“Jersey Fresh” products backstory

Sunday, March 21, 2010

A few months ago (12/31/09) I posted about the great Jersey Fresh canned tomatoes I bought at the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market. In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer is a story about what the “Jersey Fresh” is all about. Hope to see more stuff available locally soon!

November GRID is out

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The new GRID magazine is hitting the shelves at local coffee-shops, co-ops and businesses near you. Check out the issue for more bicycling articles, how to cook dried beans, just what is a green roof, local fashion designers, community garden, a green event calendar, and much more. Or, read it online HERE.

“Traceability”: Friend or Foe to Locavores?

Monday, March 30, 2009

There’s an article in today’s NY Times that leaves me with ambiguous feelings. The concept is “Traceability” and it’s meant to, as the name suggests, give consumers the ability to “trace” their food to it’s producer. What leaves me with a sour taste is that when I quickly perused the Find The Farmer site, I saw what I had feared was coming — namely, that Big Business would attempt to co-opt some of the finer points of the Buy Local movement.

The article states that the “Stone-Buhr flour company, a 100-year-old brand based in San Francisco, is giving the buy-local food movement its latest upgrade.” (My emphasis). The internet is a wonderful tool and I push it whole-heartedly on local farmers. But how is this “buy local”? The Find The Farmer website has all the trimmings of a gosh-golly earnest site. But on closer inspection, you see the bread trail of a much larger marketing effort. A look at the footer of the site reveals the copyright is held by JOG Distribution. Google that name and you see that they recently acquired “the venerable Stone-Buhr Flour brand...” (My emphasis). Notice that they say “brand”. Not “company”. Not “product”. “Brand”. That’s telling because that states that for these companies, it’s the name of the product and all that name conjures up in the consumers mind. That’s what they are paying for. But here’s the best part: JOG didn’t purchase it from the original owners of Stone-Buhr. Read the article and you’ll see that they purchased the “brand” in 2002 from Unilever/Bestfoods!

This is not mom-and-pop farmers organizing to let consumers know where their food comes from. This is marketing departments realizing that there is a.) a Trend (“Buy Local”) and b.) problems with the public’s perception of food safety. They aren’t really changing the way they do business, they’re simply changing the appearance by piggy-backing on a genuine movement. This is why marketing is important to small scale farmer’s and local business people. These are the tools that your fearsome competition welds.

Think of it like this: people are trusting. That’s a good thing. So when they see a NY Times article; when they see an earnest-looking website; when they see smiling pictures of commodity farmers and their families; when the sites state explicitly things like “Direct Seeding” to imply that their entire farming methods are more friendly (Direct Seeding seems innocuous enough, but it’s prominently name-dropped as a way to intimate that the farm is environmentally sound); when they see all of this, they think “Oh, in addition to the Farmer’s Market, I’ll shop online. Their prices may be better, maybe I’ll forgo the Market this week…”  Or, perhaps, “I really want to connect with how my food is produced, I’ll just go to this website…” It begins to chip away at your business, whether it’s what you currently have or any potential business that’s down the line.

I need to stress that being able to trace your food is a good thing. Not only does it make producers and companies more accountable, but it also appears to pave the way for single-producer products. If there’s traceablilty, then that means you can’t mix several suppliers in a huge grain bin. And that’s good for people. What I don’t think is good is the sneaky way that businesses are hinting that they, too, are “local” (or have any of the ideals of the people who would Buy Local) when it’s still business as usual. They see the desire in the public’s mind and they act in the most cost-effective way. And that is by keeping the mechanism’s in place but using marketing and promotional tools to control the “message”.

People are ready for local, sustainable foods. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be interest in co-opting the terms and the ideals, by large corporations. If there ever was a time to invest in keeping your message relevant and making the case for the real differences, now is the time. It really is a sound investment because the desire for information is there.

The Best Marketing Is Still Free

Thursday, March 12, 2009

These are tough times. Small businesses (and yes — farms should be considered a small business) need to cut expenses. Usually the first place they do is in marketing, thinking that is the most expendable. While that should be up for debate, it simply is the reality. However, the very best marketing that anyone can do is completely free — smile. Yep, it’s that simple. One of the most overlooked aspects of marketing that many small businesses/farmers (from here on out, I’ll refer to you as SBF, for Small Business Farmer) is customer service. And that is a darn shame, because this is the one thing that is not only free, it’s the best marketing tool available, hands down as well as being the very reason of why you have customers in the first place.

The Buy Local movement is gaining momentum. Every news headline about food contamination or Frankenfoods make more and more people ask “is there another way?” They want to KNOW where their food is coming from and it inevitably brings them to Michael Pollan, Nina Planck or one of the many other authors who’ve written books speaking about the virtues of eating locally and knowing the person that raises your food. And a common thread in all of these books is an idyllic vision of people having casual conversations with “their” farmer at the weekly Farmer’s Markets. It speaks to our most desperate desire in this wacky food-world: to connect as well as be part of a community. Whether you like it or not, that’s the bill of goods we “locavore” people have been sold on. And don’t just blame the authors: farmers have been touting the “connection” angle for some time. So, in people’s minds, that’s what they expect. And time and again, I do see it delivered, albeit unbalanced. Let me offer 2 of the bad examples.

