Cookin' in the 'Cuse

What? Really? Thanksgiving is next week?

Seriously?  Next week?  Are you getting the picture that this has snuck up on me?  I've got beets, carrots, squashes, local sausage, root vegetables of all kinds, and some ideas about wine but still need to pull this meal together.   What are YOU contemplating for your Thanksgiving feast?

I want one of these...

for Syracuse.

It actually comes from a cool grocery named Farm to Market--we already have one of those--we call it the Syracuse Real Food Co-op.  But I just had to have this t-shirt.  So if you see me sporting it around the 'Cuse just know that it is a placeholder till I get one from the 315. For what it's worth--here's the front:

Oh, and please excuse the hazy iPhone pics...

The Least I Can Do

I know exactly how it happened.  I got busy and the beets began to pile up.  They began to pile up on top of the piles of carrots.  They were making it impossible to fit another celery root in the vegetable bin.  I got too busy because...well, that's just how life is too often.  You know how it is.  But I couldn't let my busyness mess up all the good work the farmers had done--good, hard work. 

Six years ago I lamented that our produce CSAs (community supported agriculture farms) are mostly half-year affairs in our area.  Over the past few years, several year-round CSAs have popped up--joining long-standing Blue Heron Farm in providing local produce all year long--but they are still rare for the most part. As I listen to some of my farmer friends collapse with gratitude at the season's end (especially this past difficult growing season) I'm not anxious to make them work any harder than they already do. 

I only recently figured out that if I can and freeze all the bounty that I get from June-October, I not only get to feast all year long on local produce but I effectively get a year-long CSA program.  So one night a couple of weeks ago, I worked long into the wee hours scrubbing, sterilizing jars, and canning countless beets.  I did it because I didn't want all those beets to go to waste.  I did it because the thought of adding chunks of deep purple summer flavor to my winter meals just makes me happy.  And I did it because I can think of no better way to say "thank you" to the folks who grew those beets than to eat and enjoy every one of them.  It is, afterall, the least I can do.