The Secret Ingredient: Chestnut Farms

This post is a bit unusual, but I'm so excited to share my discovery of 2014 that I decided to dedicate an entire post to it.

This winter, we decided to sign up for a livestock share at a place called Chestnut Farms.  In other words, a CSA for meat.

Photo from Chestnut Farms. 

We've been struggling with eating meat for a while.  The ethics of it, the health of it, and above all, factory farming.

So last year, we went vegetarian (hence why most of my early posts are veggie).  Now, vegetables are my primary go-to anyway, so I didn't think that it would be too bad - and it wasn't.  Made a lot of delicious dishes that I might never have tried otherwise.  Not to mention - cooking meat kinda scared me.  I just didn't even know how to go about it.

But after a year, I wasn't feeling great.  I just wasn't digging all of the carbs that I wound up eating.  And we were being pretty good at not eating pasta all the time - but still, in order to eat meals that were hearty enough, all of these great veggie dishes wound up over rice or some other carb.

So we decided to eat meat again, but wanted to find a sustainable, non-factory farm way to do so.

Enter Chestnut Farms.  Again, all credit needs to go to the fiance for doing the research and finding it.

Photo from Chestnut Farms.  Yes, the chickens live on a school bus.

Chestnut Farms was started by a woman named Kim - how kickass is that.  And if this isn't a great story, I don't know what is:

"In 1997, Kim purchased a 106 acre abandoned dairy farm in the beautiful community of Hardwick, MA. She was a single mother with two young daughters and a lifelong dream of being a farmer. Literally, the day she closed on the property, an old but beautiful barn on the property collapsed.

Fortunately, a young builder who specialized in quality crafted furniture from recycled wood (especially chestnut) was demonstrating his craft at the Big E that year and a local television station needed a place to interview him. Rich thought of the barn in his hometown and knew there was a new owner. He connected with Kim, the interview took place. The Big E ended, but Kim and Rich had just begun. They were married in the spring of 1998."

Who would ever think that I'd know the life story of my farmer?

Photo from Chestnut Farms

Let me tell you - this CSA is the best thing ever.  At the beginning of each month, we get 10 pounds of an incredible variety of meat, flash-frozen so we can just stick it in the freezer and use it as we want to.  Nothing like those horror stories about CSA's that you hear where people get 10 pounds of cauliflower and have to cook it all right away.  And this farm is the kind of place where animals are treated humanely, and they even encourage you to come visit (which we're going to do this summer!).

Photo from Chestnut Farms

And the meat that we've gotten has been out of this world.  I never knew that chicken could taste so good.  I was skeptical to see if there would be a difference in taste, but it's extremely apparent.

So Fig + Rose is about to take a turn towards meat-based dishes.  Don't worry, there will still be plenty of veggies.  But the new recipes that I've been trying have all turned out to be delicious.  Get ready.