Now that we are approaching the middle of the season we're curious about your experience as CSA members so far.  There's always room for improvement and it's important to know whats working and what could use tweaking.  We have a hunch that most of you would have liked to see more broccoli and bananas in the shares so far.  Those two local favorites have been hard to secure for some reason; we're constantly trying to include them, but it hasn't worked out yet.  Other than that, we want to know if we're missing the mark when it comes to weekly selection and quality.  We want to know if the blog posts are useful, if the email reminders are helpful or annoying, etc.  We've created an anonymous single question survey so you can send feedback freely, click here to access it.   You are the only ones who can help us, you are the only ones experiencing our CSA first hand, please check it out and send something, even if it's just a few words.  Thanks!

Now, on to farming and veggies and recipes.  Pictured above is a wonderful vegetable known as Gailan, it's basically a Chinese broccoli; instead of eating just the flower cluster, Gailan has edible leaves, flowers and stalk.  Every part of the vegetable in this picture is edible and delicious.  The whole plant can be sauteed as a simple side dish (try a peanut oil, sesame oil or coconut oil for a change of scenery and to bring out the Asian flavors of Gailan). 

This week you're getting one of the best crops in South Florida, French Farms baby lettuce mix!  Most baby lettuce mixes from the store have a sadly short shelf life, but Chris' lettuce is so fresh it will last more than a week (not that you wont eat it right away anyway...).  It seems silly to be exited about such a simple and basic vegetable, but when the quality is this good it's easy to look forward to a salad.  There are a few other items in the share this week that will work really well in a salad.  Cherry tomatoes, escarole, shaved fennel and a root medley.

This is what a root medley looks like!  This week everyone will get a mix of carrots, hakurei salad turnips, beets and various radishes.  They can all be roasted together (with a bit of fennel and acorn squash which are also coming in the share), pickled together or shaved for a salad together.  It'll make for a rainbow dish both in flavor and color.

The last item we'd like to highlight are SUNGOLD TOMATOES.  If you've ever had to chance to taste test tomatoes, you'll know that these little cherries are by far the sweetest tomato that ever was.  We've been including tomatoes in the shares a lot because it's been a great season for tomatoes (unlike last year).  We have to take advantage of flavorful local tomatoes when we can.  This week we're giving everyone a whole pound of Verde Farm sungolds; a treat that might not make it back home from CSA pick up. 

Here's a list of the whole CSA share this week:

Small Shares:
Root medley from French Farm
Salanova lettuce mix from French Farm
Gailan from French Farm
Sungold tomatoes from Verde Farm
Fennel from our fields
Yellow and red sweet peppers from Verde Farm
Acorn squash from Worden Farm

Large Shares:
Root medley from French Farm
Salanova lettuce mix from French Farm
Gailan from French Farm
Sungold tomatoes from Verde Farm
Fennel from our fields
Yellow and red sweet peppers from Verde Farm
Acorn squash from Worden Farm
Cooking greens from French Farm
Escarole from our fields
Extra fennel