Taking our commitment to the environment and green living seriously, Smock happily subsidizes CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships for all employees through a local organic farm, Grindstone Farm. We receive weekly deliveries of fresh, organic veggies and herbs that are typically picked within just hours of reaching us – and they’re incredibly delicious, too! Because the old warehouse we call home, the Delavan Center, is the Downtown Syracuse drop-off location, our CSA deliveries literally come right to our door. We love seeing what awaits us as we fill up our bags and head home to cook. Tuesday becomes our favorite day of the week during CSA season!

Usually we can count on receiving an assortment of great lettuces, kale, fresh herbs like cilantro and dill, broccoli so delicious you’ll never want to eat anything other than organic broccoli again, garlic scapes, cool daikon radishes that resemble white carrots, and lots and lots of beautiful red radishes. As the season is progressing, so are the crops, but radishes have continued to greet us every week, which led a few of us to start looking into recipes that use radishes and ideally the radish greens too. After a while, we’ve found ourselves at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them other than slice them up for salads. After some hunting around, one of our letterpress printers, Carrie, who is one of the finest artisans we know to ever run an Original Heidelberg windmill, found and tweaked the following recipe that was so good, we just had to share it in the event any of you are at a loss as to what to do with radishes. If you like food with an Asian flair, you will love this recipe.

Asian Hamburger Skillet

• 1lb lean hamburger (although many of us are vegetarians so we substituted the Morning Star ground “meat” instead)
• 1 medium red onion, sliced about 1/4? thick then cut into 2? lengths
• 1 bunch of radishes, cut in matchsticks
• 1 bunch of radish tops, cut roughly into 1? pieces
• 4 carrots, julienned or cut into 1/4? slices
• 1-1/2 tsp ginger paste
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (although we’ve also tried General Tso’s sauce and it was delicious!)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 lime (optional)
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a large sauté pan, cook hamburger (or meat substitute) over medium high heat, until just beginning to brown, breaking into small bits with spatula. Stir in onion and radishes and cook another 2-3 minutes. Stir in carrots, radish tops, ginger paste and fish sauce and cook 5-10 minutes until onions are softened and hamburger is cooked through. Sprinkle with lime juice (if using) and pepper, to taste. Serve immediately…and feel free to share your CSA-inspired recipes with us and we’ll post them here on the Smock blog!

Over here at Smock, we believe that environmental letterpress and eco green printing is so much more than simply using recycled paper & soy inks. If a print shop is committed to the environment, its green practices should really affect everything that company does. So we were thrilled when our parent company, Boxcar Press, subsidized a 20-week Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm subscription for employees this year. It was a perfect fit: we got to love local organic farms; love the environment; and care for our letterpress team here too via really, really good vegetables. Tuesday was the last day that these amazing bins of produce got delivered to us from Grindstone Farm in Pulaski, NY and Wyllie Fox Farm in Cato, NY. We all know the growing season in CNY is pretty much over (we had our first snow fall this week too!), but we’re sure going to miss all the veggies. Pictured below is Carrie, our office manager, who helped organize everything. Thanks, Carrie + Grindstone + Wyllie Fox! We can’t wait until summer next year.

One of our Chicago stores, Magnificent Milestones, hosted an Ecouture night recently at their really beautiful West Loop location (partly to announce the arrival of Smock at their store!). We printed the letterpress invitations for the evening on our bamboo paper (they choose the Cavall design). Greg Christian Catering (who specializes in green, local, sustainable and organic cuisine) supplied the food. See more pictures from the night here. Lovely!