November 2

Looks like it's a tie! Tomato and Onion are in a dead heat!

This is it. My last produce delivery in Germany. In two weeks I'll no longer be living in this apartment and in three I'll no longer be in the country.

I was very happy to discover no greens, as I'm still working on cabbage rolls, a red cabbage and apple concoction, and lots of salad. What, though, do I do with four lemons?!?

October 26

No veges last week because I was in England. This week they came so early! The one on October 12th actually arrived after 9:00pm. But today's was there by 5:00pm. Maybe they have all the households on some sort of shifting rotation schedule. Rotate the crops. Rotate the consumers... (I'm getting dizzy.)

October 12

Attack of the greens! Today I received fieldgreens, red chard, and BOTH red and green cabbage. Maybe I should say "attack of the reds and greens."

I admit, I had been warned. This produce had been fiercely attacking my parents, as my mom reported to me this weekend. I had casually shrugged. "No, I've been getting nice mixtures." Well, my lack of preparation allowed the chard to create a diversionary tactic and the cabbages climbed in over the walls. What can I say?

It's been a good growing season here. Wet and cool all summer. No scorchers. And enough time between rain for the ground to sometimes dry out. I went to a local country fair this weekend, the Apfelmarkt in Bad Feilnbach. In addition to the heaps of apples for which the fest is named, there were piles -- and I mean large piles, taller than the kids who were trolleying the produce out to cars -- of cabbage and carrots and potatoes.

I guess my farm doesn't do potatoes, since I haven't gotten any. But I have plenty of carrots. I seem to get quite a helping every week. The carrots are piling up. I suppose if I were a rabbit, like those being sold for rabbit stew at the fair, I would be very happy with my greens and my carrots. But since I'm not, I'm not quite sure what to do. Carrot soup, carrot cake, carrot sticks... You know, you get tired of carrots after a while. And greens.

Oh, and my mom is brilliant. With only the vague description I gave last week, she pinpointed the pair of "white-green long, pointed things" as endive. Maybe they were the scouts for the green (and red) army which attacked today...

October 7

What, no apples? Apparently not this week. But, yum, peppers. I got a couple of some type of vegetable or green that I can't name. They look like they might be the white-green hearts of something, but I'm not quite sure what. I haven't eaten them yet. Maybe that will help...

September 28

Hmm... what's this? I thought pulling the strange vegetable from the crate. Looks like a big bulbous root thing with all these green leafy stalks thickly rising out of it. It reminded me first of cilantro because of the shape of the leaves, but as I drew it up out of the crate, I caught its odor: celery. Definitely celery. Hmm. Smells like celery. Looks like a root. Let's google it: celery root. Oh, right, that's actually the name of a vegetable, the one I have, in fact. Now what do I do with it? I turn to Crazy Woman for help, and she has all sorts of good idea. But what about the stalks? They are so green and in good shape... I try google again, but there is apparently only one web site in the entire world containing the phrase "celery root greens". And it just says that it's okay to put them in a soup stock. Sad.

But I'm excited again as I spot the bright orange flesh of an orange pepper. And there's not one of these lovelies, but two! I can tell it's harvest season by the little green peppers, picked unripe before the first frost hits (which will be soon, given the temperature now). And another boatload of apples. I haven't yet made an apple cake with last week's apples, due to not having eggs on Sunday. (It's a blessing and a curse: can't do errands on Sundays because stores are closed. Also, can't do errands on Sundays because stores are closed.) But we're having a potluck at work on Friday, so perhaps two apple cakes...

And I know it's harvest season because I harvested all my basil. And maybe a little too late. I probably should have done so a couple weeks ago, but I didn't know then that the temperature would suddenly fall from summer to winter and bypass autumn completely. So I didn't have quite as much basil as I might have had otherwise, but I still had enough to make quite a boatload of pesto. Mmm, pesto...

September 21

Tomato, apple, tomato, tomato apple, tomato, apple, tomato, tomato, tomato. Oh, and a bag of these little fruits. I can't figure out what they are. They kinda look like oversized green grapes, round and that pale-green color. The best match I could find online was a gooseberry. But apparently gooseberries have tiny seeds and these things have big flat pits. Anyway, they taste good!

Lots of wind today bent my basil plants all this way and that. I assume they'll be okay; nature is good like that. But I think I'm going to do them in this weekend anyway and make pesto. They're starting to look a bit old and ragged and it's getting colder here. May even frost soon...

September 14

Mmm... Corn on the cob. Yum! Nice assortment this week, surprisingly without any tomatoes...

September 7

What lovely weather we've been having. And that, apparently, means tomatoes. I just managed to finish off the bunch from last week, and I get some more...

