Well, Pesach is here, a holiday that is not generally considered a culinary event. Most people think of it as a holiday of lotsa-matzah and meat, and depending on your tradition, rice or potatoes. But if we take a look at the Seder symbols and the little appetizer ceremonies that precede the great meal, one may notice that lots of vegetables and some fruit take an honored role in the celebration. This week’s Newsletter turns the spotlight onto them.
Mid-to-late winter is the season when the fresh fava bean cheerful leaps into Chubeza, joining its sweet cousin, the pea. In the meantime, it appears that the fearless fava has managed to make it though the climate-craze relatively unscathed. If you still can’t recognize the fabulous fava, let us casually mention his pedigree – a venerable legume family member – and describe his chubby elongated green pods, complete with a soft, cottony inner lining.
In Bialik’s garden bed (a famous Hebrew children song), the poor, solitary fava broods over his empty pods. I’m guessing this party did not take place in late winter with spring around the corner, because there is no way on earth that our fava is not out boogying and partying with the garden-bed guys. As the weather warms up, his pods are filling up and generously filling our harvest buckets and your boxes. Go party!
Strong rain actually found its way back to Israel this week. As it pounded the earth, I was again reminded of the legendary princess who once upon a time was wandering lost in stormy weather, freezing and exhausted. Suddenly she saw a warm light glowing through the mist from a friendly, inviting castle. As she reached this destination, the princess, who was only seeking a dry bed upon which to lay her exhausted body, could not have guessed that this night would transform her into one of the most famous presenters of an incredible lentil: the tiny pea placed under a high pile of soft mattresses.
Peas have been frequenting your boxes for some time now. They won’t stay for long, so this Newsletter is proudly devoted to a Chubeza closeup on the prestigious pea
WHEN IN DOUBT, MAKE FUNNY FACES…
In these less-than-simple days here in our country, Chubeza is happy to send you some reasons to smile. This week, it’s time for a newsletter-in-pictures, starring Vegetables Making Funny Faces.
And, despite it all, we wish everyone a fun, joyous Purim!
Next week we celebrate Purim, a holiday whose very essence is confusion, turnabouts, chaos, balagan….
The saying goes, “Not every day is Purim,” but in a sense for us here in Chubeza’s fields, every day of this last winter has indeed been Purim. The weather has swung from hot and dry days to freezing and raging storms, the mercury has careened from almost zero to almost 30 degrees, and the rain gauge has overflowed its banks with nonstop rain or dried up in zero humidity.
This period is very, very strange, and the unexpected reigns. We and the veggies find ourselves in an ongoing struggle to adapt to this V’nahafochu muddle.
Last week’s fabulous rain showers left us with a satiated and very muddy field. The plantings we scheduled two weeks ago for Thursday were put off to last Thursday and then delayed once again to this week. After the long bout of rain we’ve experienced, the last thing we want to do now is deal with the soil. At this point, it needs to rest a little, soak up the experience, try to make sense of this past week and dry up a little. We attempt to respect the field by doing the basic minimum: of course, we pick vegetables for your boxes, but in the open field we don’t weed, plant or seed, and obviously do not cultivate the soil. The fact that we have growth houses which are far less wet and muddy allows us to proceed with other segments of the routine.
Oh how we’ve waited for the rain! The drip-drop rain wetting the soil, satiating, refreshing and reviving it. According to the calendar, we are way into winter by now, but until this week the sun was shining away, the birds chirped happily and by afternoon we were wearing t-shirts in the field. It’s been a month since the last generous showers graced us with their presence, and although the sunny blue skies are pretty and impressive, they’re simply out of season.
As mentioned, it is indeed winter, thus this week we finally say goodbye to several crops that have been with us from autumn – the Jerusalem artichoke, sweet potato, and pepper – an extraordinary achievement for the latter, who actually likes the heat and usually stops yielding (and turning red) by fall. Though we will buy sweet potatoes and peppers on occasion to supplement your boxes, we’ll have to wait till next year for our own crops.
What meets the eye as we stroll by the carrot bed is only its bad-hair-day and the edge of its scalp. But when we tug it out of the soil – voila! Orange joy retrieved from the dark underworld…
Winter is its season. The carrot does not appreciate warm weather, but adores the cold. It can even grow under a blanket of snow. Now that the weather has cooled off at last, the carrot has finally become a frequent guest in our field and your boxes. We seed several carrot beds every few weeks, and after several months pull out bed after bed of juicy orange corkscrew roots, week after week.
Growing sweet potatoes is a lesson in faith, imagination and hope. Though the amazing sweet potato has been with us since fall, our journey together actually began some seven months ago. Since then, we’ve carefully followed the various stages of her growth – sometimes through the camera’s lens. So this week, here’s a glossy look at our glamorous redhead veggie – the sweet potato (aka yam)!
The luscious, soothing taste of sweet potatoes is an especially great blessing in cold autumn evenings when your sweet tooth craves attention. You can eat sweet potatoes without one iota of guilt, as they are bursting with benefits to your health. The orange color assures high levels of beta carotene, which becomes vitamin A when consumed, a multi-armed warrior for battling various cancers, essential for good eyesight, strengthening your immune system, keeping your skin healthy and contributing to proper growth.