Garden of Eve is our favorite farm on Long Island and we participate in their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program). Earlier in the season, garlic was hanging from the ceiling in the barn that functions as the farm stand and now we have a weekly supply of fresh locally grown garlic. It doesn’t get much better than this.

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to interview farm co-founder Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht (founded with her husband Chris) about the festival.

What gave you the idea to host a Garlic Festival at the farm?

Chris’ parents introduced us to the idea of growing garlic, and took us to the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY. We thought it was amazing, all the garlic, garlic foods, it was all new to us and something we’d never been exposed to before. We learned so much! We thought to
ourselves, “We could do this on our farm and people on Long Island could enjoy this, too!”

Who prepares the food - like the garlic ice cream?

We invite vendors to come and sell any kind of garlic food they can think of. The Garlic Ice Cream will be from Ronnybrook Farm, a family-owned farm dairy from the Hudson Valley. Their milk is hormone-free and they make the ice cream themselves.

How is the festival sponsored?

Chris and I and our families and farm apprentices run the festival.

How many vendors this year and how many festival attendees?

We are expecting about 10-12 vendors, in addition to our farmstand, a puppet theater, pony rides, Terry Winchell’s great live folk music on Sunday, and our little petting zoo. We had 1,000 people attend last year.

What different varieties of garlic do you grow and a bit about how they differ or how you might use them?

We grow mostly a variety called “Music,” which does very well in our area. We will also have German white, German Red, and hopefully some other varieties available for sale. Also Elephant Garlic, which is great for roasting.

For all of the garlic lovers out there who can’t come to the festival this weekend check out the film Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (1981) directed by Les Blank. It is a fun documentary about a garlic festival in California.

What makes these chocolates so special? Each chocolate is handmade. They use no preservatives or machines to make any of the products. They use fresh cream, fresh butter, fruit purees, Fleur de Sel sea salt and Madagascar vanilla beans. Most of the chocolates are made with bittersweet chocolate. They recommend that the chocolates be consumed within two weeks of purchase. This has never been a problem for us.

These are some of our favorite products (quotes from the product website):

Truffles - The truffles at Sans Souci are hand shaped and then dipped in bitter sweet chocolate. They are then rolled in ingredients such as cocoa, coconut, nuts, wafer cookies, crushed peppermint or powdered sugar. My personal favorite is the champagne truffle. In this truffle “vintage champagne is used to enrich this delicate ganache composed of both milk and dark chocolates for a truly luxurious and celebratory truffle.”

Marquis Bar - My husband and son are big fans of the marquis bar. On first glance it just looks like a regular brownie, but this bar is “more of a cross between a flourless chocolate cake and a truffle.” It literally melts in your mouth. They have an original bar and 4 other creations: mocha fudge, mint chocolate, chocolate raspberry and creme brulee. Lucky for us, I found the recipe for the bars, originally published in Martha Stewart Living in July, 2003.

Toffee - The toffee is made with butter, sugar, nuts and sea salt. I enjoy the pecan toffee which is “loaded with luxurious pecan halves, coated with milk chocolate and studded with toasted chopped pecans.”

Chocolate Elixir - The is the most decadent hot chocolate I have ever tasted. It is said to be “more like a molten chocolate dessert than hot chocolate.” You can have the drink in the shop or you can buy an 8 ounce jar of the mix to take home. In the jar you will find chopped bits of 64% dark chocolate.

The new location will be in the Poughkeepsie area of New York. Currently their products are available online.

What exactly is a CSA? A simple answer is that a CSA provides a way for the local community to support local farms. More precisely, individuals enter into a partnership with the farmer that can include many levels of participation.

Suzanne DeMuth writes in an excerpt from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide:

“Each CSA is structured to meet the needs of the participants, so many variations exist, including the level of financial commitment and active participation by the shareholders; financing, land ownership, and legal form of the farm operation; and details of payment plans and food distribution systems.”

The type of products available through CSAs include seasonal items such as fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers. Some farms also offer local eggs, meat, milk, dried fruits or baked goods. The CSA I belong to asks participants to sign a membership agreement and to pay in advance for the current growing season. For the season we agree to receive a weekly share of 7-12 items but that there is no guarantee on the exact amount or type of produce. We also agree to pick up our own produce each week, to volunteer to work at least two food distributions and to help to create a more environmentally and economically healthy society.

A neighbor commented that she didn’t understand why I would pay in advance for an unknown commodity. She said that she would rather just go to the farm and buy what she needed each week. This still supports the farmer, but in a different way. By pre-purchasing our items the farmer is guaranteed an income for her efforts. The idea is that we support the local farmer and economy and she supplies us with fresh, healthy food each week. If it is a good growing week we prosper, a bad growing week we feel it too. I think of it as an investment in the future of the farm. I want my local farm to be viable and to still be there next year. I will be the first to admit that it is inconvenient to drive the half hour to and from the farm every Saturday but such a treat when get all the produce home.

The farm decides which fruits and vegetables to distribute each week. When we arrive it is usually boxed and ready for us. We select a fresh bouquet of flowers and pick up a carton of fresh farm eggs. It was rainy one week so they didn’t have any flowers for us. Another week they gave us two bouquets. Part of the benefits and part of the risk. This past week all the pre-packaged eggs had been sold, so we asked if we could collect our own eggs. The henhouse is a converted mobile home surrounded by chicken wire. They hens are free to move about and they greeted us as we collected the eggs. That day some hens were laying eggs and others were eating. Other times when we have visited the farm, the hens have been roaming around in the yard. What a great connection we have to the food we eat.

For me, the best part about the CSA is the the variety of the produce. Each week I am preparing and eating new foods with my family. When I get the food home I immediately start browsing through my cookbooks to find recipes to try with all my exotic ingredients. This week our selection included fennel, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, swiss chard, peaches, and beets. Last week we brought home fennel, blueberries, new potatoes, cucumbers, purple basil, white sage, corn, and salad greens. My three year old is eating and enjoying kohlrabi, turnips and fennel…foods I did not try myself until this year.

To find out more about CSAs, and to find one in your area, check out the USDA website.