Some quick things:

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• Talking Breads this week! Fresh Thursday; frozen if we have any left!
• Local peanuts! I’ve never had fresh raw peanuts, so I’m excited to try these. I also don’t know anything about what to do with them, so if you do, please share! (I mean, I guess boil them? But I don’t know anything beyond that.)
• Also, we’ll have chervil for the first time ever, and maybe my first time ever. I miss parsley, so I’m planning to use it as a parsley substitute, but since it’s also supposed to be divine on eggs, I’m going to try that, too.
• THANK YOU for your patience if you came to the stand on Saturday while it was very busy and Dusty and I were not there! (More about this below.)

Scroll down for the full list of what we’ll have this week!

Last week when I was writing this post, I really wanted to tell you about the first for us that was going to happen on Saturday afternoon. Since it was related to a surprise birthday party, though, I thought I better wait. But now that the surprise has been pulled off, I can tell you about the part that relates to Radish & Rye — though you may have already experienced it! You see, for the first time in nearly three years, Dusty and I together left the market in the middle of the day on a Saturday. This was an exciting moment for us, and that it was to attend a friend’s surprise birthday party made it all the sweeter. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t know while we were gone just how busy it got at the market — if you were caught in a longer than normal line, we’re very sorry — and we really appreciate you bearing with us as our team handled a Saturday afternoon on their own for the first time.

While we love being at the market (and we really do love it), three years of not being able to do anything that was happening on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday — and never being able to get out of town for longer than Sunday thru Wednesday — was starting to weigh on us. We now feel extremely fortunate that Radish & Rye is able to support (at least three days a week) enough additional people that we’re able to leave the stand in their hands on occasion, and even more fortunate that we have such wonderful people to leave it with. Sometimes along the way having employees has felt like the hardest part of the business, but of course they are also what makes it long-term viable — not to mention the whole other level of fun they bring!

In the years before Radish & Rye, Dusty and I used to try to get to the annual PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) conference in State College. The conference is mostly farmers, plus some folks in the ag industry; in those days we were sort of aspiring urban micro-farmers, but when people asked why we were there, we always said, “We’re eaters.” Once R&R came along, one of my early thoughts was that now we would have a more obvious reason for attending the conference — and my next thought was because the main part of the conference runs Thursday through Saturday, we’d never be able to attend again!

I’m happy to say, though, that this year, thanks to Veronica, Justin, and Marie, we will be attending the PASA conference once again (at least a good chunk of it). It’s still a few weeks away (the weekend of Feb 8-10), so we’ll have a little time to work through some of the issues we identified after this past Saturday, but I’m getting really excited. Not to be gone, of course, but for the conference! We’re also starting to work on some other travel plans, which we’ll be excited to share as they firm up! On the other hand, one of our folks has off this whole week, so both Dusty and I will be there most of the weekend, which is pretty fun, too!

On a totally unrelated note, inspired by a recipe in Melissa Clark’s dinner, last night I sliced and toasted a baguette, rubbed the slices with cut garlic cloves, slathered ’em with some room temperature butter mashed with minced anchovy fillets, then topped with minced preserved lemon peel and thinly sliced watermelon radishes rubbed with the flesh of the preserved lemon. I made the first one before Dusty got home and then immediately called him to tell him it was one of the best things I’d ever put in my mouth, would he be home soon? This’ll be my new go-to hors d’oeuvre, and I think you should consider making it yours, too. Or, you can do what we did last night, and make it dinner, with a big ol’ salad on the side, drizzled with some nice olive and a splash of Keepwell’s Bitter Lemon vinegar. Nothing wrong with snacks for dinner. 🙂

Julia

P.S. Do NOT use the little tins of Cento anchovies for those toasts — this is definitely worth splurging on some nice anchovies for, even if you think don’t like anchovies. They don’t taste fishy — just salty and umami, and how can you not like that? We buy the Agostino Recca brand, usually when we go to Pittsburgh or Baltimore (or have someone coming from Pgh bring them to us!), but sometimes online. We’ve always done the oil-packed, but recently bought a tin of the salt-packed and love those, too. I used the oil-packed from the big jar for this, since the oil helped soften the butter a little bit. I know, I know, these aren’t local — but since they’re basically shelf-stable, they’re a Marco Polo food, right?

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Produce

[one_third]Braising Greens

• Spinach
• Baby Chard

Fruit

• Fuji Apples (IPM)
• Granny SmithApples (IPM)

Herbs

• Chervil
• Cilantro

Legumes

• Peanuts

Mushrooms

• Cremini
• White
• Oyster
• Shiitake[/one_third]

[one_third]Onions & Garlic

• Garlic
• Red Onions
• Yellow Onions
• Shallots

Other

• Green Cabbage

Potatoes

• Red Fingerling Potatoes
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• Purple Sweet Potatoes[/one_third]

[one_third_last]Roots

• Red Beets
• Gold Beets
• Chioggia Beets
• Carrots
• Rainbow Carrots
• Celeriac
• Parsnips
• Black Radishes
• Watermelon Radishes
• Rutabagas
• Hakurei Salad Turnips
• Purple Top Turnips

Salad Greens

• Mesclun Mix
• Arugula
• Belgian Endive
• Baby Spinach

Squash & Pumpkins

• Butternut
• Seminole Neck[/one_third_last]

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Bread

[one_half]McGrath’s Brick Oven Bakehouse
(fresh Friday & Saturday)

• McGrath’s Original
• Sesame Original
• Irish Oatmeal Pan Bread
• Jalapeno Cheddar
• Cranberry Orange
• Three Seed
• Baguettes (fresh Saturday only; available frozen every day)

[/one_half][one_half_last]Talking Breads
(fresh Thursday)

• Batard
• Ciabatta
• Miche
• Seeded

[/one_half_last]