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The Year in Review

Supporting Local Farms Since the inception of our home delivery business in1999, we have always focused on purchasing our fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers first. Every week, I contact my farmer friends to find out what they currently have available that I can add to our boxes. If I need to find more produce, I then source it from farms outside our area. As your personal farmer, I really appreciate your dedication to the local farm community. With your box of good purchases this last year, you have blessed several local farm families:

Bartella Farm, Beld Family Farm, Blue Heron Farms, Bunny Lane Fruit, Camano Island Egg Company, Filaree Farms, Hedlund Farms, Motherflight Farms, Munks Farm, Paul & Janice Madden Orchards, Ponderosa Orchards, Ralph’s Greenhouse, Rents Due Ranch, Skagit Flats Farm, and of course, the Klesick Family Farm.

Helping Local People Another core principle at Klesick Family Farm is to give back to our community. One of the ways we do this is by offering our customers the opportunity to donate a box of good to a local area food bank (Stanwood/Camano, Everett, Marysville, Monroe, Snohomish, Edmonds). For every four boxes donated by our customers, we donate an additional box. This year, with the generous support of our customers, Klesick Family Farm delivered over 808 boxes of good (approximately $19,950 worth of quality organic fruits and vegetables) to local area food banks! There is no way our farm could meet this need without your help. This is one of the most satisfying aspects of our business. I love meeting local needs with local resources! Thank you for partnering with us to meet this local need.

If you would like to join us in helping provide quality organic produce to local food banks, either give us a call or order a food bank box under the Boxes category of the Product page of our website.

Thank you for a great 2011! We look forward to next year!

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Second Annual Klesick Family Farm Dinner Party

From Farm to Fork: A Celebration of Real Food

In August we host our family farm festival and now we are hosting an elegant evening to connect in an adult-only venue.

Joelle and I are so excited to host our customers, farmers, and KFF team members for an incredible evening of great organic conversation and organic and non-GMO culinary masterpieces prepared by Chef Larry Fontaine.

This year we are having appetizers, a four-course meal with your choice of garlic roasted wild crab and shrimp or a vegetarian stuffed portabella. Last year, it was buffet style, but this year we are having it part family-style and individually served. Check out our Facebook page for all the details.

We are also going to have a panel of farmers so that each of you can get to know the other growers who make our boxes of good taste so incredible!
Sign up early! This is going to be an amazing evening.

Location: Edward D. Hansen Conference Center at the Comcast Arena, in Everett WA

Friday, January 20th
Four course meal, appetizers, and dessert
Cash organic wine & beer bar
Business attire
$45 per person
Order tickets online (in the Non-Food category
on our Products page) http://www.klesickfamilyfarm.com/main/order-non-food-items
or by giving our office a call 360-652-4663.
NOTE: You will need to specify if you’d like the Stuffed Portobella Mushroom Vegetarian or the Garlic-Roasted Wild Crab & Shrimp Seafood course when placing your reservations.

Schedule
6:30 Doors Open
7:15 Dinner
8:30 Q&A with Your Farmers
9:15 Ciao!

~ Tristan Klesick

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Simple Joys

It’s at this point in the year when my mind is flooded with ideas, expectations, traditions to continue, and traditions I want to start. I anticipate my grown children experiencing the holidays with their families and I listen in on the conversations they have with their own children. My hope is that their memories will be filled with joy and excitement, generosity and love.

In order to fulfill this idea of giving them joyous holidays, I can tend to become overwhelmed with all the possibilities. We’ll schedule an outing to go experience fake snow falling from the sky. I’ll seek out a tree farm where we can hear the saw moving back and forth as our tree is slowly released from its roots. I’ll make plans to bake dozens of cookies to share in their perfectly decorated packages. And yet, if some of these ideas do not happen because of the reality of a chaotic life with three young children, I feel defeated and as if I have failed them.

Then I am reminded of their simple exuberance.

The other day, my husband, sensing my exhaustion from a long day with the children, decided to take the very energetic boys for an evening walk. I relished in the quiet while they left the house bundled up and excited for a little adventure. It wasn’t five minutes later that I heard the roar of the garage door opening and expected the quiet to be over, except that they didn’t come upstairs. Nearly twenty minutes later the door flings open and their little voices call for me with such eagerness I couldn’t help but smile. They came to fetch me from the couch and insisted I close my eyes as they had a surprise for me. So down the stairs I went, guided by a five and three year old with my eyes closed.

I stepped outside into the cold and was guided further. Through closed eyes I sensed glowing colors of red and green. When I was finally allowed to open my eyes I saw a single strand of Christmas lights lining one side of our fence and casually lying among the plants. My boys jumped up and down and shrieked with excitement, and I mustered up as much enthusiasm as I could in trying to match theirs.

Stepping back inside from the cold and warming ourselves with some hot chocolate, I realized that in the simple event that had just transpired my children experienced the joy of the holiday that I so methodically try to create. We spent time together, enjoyed one another, and relished in the season of joy and giving. That moment wasn’t dulled with the stress and chaos that can so often overwhelm the season. It was simple, joyful, and one that I will cherish.

by Ashley Rodriguez

Chef, food blogger, and full-time mom. Read more of her writings at www.notwithoutsalt.com