Farming, on some days, can feel isolating: working out in a rural landscape, with fields so vast you have to use a radio to talk to your co-worker. It’s you, the plants, and the thousands of variables that affect those plants. Sometimes, this is nice. But sometimes, when the cold wind is stinging your nose, when the hole in your boots first presents itself in the form of wet socks, or when the afternoon sun is beating down and there are still 30 cases of beets to go… sometimes, farming is just plain exhausting. So why do we do it?

Well, we do it for you! Since the backyard days, the community that surrounds our farm and your demand for fresh, healthy produce, is the number one motivator in our agricultural endeavors. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and this special relationship is one we do not take for granted - it truly supports us: it pays our employees’ wages and finances big purchases like spring seeds, tractor parts, and mountains of compost. When we suddenly needed to buy a new delivery vehicle earlier this month to meet the increased demand for our boxes, it was the upfront payment for new CSA subscriptions that enabled the purchase of our new veggie-mobile. The men and women that make up our CSA community are as diverse as the vegetables we grow, and each and every member helps to form a web that supports our every move.

This week we’re shining a spotlight on just one of our beautiful CSA families - the Browns! Thank you to the Browns, as well as our entire web of CSA Members. We appreciate your partnership and cherish your patronage. We love planting, growing, picking, and delivering vegetables just for you. Hope you enjoy the veggies.

Without further ado, The Browns! Tucked away in the hills just northwest of central Austin live the Browns, a wonderfully down-to-earth family who have successfully incorporated the CSA program into their laid-back and homey kitchen since December of 2016, which we’re pretty sure pre-dates at least two of their kiddos. Since then, we’ve delivered 156 boxes (2,000+ pounds!) of produce straight from the farm to their doorstep, which is where I happily found myself a few weeks ago. The Browns were expecting Scott and I, so the funny sign adorning the front door didn’t deter me from giving a strong knock.



As soon as I entered the Brown’s household, I was greeted by a warm couple - Ilana and Ben. Reverberating from down the hall was the sound of a lively group of kiddos - Rosie (5), Lev (3), and Sam (6 months). Everyone was smiling, and Noa, the babysitter, was holding court in the playroom in a staged game of school for Rosie and an army of stuffed animals. I think Lev may have sort of been playing school, too. I quickly realized that the normal, focused and calm CSA interviews I was used to conducting wasn’t going to fit the scene - three kids under the age of 5 tend to direct their own scene. The Browns are a wonderful, laid-back, and lively bunch, and on the day I visited their home, I was there to observe, attempt to make some kiddos laugh, enjoy some old-doggo snuggles, and sneak in a question or two about their family’s experience with the CSA.



Ilana was born and raised in Israel, and some of the details in she and her husband, Ben’s, kitchen, as well as their generally laid-back approach to cooking, were consistent with the other Israeli kitchens I’ve spent time in. There were lots of bowls of fruit on the counter, along with a rogue toy or two, and a tupperware of nuts. I don’t have kids, but the plethora of easy-to-grab counter top snacks seemed advantageous- no sooner had we finished introductions than Lev (meaning “heart” in Hebrew) started announcing his hunger. He was swiftly given a peeled mandarin, then another. On the cabinet next to their cookbook collection, the Browns have a smattering of candid and posed family pictures, hung up with scotch tape and crinkling edges. It immediately made me wish I had more printed pictures in my kitchen because theirs is the kind of kitchen that exudes warmth. We easily settled in, leaned on counter tops, and laughed when Lev announced that “There’s a booger stuck in my nose!”, interrupting our conversation about seasonality.



Ilana and Ben met at a conference in New Jersey and were both surprised to meet each other at something so mundane as a work conference. Ben is a Houston native, and around 5 years ago, together with Ben’s doggo Sandy, they all moved to Austin where Ilana said, “life is just so good and easy.”

Who does the cooking? “We take turns,” Ben tells me, “Ilana does most of the vegetable cooking, and I might make chicken or fish. But she helps with the chicken dishes, also.”

