Dear John,
The days where it rains, those are fine. We can sit on the porch and still feel a bit of space from being outside. The days when we’re sick, not great. But being inside feels appropriate then. And we can sit on the porch and feel sun on our face. (Can you tell I like having a porch?)
But these days where it’s smoky. When the haze obscures the view down the street. When we put on masks to go outside, and try to stay indoors. They get hard.
The concerns of climate change continue to mount.
We advocate for change at a structural level. We have conversations and try to model small shifts at a social level. And we do what we can to care for each other. To share abundance with it comes and to buffer blows as we are able.
Today’s Box
- Red Seedless Watermelon
- Yellow Peaches
- Fava Beans
- Green Cabbage
- Iceberg Lettuce
- Thumbelina Carrots
- Sugar Snap Peas
Things in the fridge
- Blueberries
- Watermelon
- Cherries
- Radishes
- Peas
- Fennel bulb
- Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collard
- Green plums
In the Garden
- Rainbow chard
- Turnips + greens
- Beets + greens
- Peas for the sampling–snap, snow, and shelling
- Lettuce, when we’re ready
- Basil leaves getting pinched with flowers
- Dill flowers
- Calendula flowers getting dried
- Rosemary
- Oregano
- Calendula and cosmos and oregano bouquet supplemented by Black Eyed Susans someone tossed in the compost
Open Preserves
- Preserved eggplant
- Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
- Pickled banana peppers
- Pickled banana peppers with oregano, garlic, and black pepper
- Pickled kale stems
- Pickled fennel stems
- Radish kimchi
- Green tomato chutney
- Tomatillo salsa
- Cran-kin kraut
- Cranapple chutney
- Probably still more uninventoried
Garden glimpse
We’re wrapping up the turnip and radishes from the spring plantings. They’ll be back in a couple of months. Expect we’ll be pulling the pea plants soon, so we can be a second batch of beans in the ground. (The first batch have all sprouted! And there was rain so I think we’re looking promising.)
Meals to consider and pickles to prep
- Good news. I pickled a pint of cherries and that salad only used a cup, so we get to have the snap peas and pickled cherries salad again.
- Last week’s watermelon rind + dill flowers + garlic have started a slow ferment down in the basement. It was so easy! The hardest part was peeling the rinds. They taste like dill pickles! Expect more experiments all summer long.
- Toast + almond butter + chevre + cherry halves
- I snuck a leaf of the iceberg lettuce that had fallen loose in the box. And promptly spent the whole walk home day dreaming of a wedge salad with a good blue cheese dressing. Maybe we can roast some beet lardons to be a topping instead of bacon?
- Fava bean pistachio pasta. (Make stock with the pods?)
- Grits ‘n greens
- Carrot top pesto
- We may keep using the cabbage as easy grab and go salad fixings. But if we need a heartier dinner, I’m leaning toward caramelized cabbage noodles.
Love,
Sarah
Planning Inside The Box 