I’ve been shopping at Verrill Farm since I moved up to Boston from Connecticut over ten years ago. I used to work in Concord, so it was easy for me to slip over to their farmstand for corn or tomatoes. It’s a little more difficult for me to get over there now that I’m farther north, but it’s always a pleasure to go there. They had what seemed like dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes each August. Even my son has always loved it here, the kid who whines at nearly every food place I visit. We have dozens of snapshots taken through the years of him playing on the wooden tractor next to the farmstand. Last year, I wrote a story for the Boston Globe about a small pasture-raised chicken operation being run by the Verrill’s farm manager and his wife. You can’t live in the northwest suburbs and not know Verrill Farm.

I was horrified when I learned the Verrill’s farmstand burned down last weekend. Today, this was forwarded to me from the Massachusetts Farm and Market Report. Normally I don’t blog press releases, but I’m making an exception:

A Note From Steve Verrill of Verrill Farm, Concord:

We want to thank everyone in this community and beyond for the over whelming support after our devastating fire at the farm stand on last Saturday, September 20. Fortunately, the fields were untouched. We are harvesting our crops daily and will be selling corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, mums and more from our wagon and tents along Wheeler Road from 9 am – 6 pm every day. In addition, a temporary building has been put up here. Although the selection will be smaller than at the farm stand, you will find familiar items including our own baked goods, produce and other items. Many of you have asked how you can help. One important way is to shop at our temporary stand which supports both the farm and our employees. And, for those of you who would like to contribute to the rebuilding of the stand, we have set up a special account, the Verrill Farm stand Fund, at the Middlesex Savings Bank, 1208 Main Street, West Concord, MA 01742,  Steve Verrill.

Opportunities to Support Verrill Farm:    http://www.verrillfarm.com/fundraising.html
Fund Raising Events

Thanks to all of you who are planning benefits for the Verrill Farm stand Fund. Events will be posted here as we learn about them. We appreciate your thoughtful support.

Saturday, October 4
Acton Oktobertfest
The Acton Farmers Market group is setting up a raffle at the Oktoberfest. Proceeds will go to the Farm stand Fund.

Sunday, October 5th from noon – 3pm
The Old Manse on Monument Street
Farmers Market: A cooperative effort of over a dozen local farms. Proceeds will be donated to the Farm stand Fund.

Sunday, October 19, 2 – 5 pm
Main Street Market & Cafe
Musical group Two for the Show, which regularly performs at Verrill Farm events, is arranging a benefit of musicians. Proceeds will go to the Farm stand Fund.

Loweco Polar Fleece Clothing
Betsy Lowe of Loweco will donate some of the proceeds from her December Barn Boutique Show to the Farm stand Fund.

Verrill Farm is operated as a partnership between Stephen and Joan Verrill and daughter Jennifer Verrill Faddoul. Our farm consists of about 200 acres in Concord and Sudbury. One hundred acres are prime farmland and 100 acres are wildlife habitats, woodlands, and wetlands. Steve’s father and mother moved to Concord in 1918 and started a successful dairy business. In 1957, upon graduation from Cornell University, Steve assumed operation of the farm. In 1982, after years of planning and negotiations, about 200 acres were placed under an Agricultural Preservation Restriction, thus preventing development of this land. This long term commitment gave sharper focus to our agricultural enterprises.

In 1990, the dairy herd was sold and plans began to replace the existing tent retail space with a new farm stand, which was built in 1995. Our location at 11 Wheeler Rd. in Concord now includes retail space for produce, specialty foods and gifts, and a large kitchen/bakery providing high quality baked goods, entrees, homemade soups, and salads.

***

So if there was ever a reason to go out of my way to shop at Verrill’s, this is it. They’ll be seeing more of me this fall.

Earlier this year I did a week-long blog at eGullet. Unfortunately I was scheduled to blog in January … not a lot of fun when you live outside Boston and there’s not a farmers’ market scheduled for months. But I think I did okay.

I overheard my husband comment to my son about my cookbook collection. I believe the phrase “too many” was used. Sacrilege! There is no such thing as too many cookbooks.

This weekend I pawed through a few of them, and it’s sad to say but out of the (ahem) several hundred I have, I cook from 20 of them, tops. The rest just kind of sit there, gathering dust.

Most of them are wonderful books, don’t get me wrong. I bought them with the full intention of using them, but for one reason or another, didn’t get around to it. Or I cooked a thing or two and moved on.

I was thinking for the blog it might be a good idea to pick a book and cook a minimum of five recipes from it. If things don’t work out, then off to the library book sale it goes.

Right now, I’m leaning toward Debra’s Natural Gourmet Cookbook. Debra’s Natural Gourmet is actually a nearby market in West Concord, MA, that I frequent. It always smells so yummy in there, so of course when I saw they had I cookbook, I snapped it up. Unfortunately, I’ve never cooked from it, but that’s about to change. Flipping through it over the weekend I saw dozens of recipes that looked really good, as well as healthy. (I’m back on my triathlon training diet!)

The Boston Globe ran a story on my CSA in last week’s food section. Check it out!

Indeed, our CSA newsletter prints many recipes of Mike’s, and they’re all damn good.

After finishing work at 4, I got The Oyster in the car and rushed to Lexington in time for the Lexington Farmers Market, which runs from 2 till 6. I was very keen to get my mitts on some goat cheese, which tends to sell out early.