August 31

After the veges arrived today, I was flipping through Crazy Woman, and I found this recipe that was intriguing and required some of the ingredients I happened to have conveniently laying about. I just had to try it...

 But first, the produce:

The recipe was really quite simple: cut up a squash and some leek into bits, add some minced garlic, salt, pepper, and a small amount of olive oil. Mix it all together. Then fold a piece of parchment paper in half, butter up (really well) the bottom, and throw the vege mixture onto this bottom half with a few leaves of fresh sage. (I was so happy to get to use my sage!) Fold down the top half of the paper and then roll it up all the way around the food to make a half-circle. Twist it together real tight. Stick it in a pre-heated oven at 218 degrees celcius (okay, fine: 425 farenheit) for 25 minutes. Careful of the steam when you open the package!

I put mine over rice. You could also have a potato side or eat it on bread for an open-faced sandwich. This would be a fabulous side-dish for you meat-lovers.

August 24

The computer has recovered from a near-death experience, and so we can continue... Ben's back in the States now, so I called up the Farm and requested that they send me now a Single-Kombikiste instead of a two-person one. I think I left a completely muddled request on the answering machine (I was hoping for a person, and I haven't yet mastered monologues in German), but today I got what seemed to be a reduced amount of produce, so the message seems to have been understood. No leafy green stuff (lettuce, cabbage, spinach) this week for the first time... ever.

And last week we got fresh corn on the cob and blueberries...

August 10

So then today I get home at 5:30 and there's a full crate of veges just waiting at the door. Can't figure out the wherefore of when these things are delivered... The fruit and veges are pretty normal in type, but we got a real funky leek. Check it out:

August 4

Wahoo! We've got summer! While we were off for a (rainy) vacation, summer quietly crept into Bavaria and apparently hasn't yet noticed that we're back. I knew the weather had been lovely while we were gone before our neighbors even confirmed it: my balcony herbs were very very happy. I had repotted most of them just before the trip and the combination of new root growth room and sunlight (along with the fact that Ingrid probably waters my plants much more regularly than I do -- maybe I should have her water them while I'm here as well as when I'm away...) combined to form plant heaven. The oregano bushed up and is overflowing the pot. I took a huge handful of it yesterday for a dish Ben cooked and it didn't even make a dent in the foliage. The basil plants all shot up and have leaves as big as my hands. The sage and thyme (which I didn't replant) look greener and healthier. And the new cilantros have broken the soil surface and are beginning their climb up. The parsley, which has been the favored home of the whitefly population still couldn't get rid of its pests and looked not so good; I tossed it. No sense in feeding the bugs.

Yesterday was vegetable delivery day. We had planned a dual dinner: Ben would make a rice-heavy dish and I'd make a dish of vegetables from the delivery. And so we waited. And waited. Finally we gave up and just ate Ben's part, since we hadn't bought any vegetables at the store. "Looks like they forgot about us," Ben said at 8:00 when we ate. But lo, at 9:00, when I took one last peek, there were vegetables in our crate. Too late for cooking and dinner, but I just about forgave the tardiness when I discovered what we got. "Man, this is heavy," I thought as I brought the crate up from the front door, and I soon discovered why: at the bottom was a huge bagful of fresh plums -- at least 40 of them. We've been feasting on them over the past day and still have about half left. They are so good! In gesamt:

And two weeks ago, before our other (other) vacation:

July 15

Yeah, I don't know what kind of summer this is that consists of four months of April weather. My little herbs are growing slowly -- partly because they see no sun, and partly because they were pot-bound. That latter one would be my fault. Okay, so I repotted all the basil into BIG pots, so with luck I'll have lots of basil in a month or two. The oregano and parsley got bigger homes too and I pruned the oregano back so that it will grow some nice green leaves instead of these spotted half-green leaves that it insists on keeping around. The cilantro -- ah, yes, the cilantro. While I was off biking along the coast of the Adriatic, the cilantro decided it was time to go crazy; it shot up and burst out in little white flowers. So I'm starting over. New cilantro in a month or so -- and this time I'll know better than to go away for a week and a half.

We put the vege deliveries on hold while on vacation, but are getting them again. Last week

Yep. Watermelon.

This week there was nothing too out of the ordinary:

Anyone have a good recipe for currants?!?

June 15

It's summer time! Lots and lots of food showed up today (unfortunately too late to cook). How are we going to eat it all?!? (I bet we'll find a way...)

