Veg Box Newsletter 8th March: The Art of Artichokes

Headlines

Covid-19

You can read about changes made to our service due to the pandemic here

Send me your recipes!

If you’ve got a recipe you can’t stop cooking, something that makes the most of the season’s plenty, please send it to me at saoirse@glasgowlocavore.org. It might be featured in the newsletter, and you’ll get a bit of credit on your veg box account to say thanks if it is!

Veg Box Price Increase

From 15th March, the price of all our veg boxes will be increasing by £2- so a small veg box will be £7, a standard £12, a large £17, and an XL £22. This is because what we charge for each veg box relates directly to what we’re able to buy for each box, and between inflation and the recent pressures on the food system, we found we needed more buying power for the boxes. After the change, we will be better placed to weather these storms, and to keep the boxes full. The change will mean we’re able to include more produce, and a wider variety, than we would otherwise have been able to.

Please return your veg box!

Just a reminder of what we collect from your door each week: 

Veg Boxes– we reuse these
Mossgiel Milk bottles – we return these to the dairy for reuse
Ed’s Bees jars – we return these to Ed (and his bees) for reuse
Plastic bottle lids – we recycle these
Plant pots from Locavore potted herbs- our farm reuses these
Locavore hummus Vegware pots – we return these to vegware to be biodegraded
Ella’s Kitchen baby food pouches – we recycle these

We aren’t able to accept glass bottles, egg boxes, or any other items for recycling, I’m afraid. Please dispose of these as you choose. 

If you collect your orders from the shop, you can return them there. 

We’re running low on veg boxes at the moment, so please do remember to leave them out- reusing them as many times as possible helps keep our veg box scheme as carbon-efficient as possible! 

In the Veg Boxes This Week

Subject to last minute changes

Check out storage guidance for helpful tips and tricks on how to prolong the life of your fresh produce. If you’re wondering where your veg comes from, have a look at these maps. You can also join your fellow subscribers over in the Facebook group for lots of tips, tricks, and recipe ideas!

To contact us, ring 0141 378 1672 or email us at subscribers@glasgowlocavore.org

Click here for Veg Box Contents

The Nice Bit

This week’s small boxes have that underrated veg box classic, the jerusalem artichoke. This knobbly little tuber couldn’t be less accurately named, as it’s neither an artichoke nor from the middle east. Instead, it’s likely that the jerusalem part of the name is a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning sunflower, since the flower that produces the lovely veg both resembles and is closely related to the sunflowers we’ll have from our florists in a few short months.

I like that very much, since sunflowers are by far my favourite flowers. When sipping creamy, faintly-artichokey (as the other part of the name comes from the taste being similar) soup, I can think of bright yellow petals, too.

Soup is, as is so often true, a wonderful place to start, but it is not the end. Nigel Slater (stamp your Bingo card now) suggests pairing your jerusalem artichokes with black pudding for a feast of a supper, or with chard and thinly-sliced, crisped, golden garlic. Roast with potatoes and lemon for caramelised edges and a delicious flavour. Or mash em with butter (leave the milk or cream out this time), or slice thinly and make them into a gratin, or top a pizza with them.

The Good Food Fund

During 2021 our customers funded the provision of around £30,000 worth of fresh fruit and veg to organisations working with some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, including food banks, and community cafes. Being able to provide this support, week in and week out, brings these services some level of stability of supply, and access to produce that often isn’t as easily available through other routes. 

One of our partners is Glasgow Nightshelter, who in 2020 moved to new premises meaning they have been able to expand from providing emergency overnight accommodation to a 24 hour service, and the support provided by the GFF supports the provision of freshly cooked and nutritious meals three times a day. 

We’re currently working on a short report to give more details about the money raised through customer donations and to show the difference your donations make, but you may be interested to read more in our 2020 Impact Report, published at the end of last year, which covers the GFF, but also how just by shopping with us you are supporting change in the food system. 

Jerusalem Artichokes” by Allispossible.org.uk is licensed under CC BY 2.0