This week has been busy with preparing everyone for me being away ALL week next week! I'm leaving the Kitchen early this Friday to attend the wedding of my sister's best friend and then we're leaving for a sailing vacation in Georgian Bay, Canada. It should be a good, relaxing time since I know the lovely CFK ladies will pull off an awesome week in my absence. Cynthia, Nora, and Claire all helped plan this week's menu so they'll be all set to plan the menu next week. Out at the Farm we're still experiencing a drought which means that some of the summer crops are not going to be as prolific as in past years. However, with irrigation things are still looking ok and we keep hoping it will rain soon. Also, Anne tells me that the fall crops are looking GREAT, so that's something to look forward to. The
heat has meant we've had some shortened work days, but we're reaching the peak of the season and there's a lot less to do with planting and thinning--mainly we're working on harvesting and weeding these days.
So, this week's harvest was:
Potatoes- 2 lbs
Hot pepper - 1
Tomatoes - 1 box
Gladiola flower - 1
Carrots - 6
Swiss Chard - 1 lb
Garlic - 2 bulbs
Summer squash - 4
Lettuce - 2 heads
Parsley - 1 bunch
Cucumber - 4
Basil - 15 tips
The menu for this week will be:
Pesto from
Moosewood p. 74
Greek-stuffed Zucchini from
Laurel's Kitchen p. 217
August Soup from
The Community Farm of Ann Arbor Cookbook p. 59
Spicy Cucumber Salad from
From Asperagus to Zucchini p. 69
Lazy Days Lettuce salad
a fresh tomato and some raw potatoes for your home cooking pleasure!
I also wanted to share with you all this note I got from my friend Meg who's in the Peace Corps in Mali. She's trying to raise interest and funds for a women's collective garden project. Read all about it:
Thursday, July 31 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings from Mali! I hope things are going well in the US and you're enjoying the summer weather. The weather here has been hot as usual but bearable, since things cooled down a bit with the beginning of the rainy season in June. I've now been serving in the Peace Corps in Mali for over a year, in the village of Feremuna in
the Sikasso region. For the moment, things are pretty busy around here. I've been spending my days helping to weed my host family's fields and assisting the Feremuna women's organization in their garden. This year they're growing beans during the rainy season and will begin vegetable gardening once the cold season comes.
In addition to working in the fields and in the garden at Feremuna, for the past few months I have been working with another women's organization in Station N'Tarla, a small settlement down the road from Feremuna. It is with this organization that I plan to base the remainder of my 2008 work, a garden project that will increase the yearly income of the women's cooperative.
The women's cooperative of Station N'Tarla, Badenya Ton, has been in existence for over ten years. Since becoming a state-sanctioned cooperative in 2005, their activities have included farming two hectares of corn, millet and beans during the rainy season, the profits from which are used to support each individual woman's small commerce activities during the rest of the year. Every three months following the growing season, women are able to take small loans of 2500 to 7500 CFA (about 6-18 USD) to buy materials for their small businesses, which range from buying and reselling rice to preparing refrigerated drinks to sell in market. In addition to these activities, the women have recently begun literacy training, which took place during the hot season from March to May of 2008.
For the past year and a half, the women have also been planning a community garden project in hopes of increasing the financial power of the cooperative. At the time that I first met with the cooperative, in December of 2007, they had already begun preparing the garden for work in 2008, obtaining permission for the use of a 1 hectare parcel of land from the village and a donation of wire fencing from the French NGO Fondation Pour L'Enfance. From March to May of 2008, they commissioned the digging of two wells in the garden space and are currently growing rainy season crops of corn, beans, rice, and peanuts.
My work with Badenya Ton will focus on preparing the garden for vegetable gardening during the 2008 cold season, including the installation of the wire fencing to protect the area from roaming animals and the digging of two more wells to ensure adequate water for the area. I also plan to conduct a series of trainings on gardening techniques I have studied during training with Peace Corps. The project will be executed through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, which allows me to raise funds directly through family, friends, and interested parties in the US. Our goal is to raise $1958.75 out of a total project cost of $2621.25. Badenya Ton will contribute the equivalent of $662.50 (about 25 percent of the total project cost) to cover the cost of labour for digging the wells and installing the fencing. We hope to raise the funds before the beginning of the cold season in October so the area will be ready for a full season of vegetable gardening.