June 14

So about a week and a half ago I called the farm and left a message on their machine asking them not to deliver vegetables last week, as Ben and I were off to Poland on Wednesday. But come Tuesday and there's the crate full of food. Ack! We took what would keep for a while, wrapped it up and stuck it in the fridge. What was left consisted of lettuce, zucchini, cucumber, and the apricots. Yum, the apricots looked so good; I ate one right away. But what to do with the rest? I came across my upstairs neighbor while running some or other errand that day. Would she be interested? Maybe, she said, although she and her husband were also considering going away for a long weekend. But as I visited later that evening, it turned out that they decided to stick around and the fresh produce would not go to waste. All together:

June 1

No vegetable delivery these last couple weeks as I was in the States visiting family and friends and watching my brother painfully exit the college years. I arrived back to find my herbs growing pretty well on the balcony where I had left them. My neighbor had agreed to water them and I saw him later that day. It had been cold and rainy while I was away, he said. A whole May month of cold and rain. It continues still, even though we're now in June. So, while healthy enough, the herbs weren't growing crazily. Unlike beautiful last summer, with its long (for Bavaria) stretches of sunshine and warmth. My balcony looked much greener then...

Today the vegetables arrived, as usual, in the afternoon. The interesting ingredient: plantains. Finally a chance to pull out that African cookbook that's always calling for things that don't exist in the stores here. Oh, and yes, we had a lovely strawberry rhubarb crisp that Ben made from our last delivery. This week:

May 11

I accosted the vegetable delivery boy today. Last week the veges came late in the afternoon, and again so this week. Is this going to be regular? He didn't give a straight answer, but I'm prepared now. Vegetables arrive around 5:30pm on Tuesdays, which is unfortunately too late to come up with something creative for Tuesday's dinner. We can only sit and admire our new arrivals until the next day.

So. This week, our interesting item is: rhubarb. We got four and a half stalks of it. And Ben said immediately, "strawberry rhubarb pie". And, hey, look at that, we got strawberries too...

And last week what did we get? An interesting assortment for sure:

These ingredients inspired a radish-heavy stir-fry (with green beans), a fennel pasta dish, kohlrabi and carrots in a honey-butter sauce, and an Indian cucumber peanut salad.

 May 2

The herbs are sitting out on the balcony, just little seedlings of basil, thyme, cilantro, parsley, and oregano. But not too long ago they were just seeds.

April 27

I was worried when I came home from work to discover the crate lying empty on the stairs. No vegetables? That would be a shame, not least because we were all out of fresh vegetables in preparation for the day's shipment. But no worries. Fifteen minutes later there was a quick buzz at the door and I went down to find the vegetables there, cool and vibrant. This week we got:

April 20

The vegetables and fruit for the week:

April 13

The second week of vegetable deliveries and this week Ben is here (thankfully) to help me eat all this food! Especially the carrots...

April 6

So last week I was delightfully surprised to find an ad in the mailbox. Usually, I just ignore the things, but this one caught my attention. "Gemüse-Abo Eschlbach" it said on the front, along with a picture of a green crate filled with fresh vegetables. I had been wanted to find a local farm that sold organic produce. But this was even better: a farm subscription like the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) ones I was familiar with in the States. I got out my dictionary and started translating the unfamiliar words in the ad. "You prefer to buy direct from the producer," the ad read. Yep. "You enjoy the surprise of the variety of seasonal vegetables." Yep. "It is important to you that your food is cultivated with controlled organic methods." Yep. A combination basket of vegetables and fruit for 2-3 people was just 16.20€ per week. Sign me up. And so I sent in the form late last week. And yesterday I got a phone call from the farm. We deliver to the Bad Aibling area on Tuesday mornings I was told. They deliver! Not even the CSA farms in the U.S. deliver all the way to the door. They would simply leave the food by the door if no one was home, and then every Tuesday morning I should leave out the previous week's empty crate for pick-up. When do we begin? I wanted to know. "We can start tomorrow." Wahoo!

And so today was like Christmas. I came home at lunch to discover a green crate, not unlike the one in the ad, filled with all sorts of prizes. Not just local food either -- the Bananas came from central America, and I doubted that the oranges were locally grown. But the spinach looked local, if green-house grown. And almost everything was fresher than fresh -- bright colors, perky leaves, firm flesh. The only disappointment was the garlic which was wet and growing wildly; I pitched it. And then there was the mystery ingredient: a strange bulbous thing with stalks growing out at all angles. I think I'd seen something like it before in the produce section of a grocery store. But I had no idea what it was called or how to cook it. I turned to the Internet to answer the first question: it was a kohlrabi. And I turned to Crazy Woman to answer the second: I cut the kohlrabi into sticks, steamed it slightly to tenderize, and ate it with a dill sauce. The produce: