All that we do here in Black Cat World — farming, cooking, service — revolves around something we treasure: hospitality. We toil to make sure our actions on the farm are earth- and community-hospitable. We sell this food at the market, and we transform it into dishes on plates in the restaurants, to ease people’s lives — to offer welcoming respites from lifes challenges, and to meet life’s joys with open arms. We greet people with cheer, and work to make sure their experiences in our houses are the most hospitable patches of hours of their busy days.
Our Black Cat family looks forward to seeing you at the market and in the restaurants this weekend. We are eager to take care of our extended Boulder family.
This week Sydney and Sarah were busy in the fields harvesting many things, including rapini.
And spinach.
Look for chrysanthemum at the market. We grow it for its celery-like flavor. We won’t have celery from the farm on plates and in the market until later in the summer, but chrysanthemum, as well as lovage, provides lovely celery flavors to dishes until we get those sturdy stalks. Chicken salad with chrysanthemum? Chicken soup? Oh yes.
Our farm uses biodynamic principles to nurture soil health, which means, among other things, we incorporate animals rather deeply into our operation. They rid fields of weeds. They turn over soil by digging for things to eat. They fertilize. We also use lots of cover crops, and being thrifty, we don’t like planting cover crops that fail to serve dual purposes. So this year we have daikon radish and Austrian field peas. Both crops boost soil health, and both are positively delicious — look for them on restaurant plates and at the market. In addition, the radishes persuade pigs to dig deep in their hunt for food. Their work ferreting daikon radishes from the fields (after we are done using them in the restaurants) helps turn over the soil, without the need for a tractor.
Finally, the list! Look for all of this at the market in downtown Boulder on Saturday morning:
- Lettuce mix
- Tom Thumb
- Tat Soi
- Mizuna
- Osaka Purple
- Pea tendrils
- Spinach
- Arugula
- Cho Kara Rapini
- Chrysanthemum
- Sorrel
- Radish flowers
- Arugula flowers
- Mustard flowers
- Magenta turnips
- Cardoon
- Chinese broccoli
- Yellow mustard greens
- Scallions
- Leeks
- Leek scapes
- Farro
- Polenta
- Whole wheat flour
- Pork cuts
- Lovage and pale ale sausages
- Chorizo
- Breakfast sausage
- Head cheese
- Pork and beef chili