I believe this is a worthy endeavour and I hope that you are interested in helping the women's cooperative of Station N'Tarla to expand their activities and grow as an organization.
To make a donation, go to https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-270 , enter the amount you would like to give (any amount is greatly appreciated!) and click Donate. Your contribution is completely tax deductible, and Peace Corps will send you a receipt. If you cannot make a donation yourself, please forward a copy of this letter to anyone you think would be interested. If you have any questions please email me and I'll get back with you as soon as possible.
If you would like to see some pictures of the Badenya Ton at work, I have posted some at
Thank you, merci, i ni che from myself and the women of Station N'Tarla.
All the best,
Meg Munroe
Photo explanations (mostly from last week's cooking): 1. Nora frittering away the afternoon. 2. Nell adding some parsley to the cucumber soup 3. Mary up to her elbows in potato salad. 4. Women of the Badenya Ton cooperative working in their field.
heat has meant we've had some shortened work days, but we're reaching the peak of the season and there's a lot less to do with planting and thinning--mainly we're working on harvesting and weeding these days.
the Sikasso region. For the moment, things are pretty busy around here. I've been spending my days helping to weed my host family's fields and assisting the Feremuna women's organization in their garden. This year they're growing beans during the rainy season and will begin vegetable gardening once the cold season comes.
some time!
Beans - 1/2 lb
Farm of Ann Arbor Cookbook p. 47
Down in Delaware they're already getting sweet corn! Mmmm. And of course, the Kitchen ran well in my absence. I've heard good things about the food that Margaret, Michelle, Cynthia, Claire, and Nora made (one of my friends is encouraging me to refer to these lovely ladies as my minions--I'm not so sure!); I know they worked really hard. It's good to know I can leave the work in their capable hands!
After a seriously sweltering weekend, I'm sure we're all welcoming this slightly cooler weather. Yesterday at the farm was one of those perfect days: sunny, breezy, perfect temperature. There was a LOT to get done, as you'll see when you check out how much food we brought home. Missing work on Monday (on train returning from Philly) I missed out on the first round of garlic digging. It's amazing how much can change at the Farm after only a short absence. I'm sure I'll get to dig some garlic in the
next week. I hear it's a lot easier than it was last year, when the hard ground made it heartbreaking (finger-breaking, pitch fork-breaking, and back-breaking) work. The goal is to get the garlic cloves out of the ground without breaking them off their stems or poking them with the pitch fork--it's harder than it sounds! Anyhow, I arrived at the Farm on Wednesday to find the barn full of drying garlic. We brought some home, but we won't be using it for a week or two until it's dry. In the mean time we're still finishing up the garlic scapes. Enjoy these pictures from the distribution area of the Farm--the barn where members (including myself and Cynthia) go to collect the shares. Speaking of which, this week's share is:
Beans - 1 1/4 lb
The Community Farm Cookbook p. 47
Well, that crazy art fair week has arrived and I hope everyone's reveling in it! This week at the farm has been quite hot. On Monday we spent the day weeding the summer fruit vegetables--peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. For once we have a field that looks really neat
and weed-free right next to the barn! Harvest morning on Wednesday went really well. We finished early, before the real heat of the day kicked in, despite the fact that Cynthia and I were extremely late after getting stuck behind a line-painting truck on Scio Church Road. As ever, I forgot to take my camera to the Farm, but I did get some great pictures of us cooking last week, so enjoy these shots of your food in the making. On the Kitchen front, it's going to be in interesting week because I'm going to be away on Friday--heading out of town to attend the wedding of two of my friends. However, after an 
excellent cooks' meeting last night I have complete confidence in Cynthia, Michelle, Margaret, Claire, and Nora. They've got a great menu lined up for you this week!
Asian Cabbage Slaw from Farmer John's Cookbook p. 259
next few days and we'll bring it in on Saturday or Sunday (volunteers are welcome!). This week's harvest seems especially beautiful to me, so I'm happy to have remembered my camera so I can share that beauty with all of you.
Carrots - 4
