Table Of ContentSuSie Middleton
ii Fresh From the Farmstand
susie middleton
C
For Mom, Dad, and Ellie—my family of great cooks and gardeners
Text © 2014 Susie Middleton
Illustrations © 2014 by The Taunton Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Pp
The Taunton Press, Inc., 63 South Main Street, PO Box 5506,
Newtown, CT 06470-5506
e-mail: [email protected]
Editor: Carolyn Mandarano
Copy editor: Li Agen
Indexer: Heidi Blough
Art Director: Alison Wilkes
Cover design: Stacy Wakefield
Interior design & layout: Stacy Wakefield
Photo Editor: Erin Giunta
Illustrator: Martha Garstang Hill
Photographers: © Alexandra Grablewski: p. ii, vi (top left), 2, 4 (top left, bottom center), 5 (bottom right), 7, 9, 12, 15 (bot-
tom left, top right, bottom right), 18, 20, 24, 27, 28 (top left, right), 29 (top left), 31, 34, 37, 40, 43, 44, 46, 51, 54, 58, 59, 61, 62
(top right), 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 78, 79 (top right, bottom right), 85, 86 (top right, bottom left), 88, 92, 95, 96, 101, 102,
103, 106, 107, 111 (top left, top right, bottom right), 113, 114, 117, 118, 120, 122, 123, 126 (right), 129, 133, 136, 138, 141, 143, 146, 149
(top left, bottom right), 153, 156, 157, 161, 163, 164, 165, 168, 172 (top left), 175, 177, 181 (left), 182, 188, 193, 196, 199, 202, 203,
207, 208, 212, 214 (left), 217, 219, 222, 225, 231 (bottom right), 232; © Susie Middleton: p. vi (bottom left, top right, bottom
right), 4 (bottom left), 5 (top right), 6, 8, 10, 15 (top left), 17, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28 (bottom left), 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 39, 45, 48, 49, 52,
53, 56, 60, 62 (top left, bottom left, bottom right), 64, 65, 66 (top left, bottom left, bottom center), 74, 75, 79 (left), 80, 82,
83, 86 (top left, bottom right), 90, 91, 97, 98, 99, 104, 108, 110, 111 (bottom left), 124, 126 (top left, bottom left), 128, 130, 131,
132, 135, 137, 140, 142, 145, 147, 149 (top right, bottom left), 150, 154, 158, 160, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172 (top right, bottom left,
bottom right), 174, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181 (top right, bottom right), 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, 195, 200, 205, 210, 214 (top right,
bottom right), 215, 216, 220, 221, 224, 227, 229, 231 (top, bottom left), 233, 234, 235, 237, 238; Roy Riley: p. 190
Food Stylist: Mark Pederson
Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks
Cover Photographer: Alexandra Grablewski
The following names/manufacturers appearing in Fresh from the Farm are trademarks: Applegate®, Baker’s Joy®,
Barilla®, Bell & Evans®, Burpee®, Fage®, Total Garden-opoly™, Goya®, Nabisco® FAMOUS™ Chocolate Wafers, Old Bay®,
Pepperidge Farm®, Pez®, Pyrex®, Schwinn®, Starbucks®, Tabasco®
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Middleton, Susie.
Fresh from the farm : a year of recipes and stories / Susie Middleton ; photographer, Alexandra Grablewski.
pages cm
E-Book ISBN 978-1-62710-327-5
1. Seasonal cooking. 2. Farm life. 3. Middleton, Suzie--Homes and haunts. I. Title.
TX714.M533 2014
641.5’64--dc23
2013036727
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
it’s one thing to do acknowledgments our story come alive. Kudos to
what you love cooking, growing, designer Stacy Wakefield for
writing, photographing—and her thoughtful work and to Erin
quite another thing to have Giunta and Sandy Mahlstedt for
people you admire and respect want to turn what organizing and editing the photos.
you’ve created into a book. This so totally rocks A quick thank you to all my friends and col-
my world that I gladly bear the daily burden of leagues at Fine Cooking magazine and The Taunton
gratitude to the folks responsible for what you Press, especially Maria Taylor for her enduring
hold in your hands—chiefly my agent, Sarah Jane support. And a special thanks to the Taunton mar-
Freymann, and my editor at The Taunton Press, keting folks, Jay Annis, Audrey Locorotondo, Missy
Carolyn Mandarano. Together these two embraced Robinson, and Janel Noblin, for their enthusiastic
my proposal and envisioned something truly support of Fresh from the Farm. To the best copy
exciting. Carolyn took it from there, guiding the editor in the world, Li Agen, I couldn’t do a book
project with a sure hand and a strong sense of without you.
