News from Terra Firma Farm

Boxes are charged on Monday for the week's deliveries at:

$14 Small
$24 Medium
$32 Large

For a payment of $300, get a 3% bonus. Your account balance will be $309.

For a payment of$850, get a 5% bonus. Your account will be posted as $892.00

For a payment of $1,400, get a 7% bonus. Your payment will be posted as $1,498.

Vacations are charged weekly when notice is given as a fee, no charges occur during the vacation week.

$4 Small
$8 Medium
$11 Large

Bulk Mandarins

We have 5 lb. boxes of Satsumas available for purchase and delivery to your drop site. You can buy them a week at a time, or subscribe to get a box (or more) every week through the season. Go to your account and then the Web Store to buy.

Our mandarin season will last through January this year.

Pledge of Authenticity

Terra Firma is a real farm. We grow 99% of the produce that goes into our boxes on our 220 acres of certified organic land in Winters. If we do buy produce from other farms, it's almost always from a neighboring farm and we give them full credit in the box list.
The owners of Terra Firma are involved in every aspect of making your boxes a reality: walking the fields, planting the crops, selecting and checking what goes in the boxes and finally delivering them to you. We eat the crops from our fields every day, just like you do. Thanks for supporting our efforts and enjoying the food we grow.
Paul, Pablito, & Hector

Payments, Billing, and Changes

Schedule vacations, change box sizes, make payments or sign up for autopay by logging in to your subscriber account at terrafirmafarm.com

News From Terra Firma Farm

Community Supported Agriculture

Greetings!

Welcome to 2013! A few months back, Michael Pollan wrote a piece in the New York Times discussing whether there was a real movement to improve food in the U.S., or if it was just a trend or fad. This week, I am sad to announce that the answer is now clear: the status quo in agriculture and food policy has not changed one bit.

Two things happened this week. First, as part of the "fiscal cliff" compromise reached by Congress and the President, the federal Farm Bill was hastily extended for another five years -- ostensibly to prevent milk prices from rising dramatically.

The Farm Bill is an absurdly complicated piece of legislation that sets the rules for everything from commodity subsidies to food stamps as well as conservation programs for farmland. There is widespread acknowledgement that many of its programs are outdated and should be re-examined and updated for the 21st century. Instead, the existing bill was simply re-authorized -- no doubt a favor to legislators from the midwestern commodity belt in exchange for yes votes on the fiscal cliff package.

Except for a few small things. Organic agriculture receives a tiny fraction of farm bill funding, for research and assistance with the costs of organic certification. Guess what programs were somehow omitted from the renewed Farm Bill. Yep. Over the holidays, while no one was paying attention, Congress and President Obama threw organic agriculture under the bus.

Meanwhile, over at the Food and Drug Adminstration, they were working on the rules for implementing the "Food Safety Modernization Act" recently passed by Congress. When the rules were released this week -- all 500 pages of them -- the agency also noted what the cost would be to medium-sized growers like Terra Firma: $13,000 annually, and predicted that many farmers would not be able to afford the cost of compliance.

To connect the dots very clearly here: big commodity farmers who grow corn and soybeans will continue to receive subsidies, while small farms that grow fresh organic produce are having higher costs pushed on them while the only support they have ever gotten from the government is eliminated. Public health is ostensibly the government's goal, so why are we encouraging farmers to grow crops that make people unhealthy and discouraging them from growing ones that make people healthier? Why is the FDA more worried about the 3,000 people who die annually from food poisoning then they are about the hundreds of thousands that are killed by diet-related diseases?

I often hear people say that fruits and vegetables are so expensive, especially organic ones. Food safety laws that push higher costs onto farmers will end up raising the cost of fresh produce even more. Here's a question for your elected officials: Why are our tax dollars still being used to subsidize junk food instead of helping to make healthy and safe fresh produce more affordable?