We were wandering around the market by 4:45 and lucky for me, Crystal Brook Farm hadn’t sold out of their chevre rolled in cracked black pepper. It’s heavenly (I’m eating it right now with hazelnut crackers) — lots of pepper, and you can practicaly taste the sweet grass the goats nibbled on. Double lucky for me: no one else in this household likes goat cheese, so it’s mine. Mine, all mine.

The other stuff in the photo: I picked up the red tomatoes and blueberries from the Charlton Orchards Farm table, and the honey is from Niemi’s Apiary in Athol, MA. As much as I wanted it, the fresh mozzarella I had to pass on — my cheese drawer is overflowing. I also wanted to get some grass-fed aged beef from River Rock Farm, but by then I was running out of both cash and checks, so we passed by. Instead I used my last $2 to buy The Oyster a fat brownie from the Hi-Rise Bakery table. (Oy, the prices they charge for breads I make for many dollars less! But they do have very good bread.)

On the way back home, we stopped at Verrill Farm in Concord. The Oyster was quite happy to head to Verrill’s because they have a pretend tractor he likes to drive. This is where I got the yellow tomatoes, the quart of red potatoes plus the lone spud, the corn (we shucked it ourselves at the stand), and the bag of baby spinach. Then it was a quick stop at my favorite Indian market, Kolava Market in Westford, for the chick pea puffs and homemade yogurt. These two ingredients I needed for a raita my friend Sonika served for lunch a few weeks back. It was very yummy!

So, how will I use these ingredients? The corn we ate for dinner tonight, and I used a yellow and a red tomato for a salad caprese. I’ll have the remaining two tomatoes for lunch tomorrow, the blueberries for breakfast, and roast the red potatoes for dinner. The baby spinach and lone spud are for my Babe challenge, which I hope to complete tomorrow. And the honey is for our stash.

Hope this isn’t boring y’all. I just post this stuff because I’m nosy and curious why people buy what they do and how they plan to use their ingredients.

A peek at some of the yummy vegetables I picked up at an organic farm down in Lincoln, Massachusetts. On top, some small onions, then down to the right about a pound of small potatoes. The ferny things you see at the far right are two fennel bulbs, along with stalks and fronds. Then to the bottom left, some beautiful okra, which is extremely hard to grow in the northeast. They also had some pretty purple okra, which I’ve never seen before.

The okra will be used for a seafood gumbo I’m making in a couple weeks; the fennel went into a pasta salad for Sunday lunch (photo forthcoming).

This recipe came from Boston chef Michael Schlow’s new cookbook, It’s About Time. Actually I don’t own the book, but saw this recipe described in a newsletter and tracked it down. It’s supposed to me served with reductions of carrot and white truffles. Instead, I deglazed the pan with lemon juice, which is why you see all that slop around the fish.

I enjoyed this, but DH didn’t like the potato crust. He said the thyme tasted “burned.” Next time I’ll probably add some chili powder to the potato crust.

I’ve lived in the Boston area for going on ten years, and I’m ashamed to admit — this was my first visit to the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Highlands, although I’d heard about it for years. It’s basically a nondescript wooden warehouse filled with new and remaindered books. Huge. As in I didn’t even have time to explore vast sections of this place.

Why I went today: it was kind of a gray, ugly day. We’d woken up late, and as I was languidly surfing through the Jessica’s Biscuit web site, I found out the Book Fair was affiliated. Why, thought I, they must have cookbooks! So off we went. (I was heartened when, upon leaving, I told DH where we were going and he replied rather brightly, “Oh, good!” I immediately translated that into, “Buy as many cookbooks as you like.”)

Oliver’s a smart kid, so the minute he stepped into the place and smelled paper, he started whining. But then we found some little stepstools, and he amused himself by pretending he was a clerk, describing the books for imaginary customers. (“All the books are different. This book has a picture of a banana. Would you like a banana book? It’s down aisle 5-2.”)

I was good. Very good. I had picked out ten books, but I narrowed it down to six by the time we hit the register. Two were 20 percent of list price; the others were 50 to 70 percent off. Everything currently out and “hot” was 40 percent off — like the Foster’s Market Cookbook and mammoth Gourmet Cookbook. What I purchased:

*Edna Lewis’s Taste of Country Cooking, to feed my southern/soul food cookbook addiction;

*The Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook by Diane Roupe, containing over 1,000 recipes for good ol’ American cooking, some recipes of which are state fair blue ribbon winners;

*Lindy Wildsmith’s Preserves, an import from the U.K. with recipes for things like shrubs and limoncello. Could not pass up;

*Iced Tea by Fred Thompson. Purely market research for my own book proposal on summer drinks. Besides, it was only $5.98;

*And last, the prize: A copy of Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno’s Bread. Many reasons why I simply had to possess this book. First off, Treuille’s affiliated with one of my favorite bookshops in the world, Books for Cooks, located in London. I also see the book referred to a lot by other food writers. And it’s a Dorling-Kindersley book, which means lots of lovely pictures to slobber over.

That’s five books, not six. Right. I ended up not buying one at the register when they had to look up the price — it was $19, but considering they’d rung up everything else and I was having severe sticker shock, I passed. Such admirable self restraint.

Right now, I have a starter going on the table for the ciabatta recipe. I am determined this fall to bake the perfect ciabatta loaf. I think with this book for reference, I’m off to a good start.

My only criticism of the bookshop: the books are filed by title, not author’s last name. I was trying to find books by Jane Grigson, for example, so I’d have to go over to the veggie section, then back to International/British, then poke around the general area. Then I couldn’t remember the name of a book written by French jam-maker Christine Ferber, so again, more fruitless looking.

I’m already having fantasies about dropping Oliver off at school in September and heading down there with my credit card ….