Carrboro Pickup: Wednesdays 3:30pm – 6:30pm RTI Pickup: Thursdays 4:00pm – 6:00pm Castlemaine Farm CSA Newsletter Week #21 --- September 19-20, 2007

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Crop	Half Share Qty/Price	Full Share Qty/Price
Sweet Pepper	1/2lb/$1.75	1lb/$3.50
Star Italian Hot Pepper	4/$1.00
Winter Squash	$4.50(approx 3#)	$6.00 (approx. 4#)
Sungold Tomato		1pint/$2.75
Mesclun Mix	¼#/$2.00
Bok Choy	1bunch/$2.00
Radishes		1bunch/$2.00
Swiss Chard		1bunch/$3.00
TOTAL	$11.25	$17.25

Recipe of the Week

I’m just gonna be lazy and post a link to a recipe for spaghetti squash that looks good to me. There are a few others on there you might like as well.

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/side/veg/pestospagsqsh.html

What’s Happening on the Farm

I, Brian, am writing this week. Usually Joann writes because she’s the full-timer and knows what’s going on better than I do. I’m at my job at UNC for most of the weekdays and come back with just enough sunlight to take care of our chickens before sundown. I used to get up at 5:15am and do all the chicken chores before work, but it’s not getting light out until around 6:30am now, so there’s no point in not sleeping in. When we turn the clocks back, I’ll probably start tending chickens in the morning again.

These dark mornings are also making it harder to get out of bed. I mentioned that to one of my coworkers and she looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about. And then I was reminded of when we used to live in town and I woke up at 7:00am. I had no idea what month it was half the time.

Well we got an inch of rain on Friday, which helps our fields a bit but does not even put a dent in the statewide drought. Even before we became farmers we always knew there was a drought when you cross over University Lake on Jones Ferry Road in Chapel Hill and there’s a jungle forming on one side where water once was.

But I think some towns are easing water restrictions again, so folks can go back to the important daily chore of watering their sidewalks with their sprinklers. I see a lot of sidewalk watering around the UNC campus too. That stubborn cement never seems to sprout anything.

Our fields, not quite cement yet (although close), are giving us some fall greens finally! – mesclun and bok choy in the half shares and swiss chard in the full. I don’t know about you all but I am tired of the summer – both the heat and the produce. I’m ready for football, greens and the awesome soups Joann makes, of which we’ll probably have some recipes for you in our final few weeks of the year.

A Few Words about Castlemaine Chicken

Since I’m the chicken dude I might as well talk about chickens. To toot our own horn, this chicken is amazing. The taste, the tenderness, the moistness is all consistently incredible. At least ten of our customers have told us that it was literally the best chicken they have ever eaten. It’s definitely the best chicken we have ever eaten.

This is the first year we have raised more than five of these Cornish Rock meatbirds (I think our total for the year is 850), and it’s amazing that the simple act of raising them on pasture with access to green vegetation (assorted grasses, clover, and assorted weeds), humanely, in low-density pens can increase the quality immesely.

Everybody loves chicken breasts, but we are personally all about the thighs. Thighs are the filet mignons of chicken, kind of a cross between dark and white meat. We do bone-in chicken only (whole or parts). For one thing, removing a bone from the chicken compromises some of that great flavor in my opinion. Secondly, we are committed to raising awareness about where food comes from, since our business depends on it. It’s certainly a convenience but for some, a boneless, skinless breast can provide a certain comfort level by removing two reminders that this food comes from a live animal.

If more people could see where supermarket chicken comes from (even Whole Foods) many of them would stop eating it. Certainly that chicken is less expensive for the companies to raise and of course to buy. But the quality is not even close. I don’t think there would be enough land on 3 planet Earths to meet the current demand for chicken by raising them on pasture like we do. But if more people ate less, but high quality, meat it would certainly cut down on the extra fuel it takes to raise livestock (first you use fuel to raise their feed, then you use more to raise the animal). Yes, I raise chicken for part of my living and I think people should eat less meat. You can tell I never went to business school.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention we will have fresh chicken available this week and next, then probably frozen for the rest of the CSA season. So let us know if you need some. Check the homepage for a price list.

What to Look Forward To

The nice cool days should work some wonders for the greens & lettuce situation.

Questions or comments? Contact us:

Brian and Joann Gallagher

castlemainefarm@hotmail.com

336-376-1025

Past Newsletters:

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