One of the best things about writing this column is that I get to meet people who are passionate about food and their relationship to it.
This passion is in full force in Abby Ferla, the owner and manager of Foxtrot Farm on Baptist Corner Road in Ashfield.
Foxtrot is a four-acre, no-till organic farm that specializes in fresh and dried botanical herbs. It also offers what Ferla calls “a healing and climate-resilient foods CSA” (Community-Supported Agriculture subscription).
I asked Ferla whether she had always farmed. She laughed. “I didn’t grow up on a farm,” she informed me. “I grew up in the suburbs.”
In college, she thought she wanted to be a reporter. A year in journalism changed her mind.
“I went and apprenticed on an organic farm and fell in love with the work,” she recalled.
After working at farms around the country, she moved to Ashfield, where her family has owned the land on which Foxtrot sits for a century.
“I thought, ‘The last thing this area needs is another small-scale organic vegetable farmer,’” she recalled. “I had a friend who was an herbalist. I learned that most of the botanicals that people use in the U.S. are actually imported from China, India and Bulgaria.”
She discovered that there was a demand for “high-quality, U.S.A.-grown herbs,” she added. She decided to become one of the sources for those herbs.
The farm is in its sixth season. After the first couple of years, Ferla told me, she found that she missed growing vegetables. “My heart is in the kitchen,” she confessed.
So Ferla started her CSA program. She described it as a place “where healing and health and cooking and play come together.”
Each of her shares revolves around a do-it-yourself kit, she explained. She sees this as a way to “build a bit of community” since everyone works on the same project.
Many projects are a little daunting without the kit, like making kimchee, she noted.
“If somebody gives you a little box with everything you need and the recipe (sometimes I offer a class along with the kit!), suddenly it becomes way easier to carve out an hour,” she said. She clearly thrives on the educational aspect of her work. Her shares include a biweekly newsletter packed with information.
Growing many products that can be dried or frozen lengthens the time of year during which Foxtrot Farm can offer CSA shares.
It is currently (until September 19) accepting pre-orders for a November-December share that includes “all kinds of pantry-stocking goodies including dried herbs and teas, heirloom winter squash, flint corn, root veggies and fresh greens,” according to Ferla.
In addition, in the coming months Foxtrot will sell products through the Hilltown Mobile Market, at holiday and seasonal fairs and festivals, and in retail shops and co-ops.
Ferla is proud of the work she does along with her “two amazing crew members, Ced Clearwater and Olive Malone.”
She is also excited about the climate-smart grant Foxtrot received this past spring. It enabled her and her colleagues to plant three and a half acres of European elderberry plants.
The plants are suited to Foxtrot’s soil and climate. And they have a variety of medicinal uses, including as a cold-and-flu remedy.
Ferla hasn’t quite figured out exactly what products she will make with the berries; she may sell some frozen. The plants take a while to mature, however. “We have three years to think about it,” she said with a smile.
Talking with Ferla made me want to dry more herbs than I usually do in the fall. “If we’re thinking from a food security and climate resilient perspective,” she said, “most of our ancestors would have used dried herbs as source of nutrition in the winter … As cooks, we use dried herbs and spices. We don’t just do this for flavor uses. There are lots of ways that the culinary herbs and spices help our body.”
I told her that I hadn’t thought of my dried herbs and spices that way; as a cook, I had mainly considered flavor. She kindly suggested that maybe my taste buds were working with my intuition to let me know what my body needed.
When I asked for a recipe, Ferla decided to make herbal shortbread. She informed me that she prefers to use only one herb at a time to make the shortbread but added that mixing herbs was an option.
The recipe is for gluten-free shortbread, but Ferla indicated that readers are welcome to substitute white or whole-wheat flour for the rice version; in that case, they should omit the xantham gum.
“Many different dried herbs work here,” Ferla said. “But, generally speaking, you want something aromatic or pungent, as these [herbs] pair well with the richness of the butter. My favorites are sage, rosemary, lavender, tulsi basil, lemon balm and anise hyssop.”
“These herbs are considered digestive herbs, making them a great after-dinner treat. To further process dried herbs, you can use a food processor to chop, pulsing for 2 to 3 seconds until they are finely chopped but not quite a powder.”
Ingredients:
14 tablespoons (2 sticks minus 2 tablespoons) butter at room temperature
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (to taste)
1 cup white-rice flour
1-1/3 cups brown-rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca or corn starch
1/4 teaspoon xantham gum
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) finely processed dried herbs or 1/4 cup finely minced fresh herbs
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using a stand mixer or by hand, cream the butter and sugar together. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar combination while mixing at low speed.
On a separate sheet of parchment paper, gently roll the cooking dough into a log that is 2 inches in diameter. Wrap it in the parchment paper, and chill it for 30 minutes.
Remove the dough log from the fridge and use a bread knife to slice it into quarter-inch-thick rounds. Place the rounds on the cookie sheet at least 1-1/2 inches apart; they will expand as they bake.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the shortbreads are golden brown at the edges. Let them cool before handling them. They will firm up as they cool. Serve with tea. Makes 2 dozen cookies.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning author and singer. Her next book will be “Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.