Aley Chubeza #274, January 4th-6th 2016

Avital Sabag, a naturopath, teacher, cook and expert in the field of medicinal nutrition, sent me information regarding an important cooking workshop to take place this coming Friday, January 8th in Tel Aviv. It’s called: Without Ritalin – A Practical Cooking Workshop to Remedy ADHD. This is what she has to say about it: “I have five wonderful boys, all diagnosed with ADHD, and all prescribed with Ritalin. After many bitter, failed experiences, I realized that the change must originate from natural sources, and that we must understand the damages and price we pay by exposing our children and ourselves to the low-value nutrition of the average diet.

Once we decided to take our health into our own hands, we had to determine which ingredient in our plate was foe and which was friend, and started reading labels in order to kick the bad guys out of our kitchen.

And lo and behold, my five boys are Ritalin-free and I am so proud of each and every one of them. Every day we attempt to improve ourselves and improve our nutrition, to reduce the damage of sugar, attempt to eat many organic veggies… and to remain sane.”

The rest you’ll learn at the workshop.

You can find more details about Avital and her many activities on her website.

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pea flower rain

An important letter to you all. We value your attention and response.  

OF RAIN, OF EARTHLINESS

Rain has been falling on our little country for a week now. It’s been a wet week, with lots of precipitation (some 70 mm here), mixing up earth and sky, wet and dry, vividly painting the field and your boxes with lots of healthy brown mud. And more rainy days are in the forecast. The name of the Hebrew month is “Tevet,” from the Accadian tebitu meaning “sinking in it”. No further explanation required, right?

The word for rain in Hebrew, geshem, contains so much hope and possibility – the fulfillment, hagshama, of wishes, of desires, of the encounter with the spiritual and blithe and magical as it materializes, gashmi, in rain. When the showers fall and the air turns into something that you can actually feel and touch, that’s when I remember that we should work to make love materialize into a hug, thoughts into words and actions, and potential into growth and creation.

Chubeza, too, is the fulfillment of a dream, ideal, thought – something we dreamt about over a decade ago, and since then every day (sometimes – every hour) we touch it, roll over in it, and get muddy. It is comprised of our will and hope and expectations, but is also entirely materialistic and corporeal and accessible. Scent-able. Taste-able. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed, somewhat like watching a child grow and mature. On one hand, it’s hard to believe time passed so quickly, on the other hand, hard to remember who we were and what life was like before this child-teenage-young adult appeared in our lives.

chubeza sign

So we’re really happy to still be around after 12-something years. So many changes have ensued over the years: from the twenty families who started with us that first week of delivery, we slowly grew to the over 1,000 families who are now in our community. From a field of 2.5 acres, we have grown to nearly 25! From growing in an open field only, we have learned to raise crops in a nethouse as well. This season we are making our first steps towards growing vegetables in plastic tunnels, where we hope to raise cucumbers and tomatoes during wintertime as well so as to reduce the amount we purchase from other hothouse farmers. Once Chubeza sold only vegetables, and today we are joined by a dozen cottage industries who offer their unique and quality products. Over the years with all the changes and developments we have undergone in Chubeza, we have always attempted to maintain a fair price, making sure every investment we make in upgrading the packing house or purchasing a tractor and working tools is carefully calculated.

Over the years we have adjusted our customer rates to the changes in cost of living, and income and expenses of the farm, always attempting to do so carefully, gradually and most important – rarely. We haven’t raised our prices in four years, but over the past months, as we delved into the “material” aspects of Chubeza, we arrived at the conclusion that we will have to raise the prices of your boxes. In order to place as little burden upon you and to maintain Chubeza’s accessibility for as many people as possible, we have decided to raise the prices of boxes by 5 NIS only. Henceforth:

A small box will cost 90 NIS; a large box will cost 115 NIS. Delivery prices remain unchanged (20 NIS for home delivery, 10 for collection point.)

Fruits prices will be: small box: 60, large box: 90, family box: 140

It is important for us to continue working as we have always – employing permanent workers and allowing them stability, paying fair salaries to all our workers (be they Israelis, Palestinians or Thai), and making sure they receive full social conditions. We make it our business to fill your boxes with produce that grows in our field and is harvested fresh for you rather than purchasing a wide range of vegetables, while at the same time experimenting with new vegetables and vegetable types, and cooperating with more and more local producers in the community built with Chubeza at its source. Above all, we find it crucial to remain in an open and honest dialogue with you.

We came to this conclusion after much consideration and with the number one aim not to hurt you and your pockets… We will be very happy to hear your response, and hope you will feel free to express your opinion, which matters greatly to us. Write to us at [email protected], or call us at 054-6535980.

We wish you all a warm, wet, blessed and wonderful winter,

Alon, Bat Ami and the Chubeza team

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WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S BOXES?

Monday: Broccoli, coriander/parsley/dill, tomatoes, mustard greens/lettuce, kale/spinach/ Swiss chard, cucumbers, sweet red peppers/yellow peppers, carrots/potatoes, cauliflower, kohlrabi/ beets. Small boxes only: fennel.

Large box, in addition: Red cabbage/white cabbage, leeks/onions, celery stalk/celeriac, baby greens (mesclun mix)

Wednesday: Red or yellow peppers, cucumbers, coriander/parsley/dill, tomatoes, kale/spinach/ Swiss chard, broccoli, baby greens (mesclun mix), fennel/kohlrabi, beets/carrots, cauliflower, small boxes only: onions/leeks.

Large box, in addition: mustard greens/lettuce, radishes, celeriac/cabbage

And there’s more! You can add to your basket a wide, delectable range of additional products from fine small producers: flour, fruits, honey, dates, almonds, garbanzo beans, crackers, probiotic foods, dried fruits and leathers, olive oil, bakery products and goat dairy too! You can learn more about each producer on the Chubeza website. On our order system there’s a detailed listing of the products and their cost, you can make an order online now!

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