IMPORTANT!  WATCH YOUR EMAIL!
In the next week or two, you will be receiving a very important email from Terra Firma.  It will ask  you to click on a link to confirm your membership in our CSA, provide you with a log-in, and ask you to create a password.  With this log-in, you will gain access to our new subscription management software called “Farmigo”.  When you log in, you will find your account already established.  Very soon, all of your interactions with Terra Firma will be done using the Farmigo platform.  Establishing a log-in is the first step.

We are very excited about the greater immediacy and efficiency in managing our CSA that this new technology is going to allow.  Next week I’ll spend a little more time in the newsletter discussing the new system.

TRAVEL FOOD DOES AND DON’TS
I’m guessing that many TFF subscribers spent more than a few hours in the past two weeks on airplanes and in airports.  For a conscientious eater, feeding yourself during air travel is a big challenge.  If you only have a short trip, you can get by with fresh fruit and snacks you bring along — as long as they’re not in a jar or bottle.  But if you’re in for a long haul, you are often at the mercy of the TSA, the airlines and the airport concessionaires.  During three long travel days over the holidays, I had two different illuminating experiences with eating in the air.

At first glance, it would seem like a healthy trend for airlines to be serving salads on flights.  The pictures in the inflight guide are of fresh lettuce, ripe tomatoes, etc.  I ordered one of these on my first flight.  The result was not just shocking, it was disgusting:  the lettuce was rotten and the tomatoes fermented.  As a produce farmer, I know from experience this meant the salad in question was either several days old, or had been stored at unsafely high temperatures — or both.  But what was most alarming was the fact that the salad, like most of the salads in fast food restaurants, had chicken in it.

 I took my salad to the flight attendant and asked her how old it was.  She said she didn’t know, and agreed that it clearly didn’t look fresh.  I told her she should go collect all the other ones she had sold or someone was going to get sick.  In response, she handed me a can of almonds.

 Cooked chicken in a tightly sealed plastic container with cut vegetables left in a warm place is not just a spoiled salad.  It is an incubation chamber for food borne illness.  Had a planeload of people gotten sick from those salads, who would have been blamed for the illness?  Well, probably the airline and their food vendor.  But also the farmer who grew the lettuce and tomatoes.   More importantly, as we have seen in the last few years, there would be a recall of lettuce and tomatoes, and consumers would stop buying them.  An investigation might find the vegetables free from culpability, but the damage would be done during the first week of news coverage.

IN THE AIRPORT
So the food on the airplanes these days might be not just bad but bad for your health.  But the trend inside the airports is  more positive.  Sure, there’s still plenty of unhealthy fast food between the gates.  But there are also healthier options.  At the Philadelphia Airport, you can get a made-to-order salad at Saladworks, choosing your own ingredients or selecting one from the menu.  The greens and vegetables were all fresh, and the dressings tasty.  Best of all, it was good to know — after my previous experience — that the salad had not been sitting around for days or longer.  Other folks clearly shared my feelings on the matter, as the line at the place was a dozen people long.  But with all the ingredients prepped in advance, it still qualified as “fast food”, with the line only taking 10 minutes or so.
At another airport, I had a gourmet sandwich on multi-grain bread and a salad along with a “flight” of wine samples at Vino Volo.  This establishment is both an eatery, a bar, and a wine store, as well as being a very comfortable place to hang out between flights.

 Doing a bit of research on arriving home, I found that both these companies are enjoying reasonable success and expanding.  I would personally prefer to see airports giving special preference to local concessions that feature local products (Coffee in Milwaukee’s airport, for example, is providing by the all free-trade and organic local coffeehouse Alterra).  But if I am going to have to choose from among corporate food vendors while trapped in an airport, it’s nice to at least have the choice to eat something reasonably healthy.

IN YOUR BOXES
During a two week vacation, it was easy to forget the freeze of 2009, but walking the fields upon arriving back it’s impossible to ignore the aftermath.  Cauliflower is often a bright spot in the otherwise gloomy month of January, but the freeze took a real toll on that crop.  Broccoli, however, sustained much less damage, and is an important component of your boxes this week.

Likewise Spinach, which we have learned over time is one of the most cold-hardy greens we grow, despite the tenderness of its leaves.  We have fields of both baby spinach, which we harvest loose for salads, and more mature spinach for cooking, which we make into bunches.  We’ll be alternating between the two for several weeks.

In addition to the Satsuma mandarins in your boxes today, which may be the last you see from us this winter, you will also find the first of our Navel oranges.  We were thrilled to find that these, as well as our Grapefruits, seem to have suffered very little damage in the freeze.  Nonetheless, you probably will find that a small percentage of the citrus you receive from us this winter may have a few segments that are dried up or not juicy.  These are areas where the fruit was damaged.
 Carrots in today’s boxes come to you bagged instead of bunched.  Wet, foggy weather on the heels of the December freeze has weakened the tops and turned them yellow.  The carrots are freshly dug and as tasty as ever.

 You may notice that the Potatoes in your boxes today are beginning to sprout slightly.  These sprouts can be rubbed off but shouldn’t affect the potatoes much.  Make sure to store in the fridge, though, or the sprouts will grow into little shoots and the spuds will start to shrivel.