Ilana agreed, “Yes, Ben does most of the meats and fish, but I kinda tackle the veggies. Part of the reason I chose to do the CSA was because it was a challenge. I get to know new things I wouldn’t normally. But to say we’re very adventurous would be a stretch. We mostly bake (roast) veggies in the oven.” Somehow we were managing to have a discussion about vegetables, but we quickly got sidetracked by Sam’s sudden bout of stranger-danger towards Scott, the JBG photographer that was along for the visit. Then Lev needed more snacks, and then there was a discussion about whether or not Sam needed a diaper change, and then a tangent about Sandy - the angelic and obviously old golden retriever that was slowly wagging at my feet. Multitasking is obviously a skill Ben and Ilana are practiced at, because while I was thinking about what it would be like to road trip with Sandy from New York to Austin, Ben suddenly got us back on track - “When the food’s that good, you don’t have to do much more than just roast it.”





Ilana: “Also, we have kids, so how much can we really do? The time just isn’t always there. We’re also working around a few food sensitivities, so we just try to keep the food very simple. We eat a lot of salads. Lots and lots of salads.” Ilana loves parsley and often puts a whole bunch in her salads- undoubtedly an influence from her experience growing up in the Middle East. When asked about her kids’ tolerance of JBG veggies, both Ben and Ilana chimed in that their kids, thankfully, aren’t super picky. “”We’re lucky - our kids love lentil soup and I can basically throw any vegetable in there - like the turnips.” Sam, the youngest just had his first introduction to solid foods (sweet potatoes - he wasn’t a fan), and in no time he’ll likely be eating lentil soup, too.



No matter how our members find their way to the farm, we're certainly glad they did. Ilana was introduced to the CSA through her membership at the JCC, which has been a JBG pickup location for over 10 years. When Lev (3) was born, the JCC offered a service where you could drop off your kiddo at a daycare for an hour or so to get in a quick workout at the community center’s gym. Thankfully for the farm, Ilana would most often find herself enjoying her hour of freedom reading a book in the center’s lobby… which is the drop location for our boxes each Thursday. “When I saw the boxes I just thought - this would be a good way to get more vegetables into our kitchen. And it did help! It actually, it really did help! Because there are all kinds of things, like kale, that I wouldn’t normally buy. Kale wasn’t really a big then where I grew up. I would never buy kale on my own. But now I have kale, and I just have to figure out something to to with kale.... But of course, especially with kale,  sometimes it just doesn’t happen, and the kale, and collards, go home with the babysitter, Noa, for her to enjoy. And Kohlrabi! This is never something I would have bought. There’s actually this Israeli kids’ song with kohlrabi in it (the word is the same in Hebrew and English), and even though I’d heard of kohlrabi, I’d never actually seen it or cooked it.”

Discussions of kids’ songs lead to the origin story of the piano that sat in the space between the living room and kitchen, though really it’s all just one big homey space. The piano was Ben's grandmothers, and he is the musician in the house. Though there was a dedicated playroom, several toys trickled into the living room, and you could imagine a really fun existence in this home. No one was that concerned about the play trail, and Ilana gracefully navigated Lev’s very specific opinions and feelings about how he wanted his mango to be peeled (or not peeled?).

The whole Brown gang - Rosie, Lev, Ilana, and Ben with Sam in tow, and even the babysitter, Noa, who seemed to be part-family, made their way outside. Sandy, the golden retriever, walked very slowly and everyone cheered her on. Scott and I followed and we finished up our visit with a family portrait session. We visited the Browns at the beginning of February and had plans to share this spotlight shortly thereafter. But of course, the world (and our blog schedule) got turned on its head.



We’re happy to say that the Browns are all doing well - spending lots of time at home, “with what is now the new normal… which also means a lot more home cooking. We’re loving your boxes even more :).” And with that, we love you even more, Browns, and all the CSA members and member families who are spending time in the kitchen with our vegetables. We hope you feel the love we are putting into each and every CSA share and we hope you are cooking up some delicious home cooked meals. Stay well!

Thank you, Browns, for letting us in to your home! We loved meeting you!