Thanks,

Pablito

In Your Boxes

Ah, the New Year. We hope you are starting 2013 with an empty produce drawer in your fridge, because we've got quite a bit of produce that's ready to harvest. Meanwhile, the weather forecast is looking a little bleak, with record cold temperatures forecast for the weekend. Many of the crops out in the field may not survive so we're sending them to you. Among others:

We haven't put much Fennel in your boxes this year. Fennel is sensitive to long periods of very cold weather. It is a wonderful vegetable to add to salads, sweet and crisp with just a hint of anise flavor. I toss it with a little lemon juice and salt first. If you don't like the anise flavor, try roasting the fennel (slicing thickly) or cooking it soups (saute it first with leeks or onions until browned). Cooked like this, the liquorice taste disappears completely but the sweetness stays. Before slicing up fennel, cut the stalks off. You can make a nice stock with them, or just feed them to your compost pile -- they will make it smell better.

Beets are a winter crop for us, but the leaves do suffer damage if it gets too cold. I am still shocked at how many people don't eat their beet greens, which are tasty and nutritious. In the near future, the beets in your boxes will probably not have leaves on them, so enjoy the greens on the bunch in your boxes today.

Bok Choy also has a limited tolerance to freezing. With all the cold weather coming, you'll want to be eating lots of soup. I suggest miso or hot and sour, with some sauteed leeks, diced tofu, and chopped bok choy.

If the weather forecast is accurate and we really do experience temperatures in the low 20s this weekend, we will be doing an evaluation of our fields next week and I will give everyone an update in next week's newsletter. In the meantime, we can take solace in the fact that weather predictions are wrong more often than not.

Recipe: Gingered Carrots with Cumin
You can use the same treatment to cook beets. Cook some of each, separately, then combine when they are done to avoid dying your carrots red.

Cut 1 bunch of carrots into long, thin sticks.

In a bowl, mix 5 T. olive oil, 2 T. minced fresh ginger, 3 sliced cloves of garlic, 1 1/2 t. cumin powder, 1 t. honey, a dash of hot pepper flakes (optional) and 1/2 t. sea salt. Toss the carrots with the sauce.

Bake the carrots in a single layer in a pan or baking dish at 375, 30-40 minutes depending on whether you like them a little crisp or completely soft.

Drizzle with lemon juice to deglaze the pan.

Recipe: Miso-Braised Baby Bok Choy

In a saucepan, stir 1 T. red miso into 1 C. of water. When it has dissolved, add 1 T. sesame oil plus soy sauce to taste. Simmer but do not boil.

Trim 2-3 baby bok choys. Remove the 4 largest outer stems from each, wash the bases and slice them in half lengthwise. Cut the remaining head in quarters lengthwise (Or if there is dirt inside, separate all the stems to wash them but then leave them whole).

Arrange the bok choy in a single layer in a skillet and pour the miso over them. Braise five minutes or until tender. Remove from the broth.

Thicken the broth with 1/2 T. corn starch mixed in 2 T. water. Season with pepper and more soy sauce. Pour the thickened sauce over the bok choy and serve.

Recipe: Potato-Fennel Gratin
Here fennel takes the place of leeks or onions, with a subtly different flavor.

Trim the stems off 1 or 2 heads of fennel. Use in stock or discard.

Carefully trim the base of the fennel and then cut around the round piece at the bottom to loosen the outermost layer of the bulb. Repeat with the bulb. Wash all the layers, then thinly slice them crosswise. Toss the fennel with the juice of half a lemon and 1 T. olive oil, then arrange on the bottom of a 2 quart baking dish (not glass) or cast iron skillet.

Thinly slice 2 lbs. of potatoes into rounds. Melt 3 T. butter and toss with the potatoes and 3/4 t. salt plus pepper.

Layer the potatoes atop the fennel. Cover the dish with foil.

Bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 20-30 minutes, until tender.

Grate gruyere cheese to make 1 C. Remove the foil from the pan and sprinkle the cheese over the gratin. Place the dish 4-5 inches below the broiler and broil until the top of the gratin is golden and bubbly, about
4 minutes.