From seed to fork at Husky Meadows Farm

This is part four in a series of articles on Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) in the Tri-state region. To find the first three articles, go to www.tricornernews.com.

NORFOLK — Husky Meadows Farm Manager and Chef Tracy Hayhurst has had a long career of raising the food she cooks. 

“There is nothing better than to cook with freshly picked produce,” she said. 

“As a cook, I want direct access to fresh ingredients that I trust. The meal to be created in the future is cultivated as you tend to the plants and wait until just the right moment to harvest them. 

“As you walk through the fields you can see around you what is ripening and the elements start to come together well before you get into the kitchen. It’s all part of one process, in my mind.”

Hayhurst intentionally started her farming career as a precursor to formal chef training. 

“I did an apprenticeship at Mahaiwe Harvest CSA in Housatonic [where North Plain Farm is now] in 1999. I came into the apprenticeship because I was planning to go to culinary school, but I wanted to have a better understanding of quality and seasonality as a kind of base knowledge.” 

She attended the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland in 2001, because it was the only school she could find at the time that was located on a farm. 

“Imagine my bliss when on the first day the head of school started teaching about how to make compost!”

After several stints as a baker and chef and years of running Chubby Bunny Farm in Falls Village, Hayhurst has found her way to a role that involves seamlessly producing meals from seed to fork. 

At Husky Meadows Farm in Norfolk she works with fellow farmers Sarah Tracy and Katherine Kasacek to grow a diversity of certified organic produce. Hayhurst and fellow chef/baker Steve Archaski take the farm’s vegetables and fruits into the kitchen, where they make everything from pickles to soups to gallettes. 

There are options for Husky Meadows CSA customers who want to eat like Hayhurst, whether they want to cook the food themselves or not. 

The farm runs a traditional CSA program, which they call “farm membership,” with pick-up on the farm or at Q Farms in Sharon each week of the growing season or in the summer only. 

Members pay in advance of the season and grab their own box of fresh-picked ingredients. 

The farm also offers customers a Farmers Market VIP Program in which members pay up front for a card they can use on anything at the Husky Meadows stand at the Norfolk Farmers Market. 

The program offers an overall discount for upfront payment and the card works for fresh foods or prepared, for fresh eggplant or jarred eggplant caponata for example. 

In addition to produce and prepared goods, Husky Meadows is increasingly growing culinary and medicinal herbs. Farmer Sarah Tracy studies herbal medicine and produces both tea blends and bulk herbs for sale. 

“I love the fact that you can heal yourself with something that grows in the Earth,” she said. “Food is medicine.”

The group’s ambition is to fulfill a range of the needs of area residents.

“We want to be the Norfolk town farm,” Hayhurst said. “When people think about the meals they are going to make, we want them to know that they can get ingredients from a local source.” 

In addition to the farmers market and CSA pickups, Husky Meadows sells at the Berkshire Country Store in Norfolk, to restaurants and online. Yes, you read that right: Norfolk residents can order dinner from their local farm, although it takes a day of turnaround time. 

To learn more about Husky Meadows and the CSA, check out their website at www.huskymeadowsfarm.com.