Meet David
and Sarah
Let me introduce you to Double F Ranch CSA members and Bend CSA Pick Up hosts, David and Sarah.
They met in chiropractic school and found that the greater Bend area provided an accessible and family friendly environment for them to start their own family and small business. Both David and Sarah love the outdoors and were drawn to Central Oregon’s bountiful opportunities for enjoying nature and snowboarding.
David and Sarah are passionate and dedicated small business owners. As owners and chiropractors at Pure Light Family Chiropractic in Bend, they have found their passion in helping support families on their wellness journeys and working to create healthy communities.
Join Date
2017
CSA Pick Up Location
Bend
Share Type
10# lamb share
Finding the CSA
David and Sarah first connected with Nathan and Katia at a potluck at the Bend Birth Center (from 2016-2019 BBC hosted the Bend CSA pickup). They were just starting their family chiropractic practice in Bend and frequently worked with pre- and post-natal clients from BBC.
The CSA piqued their interest. David and Sarah had always understood the importance of high-quality meat and had done a lot of their own digging into what would be the healthiest option for their family.
“The more you go down that rabbit hole of learning about agriculture in this country and factory farming, the more motivated you are to work with farmers who are local and have high standards of quality and care for their animals.”
They interviewed Nathan and Katia, asking them lots of questions. They were both blown away by the quality, attention to detail, care of the animals, and overall CSA support and decided to join.
Super Hosts
In 2019, the CSA Pick up site at Bend Birth Center was no longer feasible due to a parking lot redesign. At the time Sarah and David offered to host the CSA pickup at their own business, Pure Light Family Chiropractic.
Fast forward a few years and dozens of CSA pickups later, and David and Sarah love hosting the Bend CSA Pick Up. Their clients love it and their staff loves it too! So much so that, as of this interview, all their staff members are CSA members too!
Creating intentional Community Connections
The strong connection between the CSA and David and Sarah is by design. Their commitment to building “community” is at the heart of who they are as people and providers. It is evident in the choices they make as a family and in how they run their business.
“The biggest thing we always envisioned with our practice, was not just delivering high quality chiropractic care, but creating a community surrounding a healthy lifestyle.
People are open and willing to change, and we offer these things right at their fingertips. They are already coming here for chiropractic care. There is a meat CSA and a vegetable CSA drop off here. We have connections to other health care providers.
We’ve created a big community around raising children in an alternative way.
”
The Value of Belonging To The CSA
The benefits of the Meat CSA, go way beyond just having a full freezer. The added merit comes in the ways that the CSA allows you to not only live out your own values, but also find new and meaningful ways of living.
For David and Sarah that meant benefiting from the closer connection to their food source.
“We love being able to get to know the ranchers who put the time, energy and love into producing [our food].
The closer that you can get to the food sources we consume and having relationships with those who produce that product, the better it is. It’s all about community.”
The CSA created an opportunity for David and Sarah to learn more about cooking. When they first joined the CSA, they were met with the task of getting such a variety of different cuts of meat. They embraced that challenge with a positive can-do attitude, asking, “How can I learn more about this cut?"
“Before the CSA it was more ground beef and pre-packaged chicken breast or chicken thighs. I didn’t really get creative with meat, it was just kind of like the basics and with the CSA you get such a variety like lamb, pork and different steaks that I never would think to get. It is not only nutritionally beneficial for your body, but also really makes cooking interesting and fun.”
One of the unique ways that David and Sarah have benefited from the CSA is in their use of organ meat.
A little backstory here. Both David and Sarah have spent a lot of time educating themselves on first foods for children. Not just because they have a small child but also because they consult with parents in their practice about first foods and the benefits of early nutrition.
One of these important first foods is organ meat and bone broth. The CSA allowed David and Sarah to make first foods like liver pate for their daughter.
In their practice, they appreciate being able to recommend the CSA for a place to access these quality products and give parents an alternative to traditional first foods that are not as nutritionally dense.
David and Sarah care deeply about empowering parents and helping them “put their children’s health into their own hands and follow their intuition”.
Mealtime Before The CSA vs. Now
David and Sarah have always been good meal planners and continued their once-a-week meal planning after joining the CSA. But previous to the CSA, it was, “what can I pick up at the store"?” and now instead they ask, “What’s in our freezer?”
“[Meal planning] was kind of boring before. It was like oh, I guess we’ll just get chicken. I guess we’ll just get beef. Now it is based around the abundance of options we have.”
A Peek Into Sarah And David’s Kitchen
Getting a figurative peek into someone’s kitchen to preview the mindset, skills, techniques and tools that make each home kitchen tick can be so inspiring and motivating. Here David and Sarah share some tidbits from their kitchen:
Cooking as a parent
David and Sarah’s daughter loves to help cook. She is three years old, and their philosophy is to feed her what they would normally eat. She has her own little kitchen, and she loves making up her own meals to share too!
One of the ways their cooking style shifted after becoming parents was that meals became less complex as they found new ways of cooking that were more efficient, less time consuming and still tasted great.
Kitchen Gadgets
Some of their favorite kitchen gadgets include the grill and the instant pot. They recommend the instant pot for making bone broth. They also use it to make soup!
They found silicone ice cube trays to be helpful for storing the liver pate they make for their daughter. After making the pate, they put it in the freezer trays so they can pop out a perfectly-sized portion as needed.
The pate goes great with veggies and crackers!
CSA superpower
David loves to marinate. He embraces figuring out how to create food with bold flavors and considers his marinating skills to be his “CSA superpower”.
It is one of the reasons why they so highly recommend their GF Mediterranean lamb meatball recipe - letting the herbs and spices infuse overnight creates such an amazing depth of flavor. (Recipe below!)
Favorite cuts
David and Sarah always enjoy the CSA share variety, but are delighted when they unbox these cuts:
Ground lamb
Beef tenderloin steaks
Ham steak. They stock up on ham steaks to make ham and potato soup.
Bacon. Because everyone loves bacon!
Ground Beef. They regularly order extra ground beef to always have on hand.
CSA skills to conquer
David appreciates having tried and true recipes in his cooking repertoire and is working towards finding his perfect recipe and technique for lamb chops.
Sarah finds herself to be more adventurous in the kitchen now. She is more apt to try new ways to cook familiar cuts and is more comfortable and confident when it comes to cooking meat. Even after many years as a CSA member, she’s still excited to expand her knowledge and skills.
Final Thoughts
David and Sarah are very grateful to be a part of our CSA community!
“I truly just want to say that Katia and Nathan are such amazing, down to earth people and parents. We are so inspired by them.
It’s really fun as a young family to work with another young family who’s really making a difference in the community. We are super grateful to be a part of that bigger vision. ”
Mediterranean Lamb Meatballs
An absolute staple in David and Sarah’s kitchen. This recipe:
is big on flavor with a secret ingredient twist
is easy to throw together
happens to be gluten-free
consistently produces amazing results
is easily doubled or tripled and freezes well
Ingredients
For The Meatballs
1 pound Ground Lamb
1/4 cup minced white onion (make it really fine)
1 Tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint
1 Tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (secret ingredient!)
1 teaspoon salt
Steps
Mix together all the meatball ingredients with hands.
Cover the bowl and let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or up to overnight.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
Form the meatballs into small balls. You should get about 20 meatballs.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked through.
Serve meatballs on skewers or with toothpicks.
Thank you Sarah and David for sharing your CSA experience with us!
- Rachel, Community Manager and CSA member since 2010