Brookfield Farm
24 Hulst Road
Amherst, MA 01002
So, I thought I'd start out with a post on
Brookfield Farm and its
CSA program. If there is such a thing as a gateway drug to local agriculture, BF was certainly mine. Oh, it all started innocently enough: in the summer of 1995, my sister saw an advertisement somewhere while we were students at UMass Amherst, for a share of vegetables for the coming season. Would I sign up with her? Sure, I like vegetables. And when we figured out the weekly cost, it was a good deal for two broke college students. And organic, to boot!
And so the adventure began. I would pick up a stuffed brown grocery bag full of the week's harvest from behind the local breakfast joint. Pedalling home with the bag balanced precariously on my handlebars, I was excited to get back and see what it contained. When I arrived home the first day, we were relieved to find that, nestled in among the greens still damp from the fields and other earthy-smelling spring vegetables, lay a newsletter. Besides containing Farmer Dan's recount of the past week's activity on the farm (sprinkled with personal musings, of course), there was a list of what was in the bag. Sometimes we had to rely on process of elimination to match up the vegetable with its name. Sure, I've eaten different kinds of vegetables before, but what the heck are kohlrabi and garlic scapes? And what exactly do you DO with them?
My sister is not the biggest fan of cooking: her motivations for asking me to go in on the share with her were less than pure, since I love to cook and she loves to be cooked for. Luckily, she's not too picky. (Well, as long as the dish doesn't violate one of her bizarre food rules, but that's another post.) Not knowing how to prepare a lot of the vegetables we received, the default preparation was: steam everything separately and then bake it in a casserole with tomato sauce and cheese. It may sound boring, but with all the crazy vegetables and herbs we received, each casserole was an adventure. I had my first encounters with broccoli rabe, tatsoi, garlic scapes, big beautiful beets with their bright greens still attached (my favorite), kohlrabi, Swiss chard, and mustard greens, to name just a few.
I was hooked.
In following years, driving a lovable 1966 Volvo Amazon, whose passing I still lament, I was able to visit the farm and take advantage of the pick-your-own crops that never made it in the grocery bag. Raspberries, strawberries, sweet sugarsnap and snow peas. Tomatillos, edamame, cherry tomatoes, long purple beans. Herbs and more herbs. Flower bouquets. I could go on for a while longer, but you get the point. Since that first year, I continued to be a shareholder. Here and there I took a year off (like when I moved to Mount Desert Island, ME for six months) but most years I signed up. Finally, this year I decided to end my subscription. Now that I have a yard of my own, I have decided to try gardening in it, supplementing my small garden plot with produce from local farmer's markets. It makes me sad to see the end of an era, but the last several years, I had been picking up my share delivered at a drop-off spot near Boston. As the years passed, I made fewer and fewer trips out the the farm on weekends, so it just wasn't the same for me. I have a special relationship with Brookfield Farm, but my one-yeard-old daughter does not and I want her to know the joys of local food. Gardening in my backyard is the most local food of all.
I do want to thank Farmer Dan (Dan Kaplan), his family, and all the wonderful farmers who worked hard over the years, supplying me with delicious food while taking care of the earth on which it was grown.
Thank you. Really sincerely, thank you. Because of you, I became an obsessed vegetable lover. And then, slowly, I became an obsessed everything-local-you-can-grow-bake-raise-catch-or-culture lover. And then I decided to start this blog. Not that anyone but my family and friends will read this, but at least I can write it down and they can decide to listen or not. However, my sister who had the farm share with me will still continue to get emails ranting about random food items. Sorry, but you know I can't help it.
Back to the whole CSA thing... If anyone is ever considering joining one, but isn't sure if it's worth it, consider this: besides the fact that you are supporting local farmers, keeping land in use as a farm (as opposed to another condo complex or strip mall), and eating the best produce you will EVER taste--you are opening yourself up to a whole new way of looking at food, land, and the people who take care of that land by growing food on it.
Some of my happiest, most peaceful moments were spent at Brookfield Farm on quiet afternoons in the sun, barefoot beneath the vast blue sky. Maybe nodding to another shareholder or two, hearing little kids running and giggling at the far end of a long row, smelling the earth and popping the most perfect of perfect cherry tomatoes into my mouth.
The store sells day-old eggs from the farm, random grocery staples, a selection of local meat and produce, and milk/ice cream from Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA (we get their milk from Cataldo's, too). I've been meaning to make it out to Shaw Farm all summer for ice cream, but haven't gotten there yet. There's not much time left of ice cream season, so I'd better hurry up if I don't want to wait until next year!
