Special Sauce: Kenji on Salting Vegetables; Farmer Maggie Cheney on CSAs and Social Justice

Special Sauce with Ed Levine

Much has been written during the pandemic about the increased popularity of community supported agriculture, commonly referred to as CSA. On this week's Special Sauce, we had a far-reaching conversation with Maggie Cheney, one of the owners of Rock Steady Farm, which is part of a special kind of CSA.

Rock Steady describes itself as a women and queer owned cooperative farm, rooted in social justice, growing sustainable vegetables, flowers, and herbs for our upstate and NYC communities. As you will hear, Maggie and her partners have withstood the many challenges they have encountered during the pandemic with sheer determination, a lot of hard work, and the support, both financial and otherwise, of the communities they serve. But it has not been easy.

Rounding out the episode is another Ask Kenji segment. This time Kenji answers a Serious Eater's question about the whys and wherefores of salting vegetables like cucumbers and eggplant before cooking them. I don't want to give away too much of his answer, but I will tell you that water balloons are repeatedly mentioned.

So there you have it, our very first all-vegetable Special Sauce, and it's inspiring, surprising, and informative.

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The full transcript for this episode can be found over here at Serious Eats:

https://www.seriouseats.com/preview?record=454208