Despite it all, renewal is in the air…
Last week, we received our first bottles of freshly-squeezed organic pomegranate juice from “Gilboa Pomegranates,” grown by the Zucker family of Kibbutz Merav in the Gilboa. In season, their wonderful pomegranates come to you in your Chubeza boxes, while others are squeezed into fine-quality pomegranate juice. Some 20 years ago, the Zuckers planted a pomegranate grove in the Gilboa, and the rest is history. For them, growing pomegranates is both a mission and a privilege. As Yiftah Zucker shares, “It’s great to sell produce that you worked hard to grow, but it’s much greater to sell something that is real and important.”
This freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice, kept frozen at Chubeza, will probably already be halfway thawed by the time it reaches you. Keep it in the fridge. It stays fresh for about a week (but will be devoured long beforehand…).
Price per one-liter bottle of Gilboa Organic Pomegranate Juice: NIS 55.
And…yet another fruit that is a harbinger of the new season: the first dates from this year’s harvest have reached Chubeza!
Delectable Medjoul Dates from the Meshek Elazar Farm – Delicious dates from the Meshek Elazar Farm are distinctively unique in their taste and juiciness, because these dates are picked around one week before they are fully dried, when the fruit is still soft and sweet at a texture somewhere between fresh and dried fruit. Highly recommended, along with a warning of addiction to their delicious taste…
Add these spectacular dates, pomegranate juice, and other excellent products from distinctive local producers to your Chubeza box today via our order system.
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Transitions from Summer to Autumn
The last few weeks have brought some of you to ponder creative answers to The Question: What else can I do with an eggplant?! (beyond the usual paperweight, bowling ball, guard to stop books from falling off the shelf, etc., etc.). Indeed, your transition-season Chubeza boxes are less varied from week to week, with the same vegetables repeating themselves: onions, potatoes, pumpkin, eggplant. Most of these veggies have been with us for many weeks, and there is less variation from week to week. Even the corn, which gladdens our hearts and delights many of you as it arrives each week, has been missing from the boxes for the past week or two. We are now taking a corn break for the next two months or so, because these are the peak, heyday months for the destructive European corn borer larvae to strike. We’ve learned to not even try to compete with them… Transition season is indeed challenging, and I can feel that some of you are a little disappointed or bored with these boxes, finding them quite empty, or with decreased quantities, or just less exciting. But Chubeza is not alone. Those of you who frequent health food stores know that their shelves are lackluster as well. The entire seasonal organic market is looking forward to autumn…
What is now transpiring in our field is quite like what is happening with us: Remember how, when summer first began, we joyfully greeted the warmth, the lengthened days, and the intense sunrays? And by now – you know the feeling – the heat fatigue? Humidity fatigue? Summer fatigue? This is pretty much how the Chubeza field feels as well. At the beginning of the season, the crops were quite enthusiastic about the pleasantness of spring and summer, and the speed with which they could grow under the stimulating conditions of light and heat. Pests and seasonal diseases were still waiting in the wings, and the plants burst into growth dances, bounding with energy and vitality. Over time and as the mercury climbed, various pests and diseases arrived with vigor, and various veggies dropped out of the game: the zucchini, green beans, and many of the fresh greens. Other veggies have coped, but like us, without the same initial vigor and beauty. Some of the plants fell victim to various viruses, while the greens that nevertheless survived the summer are now struggling to take small breaths under the heat, and the bushes in general have already taken on an older, different look. More and more beds have been emptied of their crops over the summer, as empty plots wait to be filled once again.
The elders of the tribe
This fatigue is also reflected in Chubeza’s boxes: Part of the box is based on vegetables that were plucked from the ground over the summer and are patiently waiting in our warehouse: onions, pumpkins, butternut squash. The fresh vegetables from the field have been reduced to those that survived the end of summer: beans and okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet red peppers, eggplants, herbs, and lettuce varieties. And yet, there are also some new end-of-summer friends: the popcorn you’ve met over the past two weeks (it’s already finished…) and the sweet potatoes that are now emerging from the ground, appearing in three colors this year: orange, purple and white!
But there’s something else happening in the field: After weeks of empty beds and matured plants, the sowing and new plantings have begun over the past few weeks, filling the field with sprouts and young seedlings that line the beds in green rows and bring an abundance of renewed autumn joy. It will take some time until these veggies arrive in your boxes, but the hope that fills the newly-green field is once again joyful and exciting, heralding change and abundance.
The babies
These seasonal changes are part and parcel of community-based agriculture. Veteran Chubeza customers know this volatility well. New customers are surprised and maybe even sometimes disappointed, but we do try to explain, and also to understand. Sometimes it may seem that we are just another vegetable home-delivery service, but during these seasons we discover the difference – and, in my eyes, also the strength – of the community’s support for the field and for small farming. We do not offer an economical, profitable “deal” for buying organic vegetables. We offer you to take part, to accompany us and the field throughout the year. There are times when this means a box overflowing with the abundance of the field; there are seasons when the box is more monotonous, until change and renewal arrive. That’s how it is in the field, that’s how it is in life, and with us that’s how it is on the plate as well.
We thank you all once again for accompanying and supporting us and Chubeza’s field now and over the years. We happily invite you to visit us on Sukkot and meet our young greens – the next generation.
May we enjoy quiet and happy end-of-the-summer days, as we fervently hope for good tidings!
Alon, Bat-Ami, and the entire Chubeza team
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WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S YET-UNCHANGED BOXES?
Monday: New Zealand spinach/Malabar Indian spinach, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, lettuce, okra/long Thai lubia/cherry tomatoes, leeks/Swiss chard/kale/purslane, sweet bell peppers (long or short)/green chili peppers, potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes.
Large box, in addition: Onions, basil/nana/coriander, carrots.
FRUIT BOXES: Pears/avocados, red or yellow apples, kobo/ pomegranates, mango. Large box: Larger quantities of all the above, plus plums.
Wednesday: New Zealand spinach/Malabar Indian spinach/Swiss chard/kale, slice of pumpkin/butternut squash, lettuce, long Thai lubia, leeks/onions, sweet bell peppers (long or short)/green chili peppers, potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes (orange/purple/white).
Large box, in addition: Basil/purslane, nana/coriander/parsley, carrots.
FRUIT BOXES: Pears/banana, red or yellow apples, kobo/plums, mango. Large box: Larger quantities of all the above, plus pomegranates.