what was right for this book. I can’t thank her Back here at home, the complete list of incredibly
enough for her intuition and confidence. supportive friends and farm stand customers (many
My admiration and thanks go far and wide to of them one in the same) is too long to include
each of the talented people who participated in here. But a special thanks must go to Tom Hickie,
creating Fresh from the Farm, starting with my Drusilla Hickie, Joannie Jenkinson, Judy Fraser-
veteran recipe testers and dear friends Jessica Bard Pearce, Mary Wirtz, Sarah Saltonstall, M. J. Delekta,
and Eliza Peter, who cross-tested every single recipe, Cathy Walthers, Doug Smith, Katherine Long, Kay
from spring to fall, pesto to pizzette. Goldstein, Bob and Irene Hungerford, Scott Bliss,
To photographer Alexandra Grablewski, I owe Angela Beasley Dion, Susan Davy, Don McKillop,
many, many thanks, not just for traveling out to Ronnie and Heidi Schultz, and the Athearn family of
the Vineyard on a stormy ferry ride to photograph Morning Glory Farm.
the farm, but also for her genuinely gorgeous food And to our families—Peg and Bob Riley, Kelly
photos that grace these pages. To food stylist Mark Crocker (for sharing Libby so selflessly), Bob and
Pederson and assistant Tracy Keshani, heaps of Pauletta Evans, and Eleanor Evans—thank you for all
gratitude for making my food look beautiful and your love and support. And for not calling us crazy.
natural. And to Paige Hicks for awesome props. Fresh from the Farm may bear my byline, but it is
To the Taunton design team, led by Art Director as much Roy’s and Libby’s as it is mine. We share a
Alison Wilkes, thank you for an amazing job of artfully life second to none, and for that we will always be
weaving together the elements of this book to make grateful.
vi Fresh From the Farmstand
introduction
3
Part One
late spring
a n d early
summer
(aka “we brake for salad greens”)
4
Part Two
high summer
(aka “tomatoes and
green beans and squash—oh my!”)
66
Part Three
indian
summer
and
early fall
(aka “the bonus season”)
154
Appendix: Four Designs for Garden or Farm
238
Metric Equivalents
243
Recipe Index
244
Index
246
2 fresh from the farmstand
one day you wake introduction with our carrots and
up and your fantasy has turnips and fennel. We
become reality, and you ate well. We were happy.
are more surprised than (Still are!)
anyone at what you’ve managed to pull Then we got some baby chicks and
off. This is how it happened to me: I longed watched them grow rosy red combs and
for a simpler life, I quit my big job and my spangly feathers and dance in the grass
fancy suburb, moved to a rural island, be- with squirmy bugs. We fell in love with
came a freelance writer, sold my high heels the Ladies even before they started laying
and frilly skirts at a consignment shop, and those miracles—eggs warm as dinner buns
bought a pair of work boots. and smooth as marble, eggs so eggy fla-
I planted a teeny little garden. Then a vored they taste like Sunday morning itself.
bigger one. I met a carpenter, fell in love, So we got a few more hens. And then a
moved into a creaky old farmhouse on the few more (more than a few actually). And
edge of an endless hay field, and planted an built more coops. Doubled the size of the
even bigger garden. garden, put up a hoop house, grew lettuce
Then the carpenter built me a little farm all winter, and planted blueberry bushes.
stand from salvaged wood. We stuck it at Talked our way into four more acres of farm
the end of the dirt driveway and neighbors land out back and gave ourselves a real
and friends and visitors came shopping for name: Green Island Farm.
lovely lettuce and skinny string beans and That’s the short story of how the little
glossy cherry tomatoes from our market farm and the farm stand came to be. The
garden. We counted up the quarters and whole story features wild raspberries and
dollar bills, and one day, we broke even— wild turkeys, a farm dog and a bunny, hur-
and the season was still high. Oh joy! ricanes and blizzards, a rope swing and
And we cooked from our garden every a fish pond—and one very special little
day. We grilled Fairy Tale eggplants and we girl. But the vegetables—how we shaped
stir-fried Shuko Pac Choi with lime basil our lives around growing and harvesting
and we baked Red Gold potato gratins with them and how we honored them in the
our own Big Daddy onions. We made lob- kitchen—are the real stars. Here are their
ster rolls with fresh peas and minestrone stories—and ours.
3
