Wise Wilf and padron peppers
Thanks for all the lovely emails of support after we mentioned last week about box numbers dropping off. A couple of excerpts here (shared with permission!):
'I’m really sorry to hear about a decline in customers, I think what you guys do is great! But if it’s worth anything, I think you’re right re. eating seasonally, and to some extent the extra effort that goes into cooking veg like these. However, I’ve actually found the seasonal type veg may be a bit more of a challenge when thinking about recipes but it lasts so much longer than your standard veg because it’s so dense and therefore filling!! You’ll whip through med vegetables in a meal because they’re largely water but they stuff in the boxes lasts many many meals! We often can’t eat it all in a week. Overall, it makes your veg boxes not only sustainable in the climate and biodiversity crisis, but also cheaper.'
'Have to say we do enjoy our veg boxes. Just been reading your weekly email and feel very sad that people have been cancelling. We started with the larger box and must admit some veg we were not sure of. As there is only the two of us - we reached veg breaking point I took a step back and thought why not try the smaller box and eggs - my other half loves his eggs! This has worked for us - I have found grating courgettes in a risotto yummy.
Think there is a bit more food planning with the boxes and you have to look at what you enjoy.'
We've picked up a couple of new customers so that's a good start! Also, it was lovely this week to get an email from a customer whose work had changed and was trying to decide if she should change her box size / cancel to come to shop - we really liked that she had thought to ask us for our advice before making her decision. So if you're someone who is wondering what the best option is for you, just drop us an email and we'll try to help.
Chris is away from Saturday for a week of dinghy sailing (and socialising) in Tenby so I am busy trying to get across all the many things he does on the business that I'm not even aware of - we really need to do a blog post on what happens in our week but to give you an idea it involves receiving veg from wholesaler, printing out round sheets, packing boxes, delivering boxes, ordering veg for following week, admin/invoicing/newsletter/marketing bits, harvesting for the boxes and shop, running the shop, oh and planting/watering/weeding/etc in field. So, if you see me flapping next week you'll know why and might have to remind me to breathe haha. I've done my recon on the delivery rounds but hopefully you'll understand if your box is left in a slightly different place or I'm a bit later than normal. You'll find me recovering in the pub on Friday night with a pint ;)
In the field:
Rain dancing, harvesting lots, weeding and planted out the last of the perpetual kale for next Spring.
In the boxes:
Small - potatoes, carrots, onions, cucumber, cauliflower, courgette, fennel, tomatoes
Regular - potatoes, carrots, onions, salad, mushrooms, Savoy cabbage, beans, tomatoes, sweet potato, cucumber / extra beans, plums
The potatoes are from Bryn Cochyn (Henllan) at the moment but there are a few dodgy ones we came across when packing so hopefully not too many got passed us but if they did our apologies. If you end up with a whole lot of dodgy ones please let us know. Otherwise the boxes are looking pretty fab at the moment, hopefully you'll agree!
In the shop:
Potatoes (Bryn Cochyn), carrots, onions - brown and red, butternut squash, peas from Ormskirk - probably the only ones we'll buy in (ours should be ready in the next couple of weeks but don't seem to have huge quantities), sweetcorn, palermo peppers, chestnut mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, sweet potato. A few cauliflowers and Savoy cabbages, some fennel. Fresh ginger & turmeric
From Prion: Spring Greens, French beans, broad beans (mini ones), salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, beetroot, courgettes, garlic
Fruit: Rhubarb, bananas, plums, lemons Also this week we may have some more of the amazing padron peppers from Bryn Cochyn. They zoomed off the shelf last week and we're hoping they don't zoom as quick this week so we get a few more ourselves ;)
Also: Eggs, Nant y Felin sourdough, Pentrefelin milk, organic beer and other organic pantry bits including oats, olive oil, olives, salt. We've also got some local honey in this week (from Steve Cawthray in Nantglyn) in 2 different size jars - 8oz for £5.99 and 1lb for £8.99.
We're also hoping for a small amount of local organic apple cider vinegar soon (apparently there's a dark art to making this so feel very privileged, and intrigued! - have suggested it should be called something Harry Potter-y). And next week we have some tomatoes in from Sam at Glanllyn Farm too which is fab.
Recipe inspiration:
Was given a couple of recipes this week by the brilliant Sarah who helps us packing boxes every week, and one of them is broad bean burgers (from the book 'Plenty' by Ottolenghi). Here it is and in the book he does say skinning the broad beans regardless of their age does improve the texture of the burgers. We've also been griddling the courgettes and peppers, so tasty.
One of the guys from Organic North visited one of their Spanish farms - Bio Algarabbo - 4 min video here. We get our lovely red palermo sweet peppers, and many of our sweet potatoes from here.
Finally there's an utterly beautiul documentary called 'Heart Valley' (only about 20 mins) well worth a watch. So much we can all learn from Wilf.
have a good week