www.flatbushfarmshare.
com a partnership of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, Hunger Action Network, and Just Food
FLATBUSH FARM SHARE
NEWS
This week’s eats:
.5 lb. of snap peas
1 bunch of arugula
1 bunch of Japanese turnips
1 bunch of swiss chard
1 lb. summer squash
1 lb. zucchini
1 lb. of broccoli
Membership is officially
closed - at 147 shares!! We are
signing people to a waiting list. We are grate-
ful to have so many members!
Core group meeting at distri-
bution June 24! If you are interested
in becoming a part of the core group and
taking on a role in fund-raising, event plan-
ning, newsletter-writing,g planning,
p g outreach,
etc, please join us on June 24 at 7 pm at the
distribution site! We’ll be teaming people up to
share the load, and brainstorming about how
to make our farm share a great resource for the
community!
Submit your ‘What I made
last week’ to the newsletter!
If you happened upon a fab recipe for some-
thing that was in our box last week - We’d love
to hear. Send to info@flatbushfarmshare.com.
Last week’s fruit and egg
share-shortage will be remedied this
week with extra shares for those affected. We
apologize and are determined to work out any
kinks for a smooth distribution next week. The
sign up for Fruit and Eggs Shares is now closed
which should help get things on track.
Leah Gauthier’s ‘Sharecropper’ is Farming NYC!
1.4 / JUNE 24 2009
While
many of us are keeping our fingers crossed that Change comes to our food system, what will a
new food system actually look like? It’s going to take time to see new policies take effect, but in
the meantime it is exciting to find projects that fearlessly dig in, not only envisioning but creat-
ing new models for food production and exchange. Leah Gauthier is an artist who is interested
in vegetables for their material properties as well as their policy implications. She has an idea for
an alternative food system, and she is working parcel by parcel to make it happen. I interviewed
her about her project, Sharecropper, a NYC-based networked farm system which revives an old
system of agriculture as a starting point. Through Sharecropper, Leah will be growing food on
rooftops and windowsills borrowed from residents throughout the city – and finding out what
would happen with minimal inputs, zero rezoning, no special permits -- just using what’s al-
ready available. Based on the traditional agricultural form in which landowners receive a share
of the produce in exchange for a tenant’s use of the land, Sharecropper imagines a food system
in which underutilized spaces within the city would be made productive, and people without
property could work the land and share the produce.
Instead of renting farmland, your Sharecropper networked farm system takes advantage of under-
utilized spaces in the city for food production. How does your new system work by comparison to the
traditional form? I am stitching together a micro farm for one growing season, from parcels of
donated land or growing spaces, located in assorted environments in each of the five bor-
roughs around the city. Working under a traditional sharecropper agreement, rent will be paid
with a portion of my harvest, and the balance shared with local soup kitchens. I will be using
organic growing methods, planting heirloom vegetables and herbs, and cultivating wild edibles.
This work explores agricultural plant matter and wild edibles as sculptural material, commu-
nity building through growing and cooking food, re-imagining systems of land use and ways
of re-incorporating agrarian sensibilities and simplicity into modern life.
Can you explain what you mean
by “re-imagining systems of land
use”? Food production has largely
been removed from the sub/ur-
ban landscape. Farmland is for
crops, while parks and yards are
for grass, trees and ornamental
vegetation. Rooftops, patios and
vacant lots are overlooked, but
why can’t these spaces be mul-
tipurpose? Why don’t we grow
food in our community parks or
in our front lawns? Food plants
can be a beautiful addition to the
landscape. Sharecropper addresses
last week’s share! courtesy of Amy Dreher
challenges in our current food
system directly and playfully. But our food situation is just a symptom of much deeper issues
governing our relationships with each other and with nature, stemming from our failure to
recognize and honor the interconnectedness of all things.
What led you to this project? I have been working with heirloom vegetable plants as sculpture
and performative material for a number of years now. Art fans helped me harvest Lettuce at
Tufts University Art Gallery, Tomatoes replaced the front lawn of Acre Family Day care, I
grew Melon at the Dedordova Museum and Sculpture Park, hung Cabbage seedlings from the
window at .000010 Gallery Space for Windows Brooklyn, and have been tending the nearly
extinct Marshall Strawberry towards a significant planting in 2010. It was time to put all of
this accumulated knowledge to work on a much larger community undertaking. And I’m not
a property owner. In all of these instances, I started all of the seeds at home, but “borrowed”
Beet Green Gratin
what FFS member David Rogge made last week! (from foodnetwork.com)
1 tablespoon butter
12 ounces sliced mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound beet greens, cleaned and picked
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
4 egg yolks, beaten
1 cups ricotta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup crumbled crackers (ie Ritz crackers, but organic!)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the mushrooms and garlic
and sweat. Add the beet greens and mix well. Remove pan from
heat. Season with salt and pepper.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, ricotta, Parmesan
cheese, and salt. Combine everything and put into a lightly oiled
9 by 11-inch baking dish. Top with the crumbled crackers and
bake for 30 minutes covered. Uncover and bake for an additional
15 minutes.
