Last fall, Lisa and her awesome team at Mighty Food Farm announced that they would no longer be providing a Williamstown CSA pick up location. I wasn’t shocked by this announcement – they’d asked for feedback about it previously and I was aware that the Williamstown pick up added a lot of time and effort for the folks at Mighty Food. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible for us to make a weekly pick up in Shaftsbury feasible for our family so it was sadly time to find a new CSA after 15 years with Mighty Food Farm. (Thankfully, they decided to continue the winter share pick ups in Williamstown since the pick ups are every other week. We’re looking forward to seeing Lisa and the team again in November.)
After a bit of research, we settled on Many Forks Farm in Clarksburg as our new CSA home for the summer season. We’re now 3 weekly pick ups in and have had a great experience so far. Molly is very friendly, the produce has been great, and we’re very excited to take advantage of their pick-your-own offerings.
The logistics are a little different; Many Forks isn’t free choice, but that also means that I don’t have to remember to place a CSA order every week. Though I enjoyed knowing in advance exactly what I’d be getting, I spent a lot of effort making sure I didn’t forget to place my Mighty Food order. Many Forks does offer some choice though, for example “choose radishes or turnips” one week or “choose bok choy or head lettuce” another. This level of choice also means that the shares aren’t pre-boxed so I can choose which bunch of kale looks the best to me. Molly sends out an email a day or two before pick ups so members know what to expect.
Technically this is a meal plan post, but the past several weeks (months, really) have been pretty jammed packed with activity. We were out of town one weekend followed by a family visit the next. June included graduation for our students and end of year celebrations for both our children, plus the start of summer swim lessons, Father’s Day, Brian’s birthday, our anniversary and a friend’s wedding. All that to say, meals have been somewhat random and I feel like we’ve eaten out much more than usual.
The Pick Ups
The Plan
As seems to be true of any New England CSA, the beginning of the season is full of lots of leafy greens. I could certainly be more creative with them, but not in the context of our very busy June. And I’m definitely not mad about a fresh, crunchy, flavorful, green salad after months of root vegetables and mediocre supermarket produce.
Some meal highlights featuring our CSA veggies:
- chickpea salad pitas topped with dill and pea sprouts
- chicken fingers and egg noodles with raw broccoli and cauliflower florets
- kale and lentil salad (Bon Appetit)
- sautéed swiss chard
- tacos topped with cilantro (and other ingredients)
- LOTS of salads combining lettuce, arugula, pea shoots, turnips, radishes, scapes, dill, and cilantro – sometimes these were side salads, other times they were the main dish and served topped with baked salmon, chickpeas, or breaded chicken tenders
