The vegetables of my labor

I could really use my kitchen back home right now.

I could use a spoonful of black rice vinegar, a dash of rice wine, and a big wok for some stir-fried eggplant. I'd like a cast iron skillet so I can make the creamiest scrambled eggs with a lot of chives. I need a large baking dish to make a pie with half a pound of chard. And I need a heavy-duty Wusthof chef's knife to cut up a butternut squash into 1/2 in dice so I can saute it with a lot of thyme. None of these things live in my tiny apartment kitchen.

Did I mention that my kitchen is overflowing with produce?



Paul and I spent Saturday morning at Clagett farm harvesting all sorts of exciting things. We started our day picking rows and rows of summer squash and zucchini, which have really prickly stems and made me wish that I had worn pants and a long-sleeve shirt. We continued working in fields of sweet peppers and beautiful eggplants and ended the morning harvesting bins and bins of acorn squash. Between everyone there, we probably had twenty 40-pound bins of acorn squash. Carrying those bins was back breaking work, I tell you.

But in return, we each got a share of the produce harvested that day, which includes:

1 butternut squash
1 pound summer squash
1 pound eggplant
1 head garlic
2 pounds potatoes
1 pound sweet peppers
1/2 pound chard
1/2 pound tomatoes

There's also an herb garden, where I got chives, mint, basil, and thyme.



I have a feeling I won't need to go to the grocery store at all this week, maybe except to buy things to go with all this amazing fresh produce. But before heading into the kitchen, I might take a nap first. Harvesting is hard work!