Fruits of Labor

With enough pepper, eggplant and tomato plants to supply the island of Corsica with produce for a year, we are awfully busy in the fields plucking fruit, tossing it into baskets, and hauling it on our shoulders up to the trucks. Among other things, we are turning about 600 pounds of tomatoes into sauce — every other day. We then freeze much of the sauce for use through Colorado’s long cold season. In addition to making it onto restaurant dishes, some of the peppers — namely the jalapenos — get sliced, tossed into food-grade buckets, and fermented. We use them extensively at Bramble. Eggplants? We heave the purple footballs into chile roasters and blister them righteously. The meat then gets used in dishes like baba ganoush throughout the year. And of course all of the above are used fresh in the restaurants every day until frost strikes and their harvest concludes for the year.

From-the-field baby corn (as opposed to the pickled baby corn you last tasted in that take-out kung pao chicken) is a thing of extravagant flavor. The original candy corn. You eat it whole, cob and all.
From-the-field baby corn (as opposed to the pickled baby corn you last tasted in that take-out kung pao chicken) is a thing of extravagant flavor. The original candy corn. You eat it whole, cob and all.

The rest of the farm is thick with vegetable abundance now as well — greens, basil, cucumbers, broccoli, corn. Some legume bushes have been yanked from the ground and assembled into piles — the beans dry in their pods, and when we are done with much of the harvesting in the fields we turn to the piles of dried beans and separate the gorgeous little spheres of deliciousness from the brittle, brown jackets that keep them together in lined-up groups.

Black chickpeas, called kala chana in India, are a thing of wonder — black on the outside, white inside. Nature's Oreos. We use them in a variety of dishes in both restaurants year-round. Here, the pea bushes have been pulled and piled. They will sit, while the beans dry. Eventually, we separate the beans from the pods.
Black chickpeas, called kala chana in India, are a thing of wonder — black on the outside, white inside. Nature’s Oreos. We use them in a variety of dishes in both restaurants year-round. Here, the pea bushes have been pulled and piled. They will sit, while the beans dry. Eventually, we separate the beans from the pods.
A close-up of some black chickpeas.
A close-up of some black chickpeas.

Meanwhile, we are plowing fields and seeding them, to give us green life in the restaurants through the winter.

Mary-Frances Heck, the author of the upcoming cookbook "Sweet Potatoes: Roasted, Loaded, Fried and Made Into Pie," checking out the Belgian endive field (and laughing) with Eric.
Mary-Frances Heck, the author of the upcoming cookbook “Sweet Potatoes: Roasted, Loaded, Fried and Made Into Pie,” checking out the Belgian endive field (and laughing) with Eric.

We come armed with mountains of fresh vegetables and more at Saturday’s market. We hope to see you there!

  • Lettuce mix
  • Arugula
  • Tat soi
  • Purple tat soi
  • Mizuna
  • Osaka purple
  • Ruby streak mizuna
  • Red Russian kale
  • Sen posai Asian collards
  • Purslane
  • Genovese basil
  • Corn
  • Broccoli
  • Summer squash
  • Shishito peppers
  • Anaheim peppers
  • Banana peppers
  • Jalapeños
  • Pole beans
  • Tomatoes
  • Eggplant
  • Tomatillos
  • Cucumbers
  • Lemon cucumbers
  • Whole wheat flour
  • Polenta flour
  • Farro
  • Pork cuts

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