On a sunny, relatively mild midwinter Sunday afternoon, Kim Denney calls from her car to tell me she is running a bit behind. One of her cows gave birth to twin calves that morning—the first in her farm’s 11-year history—getting her day off to a slightly different start than she had planned.
“Make yourself a cup of tea, read a little more of the paper,” she says, giving me a new ETA.
I am meeting Kim and her husband, Richard Jakshtis, at Waltham Fields Community Farm, one of eight drop-off locations for their Chestnut Farms CSA, the first meat community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscription service in Massachusetts. Distribution is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., and I had planned to arrive an hour earlier. When I finally pull into the parking lot in front of the vast, snowcovered field that is the Waltham farm, Kim and Rich are unloading about 100 red and white coolers from their van, each labeled with a member’s name, and lining them up on the cardboard sheets they have spread out to keep the coolers from sinking into the muddy ground. Ah, winter in New England…
Little did I realize that members would also begin arriving nearly that early—to try to get their hands on the farm’s coveted eggs, which are not part of the monthly shares and are sold on a first-come, first-served basis. (The 60 dozen eggs Denney and Jakshtis brought that day are nearly sold out by 3.) There is also a “dollar bin” next to the coolers, filled with bacon ends and organ meats.Today’s selection includes beef and lamb hearts, liver and tongue, and there are plenty of takers.
For Kim and Rich, who own Chestnut Farms, a 156-acre livestock farm in Hardwick, life is about their family, which includes daughters Marlise and Caroline and son Sam, their animals and the members of their CSA, who “allow us to farm year-round. We are very cognizant of how blessed we are to have members,” says Kim, who bought what was an abandoned farm 11 years ago, when she was a single mother with two daughters, then 10 and 7. “The day I closed, the barn fell in,” she recalls.
Before she bought the farm, Kim, who has masters’ degrees in public administration and education, had spent 10 years as a middle-school teacher and school administrator. Rich, who has a degree in electrical engineering, operated a restoration woodworking company, doing high-end woodworking with reclaimed wood. One of his pieces is in the Smithsonian Institution.
“I always wanted to farm,” she continues, adding that she knew her focus would be meat, rather than dairy or produce. “I care passionately about animal quality of life, [and] I didn’t want to milk.” A large part of the appeal of her property was its 65 open acres, which she knew would be good for animal grazing. But the road from buying the farm to farming has been long and difficult. In addition to repairing the barn, she and Rich have had to remove more than 28 tons of scrap metal, 550 tires, a few old vehicles and many, many loads of plastic debris. The couple took advantage of a Farm Viability Enhancement Program offered by theMassachusetts Department of Agriculture and credit the program’s consulting and other services for helping turn what was, in Rich’s words, “a very expensive hobby” into a viable business.
From the beginning, “I believed the only way to make money was selling direct to consumer,” Kim says.The two options were farmers’ markets and CSAs. Through CSAs, members buy a share in a farm and receive a set amount of the food produced there on a regular basis. Kim chose the CSA model because she thought it offered the best shot at maintaining the farm year-round. They do “a tiny bit of retail”; sell at the Arlington, Lexington and Natick farmers’ markets in season; and are a supplier for the kitchen of the Fairmont Copley Plaza, their only restaurant customer so far. But in general, Kim says, “we can’t afford to farm for the commodity market.”
Membership in the Chestnut Farms CSA has grown entirely by wordof- mouth.When the first potential members began to call, Rich recalls, the couple would tell them, “If you can get 10 to 12 people, we’ll make you a [drop-off ] site.” As they added members, they were able to buy more animals and diversify. The couple started with eight cattle. They have added about 10 cattle each year. “Once we made the commitment to do the business, it was a faster ramp-up,” Kim explains.
Members buy shares in six-month blocks that are priced by the pound. The smallest share begins at 10 pounds per month; the largest is 25 pounds. A 6-month, 10-pound share costs $480; 25 pounds costs $1,050. Every month members receive an assortment of meat but can choose to opt out of any variety. Each order is fairly evenly divided between ground meat, stew meat and flank steaks, and higher-end cuts such as center-cut chops and steaks. Chestnut Farms also sells “dog shares” containing five pounds of “old cow” ground beef (from older animals and good meat, but not high enough quality for members), five pounds of organ meat and a dog bone.
