picking okra

Have you ever eaten okra? It's really quite good. We tried one raw standing in the field at Geraldson's farm yesterday, upon the recommendation of a fellow picker! We never had it raw before- it was similar to celery. I just learned that outside of the United States okra is often called lady's fingers.

When the farm hands told us that part of our share this week would be U-Pick okra in field #4, I had no idea that the okra could be spotted by it's gorgeous flowers! I could not choose one photo; I simply could not! So I brought 3 photos into Photoshop and created a panorama picture. You really must look at this LARGE - I do not think this smaller photo will do the flowers justice!

This is part of our "half share" (bi-weekly pick up) in Geraldson's Community Farm. Last night we had salmon with turnips (from the farm) casserole -an easy Julia Child recipe my mom gave me guaranteed to please anyone, steamed swiss chard & beet greens (farm) plus steven's famous homemade mashed potatoes made with soy milk! All delish! And we still have the okra, green bush beans we picked ourselves, a huge head of fresh leaf lettuce, baby sun gold tomatoes, the actual beets, 2 green peppers, a couple of jalapenos (I won't be eating those -steven choose them!) an eggplant, 2 daikon radishes, some red kale and a sugar dumpling squash!!! I don't think we'll need anything more untill our next pick-up - some families have a weekly share. It is all good and worth the money we invested in the farm before the season started. Plus it is fun to go there and I also got fresh flowers and lemon basil! I will take you here again . . . .