The Weekly Wrap: June 18, 2023

One of the reasons I love our daycare is that they try to support the whole family. As a part of our tuition, we get access to weekend classes for the kiddos, parenting webinars, and even craft skills courses. Now, they've added to these offerings. The center is a new pick up spot for FreshFarm, a local farm share program. 

I've always wanted to do a farm share, and there are lots of offerings in our area, but we've never gone through with a subscription. It was never the cost that scared us, just the logistics. Now, we get to pick up our bag at the same time we pick up our kiddo.

We collected our first farm share this week. Despite being a family of three, we went with the "personal" level. It's supposed to feed one to two people, but the bounty is still more than enough for us. I can't imagine how huge the "family" share is. That's supposed to cover three to four people, but I think we'd be absolutely buried in an avalanche of fruits and vegetables. 

Our first bag was a lot of greens (collards, lettuce, and kale) but it also included some potatoes, green onions, squash, zucchini, turnips, cauliflower, and even a pint of sweet cherries. We meal prep and shop for groceries on Saturdays. Our pick up day is Tuesday. I'm going to have to be flexible about swapping out veggies so that we don't waste too much of this beautiful produce. Also, my freezer is about to be my best friend.

I think I know what to make with most of these items, but I know we'll get new to me produce. To help figure out recipes, I re-signed up for The Farm Share newsletter. It offers recipe ideas for farm shares every week. 

If you are in a farm share, what recipes are your favorites? I am open to any and all suggestions!

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• This interview has made me, dare I say, want to try running... [Burnt Toast]
• An intro to Googie architecture. [Curbed]
• Buying a house sucks. [The Deleted Scenes]
• Beach sandwiches. [What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking]
• Learning from a landscape photographer. [Peta Pixel]
• Looking at the long history of queerness. [Tara Austen Weaver]
• Hair math. [Slate]
• Cars make cities loud. [The Deleted Scenes]
• Restoring Notre Dame by hand. [NPR]
• "[T]he 'beer test' is a deranged rubric with which to evaluate someone who wants to play quarterback with the nuclear football." [Men Yell at Me]

• The fruit of kings. [Gastropod]
• One town's big impact on the world of economics. [Planet Money]
• How to identify AI creations. [Life Kit]
• A charming story about the sounds of Mexico City. [99% Invisible] 

• I probably wouldn't have put on Air if it weren't for the cast. This move talks about the creation of Nike's Air Jordan sneaker line. I learned a bit about both shoe marketing and basketball. While the film is, overall, well done, it lingered too long on all the nostalgic items from the 1980s. To quote my husband, "This movie was an homage to the 80s in search of a plot." The Nike story was just the narrative on which to frame a love of the music and physical stuff of the shoulder pad era. [Amazon Prime]
• As a D&D player, I had to see the new movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. I went in with zero expectations which is probably why I enjoyed the movie as much as I did. It's a fantasy romp with a highly targeted audience in mind. It really didn't matter what the plot was - you're supposed to be in it to find the jokes that only D&D fans would pick up on.  As much as I love Chris -Pine, he is overshadowed by both Hugh Grant in a scene stealing villain turn and Rege-Jean Page as an absurdly charismatic lawful good hero. [Amazon Prime]
• Pre-kid, the husband and I used to attend science lectures at the National Air and Space Museum. Since we can't quite do that any more, I'm glad my husband thought to put on Good Night Oppy. It scratched a science lecture itch I didn't know I had. This is a heartwarming look at the the amazing things the twin robots, Spirit and Opportunity, did on Mars. My one complaint is that the filmmakers don't explain or show how NASA overcame some the hurdles and problems about getting to and surviving on Mars. They basically say, "Our parachutes shredded in the testing! But we still landed successfully on Mars." I was missing the explanation of the fix.  [Amazon Prime]

• One of these days, I will get our kiddo to eat mushrooms. I did not manage to do it this week - even though I served them with something she adores. Sheet pan mixed mushroom gnocchi was a quick throw together dinner with fairly tasty results. I omitted the thyme and that was a bad decision. The dish would have benefited greatly from that flavor addition. [The Kitchn]
• Sheet pan kickin' curry honey mustard chicken and veggies was tasty but made WAY too much food. We ate our fill and still had a bounty of leftovers. I opted to cook the carrots and brussles sprouts separately and unsauced, but next time I'll mix everything together. [Ambitious Kitchen]