“We are all about animals’ quality of life from birth to plate,” Kim says. A visit to the farm bears this out. At any given time, they have 120 cattle; 17 adult pigs and 20 to 150 growers (for meat); 50 to 100 sheep; 250 meat chickens and 250 layers. They raise around 300 turkeys for Thanksgiving each year; and they are adding goats. All of the animals— from the chickens, who live in converted yellow school buses and are free to roam on and off at will, to the cows, pigs, sheep and goats sharing a barn (many are inside because it is winter)—are well cared for and clearly loved.
During the warmer months, the farmers practice rotational grazing, moving herds from pasture to pasture “for the health of the grass and the animals.”Working with agronomists from UMass, they use a recipe for their grass that is healthiest for the animals. They don’t use any chemicals, sprays or pesticides.
Chestnut Farms’ meat is processed at Lemay & Sons in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where the animals go directly from the truck to the kill floor. “We’re sure our animals are as well cared for at the end as they are during their life,” Kim says. Not only is this more humane, because it eliminates stress for the animals, but it makes better meat. “Chemical stress hormones are released if animals are unhappy or frightened,” Kim explains. Ultimately this can cause a drop in pH, leading to meat that is either too pale and soft or too dark, firm and dry.
Humane processing is just one of several reasons why their meat tastes so good. “We breed for a good piece of meat,” says Rich. They mate York and Duroc pigs, for example, to capitalize on the best genetic traits of each breed. In fact, they raise three heritage pig breeds: Duroc, Hampshire and Gloucestershire Old Spot. They also raise Hereford cows, known for their high-quality meat, and Cornish Rock chickens.
Their meat is denser than commercially processed varieties, the couple explains, because the animals are leaner. “If you’re raised inside, like 98 percent of meat in the U.S., you don’t move around,” Rich explains. The animals also eat what they are meant to, so they don’t gain weight unnaturally quickly, like those fed a diet of grain, with the occasional hormone boost.
As a grass-fed meat virgin, when I unwrapped my first package of Chestnut Farms stew beef, I was struck by how clean it was and by the beautiful color.There isn’t anything extra on the deep red chunks.The recipe I used it in, one of my favorites, has never come out so well. There is no gristle, no fat and the meat has a perfect texture and flavor.
“It’s damn good meat,” says Angela Davis, a Chestnut Farms CSA member from Cambridge who picks up her shares in Waltham. “Friends of mine say their bacon is the best bacon they’ve ever tasted.”
At the distribution site, the connection between the couple and their members is apparent. While they won’t divulge the exact number of members, Rich says, “It’s like an extended family. [The community feel] would be completely lost if we got any bigger.”
“I’m so sorry about your goats,” one member exclaims as she arrives. It is a recurring theme throughout the afternoon, and Rich explains to me that in January he and Kim had taken in several baby goats from a neighbor’s dairy goat farm.They are planning to expand to goat meat and are learning how to raise the animals. The babies appeared to be doing well initially, but within five days nearly half had died mysteriously. It was devastating for the farmers and two of their children, Sam and Caroline, who had helped care for them.
Kim had shared news of the goats in her monthly email to members. Happily, as she greets people, she is able to counter their concern with news of the morning’s twin calf birth. During the roughly two-hour distribution period, the arrival of a number of pregnant members adds to the day’s positive vibe.
Once the rush for eggs is over, pickup settles into a calmer rhythm. Members walk up, return their empty coolers to Rich or Kim, chat with the farmers and take their monthly share.Many hang around for a while. And everybody leaves happy, with a wave from Kim and her wish for “Happy eating!”
Andrea Pyenson writes about food for the Boston Globe, msn.com and oneforthetable.com, among others. Her culinary passions tend more toward the sweet than the savory, but she tries to keep an open mind— and palate.
