In your share:

• Baby Bok Choi – Joy Choi
• Swiss Chard - Bright Lights
• Salad turnips and radishes - Hakurai and Rudolf
• Acorn Squash- Sweet Reba
• Potatoes - Purple Viking
• Mustard Greens - Great Wav Miike
• Beets – Touchstone Gold
• Onion – Elsa Craig
• Parsley – Flat Leaf

During CSA pick-up these past weeks, I’ve been witnessing a bit of hesitation in some of our member’s faces upon encounter of the winter squash. Admittedly, it lives on the stranger side of the food world, often looking more like a holiday decoration, or some weird celestial rock, than something you’d want to put in your oven. But it is our great hope that you all will eventually come to love these strange fruits, as we believe they are one of the most important players in bridging the fresh local food gap during the cold Pacific Northwest winters. Their thick skin, study frames and dense flesh allow winter squash to be stored up to several months with very little reduction in quality – indeed some even improve with age! In addition, they’re one of the most nutrient rich food stuffs on your winter plate, ranking super high in fiber, potassium, iron, niacin and, especially in the orange-fleshed varieties, beta carotene. And undoubtedly, once you get to know how to cook a few varieties, you will find their flavors to be invaluable in your winter eating experience.

We recently learned that most winter squash with long-term storage ability benefit from a “curing” process, or a 10-14 day period under 80-85 degree temperature and high humidity, in order to help them finish ripening and heal any wound they might have incurred. So, we recently brought all our squash into our spare bedroom, placed several bowls of water inside for humidity and cranked the heat to max power. After this stage, we will turn off the heat, remove the water and store them at 45-50 degrees for the remainder of the season. We hope this will allow us to keep our several-weeks-worth of squash and pumpkins into the deep winter months for you all’s eating pleasure. Acorn squash are the one type of squash we grew that do not benefit, but in fact quickly deteriorate, when cured. Their relatively thin-skinned fruits are not built for long-term storage and are most tasty when eaten soon after harvest. So, we hope you accept our offering of a second week of acorn– soon we will move on to other delightful varieties!