Squirrel Belly: Fall Veggie Share Week #3 – 11/6/24

Squirrel Belly

The high winds of last week denuded the colorful trees in just a couple of days. That, coupled with daylight savings, has made it feel almost instantly hibernate-y out there. Everything is brown, tawny, straw-colored. Like the color just leached from our world.

This experience makes my squirrel belly tendencies kick into full throttle.

What is squirrel belly?  That is the season of the year where Farmer Cassie wants to make ALL the meals that still include the greens in existence. It’s the time of year where I know soon most things I eat will have to baked or roasted, and the fresh crunch of leafy greens will be a memory. So right now, I want to eat lentil bowls full of creamy yogurt sauce and arugula. I want to eat my favorite fall harvest brussels sprouts salad with sweet potatoes over and over. I want acorn squash ginger soup before the acorn is gone (the delicata already is!). I want spinach smoothies. I want to eat dozens of meals with kale. And all the stir fries with asian greens!

All of us are lucky to have SO MANY greens still available to us with this unseasonably warm fall.   A quick peek at records from seasons prior shows very few greens going in boxes this time of year. So yeah, I wanna keep eating them and eating them while they are here! Like acorns buried and lost by a distracted squirrel, my kitchen, phone, and office desk are littered with scratchy notes to make some meal or another. There’s NOT enough meals in the day to eat all the things I want to eat before they are gone.

Before it’s beets, carrots, potatoes, radishes, and homemade kimchi on repeat… I want to gobble all the meals! There’s still broccoli shoots in our fields! And bok choi! And tatsoi! And cilantro!

This little squirrel belly just wants to pack itself full before the real cold comes.

Thank you and enjoy your (ephemeral) veggies!