat... right now I'm assuming that putting it in a covered casserole with some root veggies and roasted tomatoes might yield something good, but perhaps that's not the right approach?

Thanks to bitty and bubblebabble, I now have actual Bendick's Bittermints! They are fabulous, the Platonic ideal of a York Peppermint Patty (think more intense mint, less sweet, and way dark chocolate). Not only were they wonderful in bringing me these, they let me try a Gingermint as well, which was rather like chocolate-dipped ginger, but with a different texture inside. Lovely.

I happened to eat Too Much Pasta Thursday, then a pre-fast meal that was protein, fat, and non-starchy vegetables (skin-on chicken thighs baked with onion, garlic, and collards, plus topped with already-slow-roasted tomatoes). It was the easiest Yom Kippur* fast I've had in a long time, though with a touch of headache once or twice. Overall, the hungries passed quickly, not getting too intense until about half an hour before the fast ended, by which time it was clearly not going to be a problem. And that was despite my stupid habit of standing for repetition and Torah reading, which ended up being 6–7 hours or so.

* Liturgically, this year I ended up leaving Tehillah YK night because it was not what I wanted (I do not want every single phrase that can be sung to a tune, however happy, to be sung, nor do I want what felt like more ecstatic forms of music either. (This on top of a space that was ill-lit, ill-ventilated, acoustically challenging, and faced west.) It was apparent that a lot of other people like this, though; I was obviously in the minority. So in the morning I went to Harvard, and was much happier with the style of davening, even though the shatz for musaf didn't do the counting part of repetition out loud, and the shatz for mincha was speedier than heck, leaving us another half hour break after mincha in addition to the two hour break before. The shatz for neilah, though not of the best voice, is someone who knows how to lead, and it was excellent, everyone coming together, finally saying Avinu Malkenu after not the rest of the day due to Shabbat, and the end repeated phrases ringing out in unison. It was wonderful.

I'm headed out to the farm to do some picking. I'll report back what I get tonight.

[local eating] Farm share, supplemental, and more

I went out to my farm today; they offer shareholders things that can be picked, and the quantities are reasonably large for Boston-area folks, since they assume we won't get out there much. Before I got to the fields, though, I saw the new array of solar panels they've set up (5 x 22 panels), though I heard they're not live yet. And I peeked in the (plastic-sheeting) greenhouses, where there were tomato plants taller than basketball players! (At first I thought they were suspended, but soon figured out they were just fricken' enormous.)

The loot that was part of my CSA:
4 pints of tomatillos
6 pints of husk cherries (which were easier to pick than I'd expected, despite being a rather small variety, since they're ripe once they fall off the plant)
6 pints of cherry tomatoes (I picked a variety of red, yellow, and orange ones, some globe, some pear, some as small as currants)
30 hot peppers (I focused on long thin peppers and cherry ones, since I have poblanos and jalapenos already)
1 pint of raspberries
11 quarts of yellow (wax) beans (officially, I could have picked 15 quarts, and 4 quarts of shelling beans, but I ran out of steam (and the bending over was getting to me), plus I'd hoped for green or purple beans, and those were pretty much done)
10 stems of flowers (brought to my mom :-)

I also bought 2 pounds of local honey ($11.25), so I can make apple-honey liqueur for next Rosh Hashana.

My next stop was Brookfield Orchards (where we always went when I was little) to pick some apples. I was a bit disappointed that all they had were MacIntosh, Cortland, and Empire (I always hope for Honeycrisp and/or Ginger Gold). I settled for Macs only, getting a half bushel bag ($17; their sign suggested it would be 20 pounds of fruit, but I think the bag I carried out was heavier, though I haven't weighed it).

And my last food-acquiring stop was at Cournoyers, the farm stand in Paxton we went to when I was growing up; it was nostalgic driving through town, seeing what's changed and what hasn't. I bought 10 pounds of potatoes, 25 pounds of yellow onions, and a buttercup squash (total: ~$19). (Followed by a visit to my parents, finally delivering the kippah my mom had asked for, among other things.)

Current plans include husk cherry preserves, possibly a small batch of husk cherry liqueur, roasted wax beans (and probably some pickled), perhaps some salsa verde (any other suggestions for tomatillos?), freezing some of the hot peppers if I can't think how to use all of them up, apple liqueur (permutations might include cinnamon and/or vanilla, as well as the honey), apple pickles, and apple cake for Sukkot. Other ideas are welcome.