A Farm Fresh Kosher Supervised Blog

http://jcarrot.org/yid-dish-aviva-allens-spicy-potato-latkes

My new past time (i.e. part of my job) is working on the eruv. I don’t really enjoy it on my own, because it is hard for me. I’m pretty short to work at a good angle, and it’s a schlep to carry a ladder around… plus the stakes and the tools, blah blah… But happily, I had help the other day from two fine young Adamahnik men. And today I had helped from Ross from Maintenance. I’ve had a really good time! And the eruv is in better shape than ever.

See the yellow trail of trees?

I’d been hearing about The Yellow Trail for a few weeks. What I had thought was just a trail in the Freedman woods (like the Red or the Blue or the Caution Tape trails) is actually not just any other trail. Oh, no. No, no. It is thus named for a beautiful row of trees which turn vivid yellow at the same time. It’s pretty remarkable.

I naively thought that this was a brilliant coincidence and that G-d was just bestowing an extra blessing on Freedman. But, it’s not just something random and remarkable. It’s something totally science-y and cool, actually. And can still be a gift from G-d, if you choose to feel that way. 🙂

Thanks to Andrew in the main office, I know that these trees are Big-Toothed Aspens.

They reproduce with suckers that actually create clones of the parent tree. Therefore, that is actually a string of the “same” tree over and over. And that is why they all turn the same vivid yellow at the same time! Pretty frackin’ cool, yeah?

Enjoy some more pics, won’t you?

I had the pleasure to go to NYC this weekend and see Molly and Johanna from this summer. Yay! I also met a few other Adamah alumni, which was fun and exciting. I visited two co-ops — M and J are each living in one, in two different Brooklyn neighborhoods. Met cool people, had a good time, saw new areas I’ve never been to before.

I also got to visit Jill P who is pregnant with twins. Yay! And I got to meet her absolutely adorable little pup, Sunny. Cuuuute! Aw, I miss having a pet so much.

NYC will never be home to me like Boston and Cambridge area, but it is growing on me. It’s always fun and interesting to be there. It’s also pretty overwhelming. It’s a bit too “much” for me — too much of anything and everything.

But this weekend was fun. And now I’m back at Freedman, which I love, even if the kitchen is a hot mess ball of stress lately.

Teva kids week 4 here we come…. grilled cheese and tomato soup Monday lunch for the fourth week in a row….

On another note, this week I am going to start writing for The Jew and the Carrot — Hazon’s blog. I have some exciting first post ideas, but if you have any Jews and food tips that you want to send my way, please feel free!

xoxo

I discovered that if I take the labor-intensive time to insert each picture one by one, that I can center them and make them a reasonable size. When inserting a gallery, you are not allowed to insert in less than 2 columns, therefore making the pictures smaller (and for some reason eliminating the captions). So I just spent the time going through all my old posts and inserting the pictures one at a time. But now at least you can see them clearly. Yay!

Today I went with Biz and Lauren, the farm apprentice and pickling apprentice, respectively, to White Plains today to sell our pickled, canned, and dairy products at Green Day (yes, that’s what it was called). It was a family event at the Temple Israel Center synagogue where ADAMAH has a Tuv Ha’aretz CSA partnership.

I like selling things, especially things that I believe in. And as a bonus, I got to eat some delicious lacto-fermented full-sour pickles, saurkraut, and firekraut; blueberry jam, green schug, pickled jalapenos, chevre, goat feta, and goat gurt. (Don’t ask about my veganism right now, thankyoumuchly.)

If you want to be added to the ADAMAH products email list, let me know, and I can get you added! Or subscribe to the Adamah blog.

Anyway, since I was already in the WP, I stayed around to hang out with H from this summer, whose family lives right near there. We took a trip to the nearby cute town of Rye. They have this awesome new vegan restaurant! It’s take-out style, but they have a few tables. I was really disapointed in the amount of plastic they use. They don’t have ANY eat-in materials. SUPER lame. I got a mix of prepared salad bar items and some carrot-ginger soup. On the way out, I got a smoothie. So in all, I used a plastic salad container, plastic fork and spoon, plastic tupperware set for the soup, plastic cup and bubble top and straw for the smoothie. Boooo….. I need to invest in a reusable fork and spoon set from the Isabella Freedman bookstore right away so I can at least prevent SOME of today’s lunch plastic consumption travesty.

That all being said, lunch was A-MA-ZING. Yum!

Here are some pictures so you get the idea of this place:

our food

Hillz and food

fruits, veggies, olive oil, and delish vegan, raw treats!

p.s. I also got a vegan dark chocolate coconut truffle. Heaven!

p.p.s. The town has an amazing consignment shop with super cute items that aren’t unreasonable! Go, Rye!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butternut_squash#Preparation.2C_precautions.2C_allergic_reactions

it’s much less severe and lasts a short time, but man, these veggies are dangerous!

What started as flurries that we thought would be brief has turned into several hours of wet snowfall. Yuck. I’m kind of not ready for this. We are all so into autumn right now. I just went to a lovely U-Pick with Benjy, and we enjoyed lovely Fall local apples, hot apple cider and cider donuts. I want to go back and go to their maize maze via their hay ride. But now it’s snowing. And that’s winter-y and un-Fall-like. Blah.

I’ll be ready in a month or so… and I’ll be happy if it’s thick sticking snow for playing in. Mir has an extra pair of snow shoes (!) and we are going to have so much fun.

But, jeez, Mother Nature / G-d / Global Warming: please hold off a little while longer. Say, til after Thanksgiving.

Thanks, xoxo

Laura

snow on kale outside our apt

snowfall at the ‘burbs