Brunch in Brooklyn - Farm Share Style
submitted by FFS member Matt McMahon
Save a few eggs for the weekend. I know, I love eggs too, but your half
share could make for a great brunch if you resist the temptation to
throw a fried egg on your veggie burger on Wednesday night and you
stick to that Oatmeal ’n’ berries-in-the-morning you’re always going
to start sticking to tomorrow—today. It’s really simple and really
quick. Otherwise, how would I have had time to write this?
For breakfast, and other meals, it is important to get all the food ready
in a timely manner. That doesn’t mean quickly necessarily, but it
does mean making the food in the right order to get it all out hot at
the same time. So, for this recipe, I suggest doing everything to get
the food ready to cook (chopping, cracking, boiling, oil heating) first.
Then, do all the cooking (poaching, toasting, sautéing) at once because
they all take about the same amount of time.
Eggs Olive Oil
Bread Crushed red pepper flakes
Butter (optional) Black pepper
Greens Salt
Poach two eggs (If you can actually get the whirlpool going
and get the egg to sit down nicely in the center of your stove top
perfect storm, more power to you. For the rest of us, trying it and
pretending can be fun. So is realizing that the egg poaches either
way.)
Toast Bread w/ butter. Saute greens in butter or olive oil w/ black
pepper, crushed red-pepper flakes.. Possible additions: Garlic and
Onions, Summer Squash, Salsa, or All of the Above.
Put down the toast. Put the greens on top of the toast. Put the
eggs on top of the greens on top of the toast. Enjoy!
Sugar Snap Peas
this one got great reviews on allrecipes.com
1/2 lb sugar snap peas 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 Tbsp olive oil kosher salt to taste
1 Tbsp chopped shallots
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Spread sugar
snap peas in a single layer on a medium baking sheet, and
brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with shallots, thyme, and kosher
salt. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, until tender
but firm.
(cont.) other people’s spaces to grow the food. After a good deal of
research, I decided a re-imagined, updated, smart, and fair version of
sharecropping would be an interesting place to begin.
You’re currently living in Indiana. Why did you decide to locate the project in
NYC? Because if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere! It is the
most challenging space - the largest urban area in the most consumptive
country on earth.
What property has been hardest to acquire? The public spaces, because they
are more visible and subject to city ordinances or committee approvals. I
consider every space a miracle, because in most cases donors are perfect
strangers. Of course after 3 months of growing food together, we’ll be
a lot closer...and that’s the point too.
I have big dreams, but keep reminding myself how intense gardening is.
Giving someone a garden to tend is like making a gift of a puppy. Pup-
pies are adorable but require constant care. So rather than going after
folks, I’ve let them come to me, organically and serendipitously. Their
initiative is a good indicator of a high level of interest, which will be
critical as the project progresses.
How many pounds of produce do you think you can generate, piecing together
garden space? Urban gardening is challenging, and farming is an art of
deep knowledge of space, which happens over time. Since this is my first
attempt here, I suspect some things will fail. But fortunately there is a
thriving gardening community in NYC, and I plan to consult with those
more knowledgeable than myself. It’s what I love about doing relational
art, the moment when “mine” becomes “ours”. That shift in ownership is
an important part of this work.
Do you think NYC could produce a significant amount of food within city lim-
its? Do you imagine a similar management structure -- where land is borrowed
for production? There is potential in NYC, at the very least for folks
to make a healthy contribution to the food supply and reconnect with
growing things. And, yes, I see amazing potential in borrowed land. Ac-
cording to their website, The Dervaes family, urban homesteaders, grow
over 6000 pounds (3 tons) of fresh produce annually on their 1/10 acre
yard--enough food to feed themselves and earn a living. An amazing ex-
ample of what’s possible with ingenuity and hard work. They certainly
have succeeded in circumventing big agriculture.
Can people still participate for 2009? Yes! I still need a lot of help. Folks
can donate time, funds, gardening supplies. I need volunteers to help
plant and tend the gardens, artists and experts willing to present
during workshops, cooks, photographers, and videographers. Folks
can reach me at sharecropperart@yahoo.com, or see the website at
http://leahgauthier.com/sharecropper/.
Contributed by FFS member Amy Seek.