The first example is for the local small business. My husband and I  purchased environmentally sound products to refinish our floors from a local store. We spoke with them at length about it. We were assured of the quality. Right away, there was a long list of problems: wrong order, person left at the desk who didn’t know anything about any of the products. Then, about 6 months after the floors were re-finished, they started to peel like tape. Called the store, was assured by the manager that the owner would call. Never did. This is where things go south: never, I repeat NEVER leave a customer in the lurch. Even if you cannot refund, not returning a call turns what could be a disgruntled customer into the worst possible thing for your SBF: someone who evangelizes against your company. And it doesn’t have to be this way. Most people who are drawn to SBF can take some punches and our first reaction is to think about things from the business/farmer’s perspective. So take heart that most of your customers give you more rope than they would, say, Wal-Mart. But don’t take this for granted. Be up-front and honest about what you’re selling. And, if it still doesn’t work out, pick up the phone and call. No matter how mad they are, the fact that you called will make a difference. Be nice, be empathetic. Chances are, if you make a good case, they will eventually come back. Because, unlike big box stores, you are in business to make a difference. And your customers share that motivation. 

The next example is a farmer. My husband goes every week (when in season) to the Farmer’s Market at Rittenhouse and buys himself peaches. During a particularly humid week, all the peaches went rotten within 2 days. Taking a cue from Michael Pollan, he asked what he could have done to prevent that. The assistant asked the vendor and he replied “Impossible. He bought them two weeks ago.” When my husband went to speak, the vendor waved his hand and said to his assistant “just give him some.” The vendor never raised his head to look at the man asking about the peaches. This should go without saying: never treat a return customer as if he is trying to scam you. KNOW your return customers, even if you hardly say two words to them. This is vitally important. It’s so simple, yet I see time and time again, farmers ignore this because of the pressure in the market.

Yes, it is difficult to be a SBF, but it’s so important that you understand that your customer’s know this as well and they are understanding. We know that it’s just you. You wake at the break of dawn, harvest, then rush to market. The markets are busy, people clamoring for your attention. We know and we understand. But you cannot let it get the best of you. Think of it like this: most of you can’t afford a website (or, if you can, it’s far less full-featured than, say Acme or Home Depot); most do not run ads; and most certainly have no more than 1 location (or 1 movable location in the markets). When faced with corporate competition, the odds are not in your favor. So you need to understand why people come to you: your great product and your fantastic service. In both of my examples, these SBF failed. 

When people shop locally, they are doing more than spending money. They are making a conscientious purchase. They aren’t just buying apples, they are saying something about the apples they are purchasing as well as against the stores where they are not. As an SBF, you may be at a large-scale marketing disadvantage, but you should have the customer service angle tied up in a bow. See this for what it is: the very best marketing that money can (but doesn’t!) buy. Good customer service makes customers faithful; they evangelize your product (and that still is the best advertising that money can buy); they purchase more; and they are more forgiving when those few instances of stress pop up. Still not convinced? Guess who is one of the best in customer service for large stores? Whole Foods. Who are you in direct competition against? Whole Foods. And for all of you SBF out there who do pay attention to customer service, your customers notice and appreciate. Keep up the great work! Every new customer you get is a testament to your smart investment.

I’d like to give a shout out to those SBF that go above and beyond in customer service (none have requested this, none know that I am doing this. Heck, I don’t even personally KNOW most of them! But good deeds should be rewarded): Greensgrow; Tom (formerly of Greensgrow, now raising flowers as Longview, sold at Headhouse); the ladies at Birchrun Hills; Hendricks Dairy; Meadow Run; Culton Organics; Wild Flour Bakery. I know that I am forgetting so many more and that’s a great thing because so many SBF are fantastic! Keep up the great work!

Winter Harvest Favorites

Sunday, February 22, 2009

As Winter Harvest expands, it has very nearly become our online grocery store from November until May.  Aside from getting an incredible array of local products in the dark days of winter, it’s nice to come across some products we may not see otherwise.  Right now, our two current favorites are Jacob Zooks’ heirloom popcorn and Hendrick’s Farm’s Tuscan salami.

Your first impression of the heirloom popcorn is its size: the kernels are incredible small.  This presents no problems, however, as it simply means you can cram more into your mouth at once.  Once you’ve popped them, though, what’s impressive is the rich, buttery flavor.  All it requires is some fine salt. My wife (who achieves perfect results using the stovetop, a saucepan, and some canola oil) occasionally flavors the popcorn with some shaved parmesan and rosemary, a la The Royal Tavern.  If you enjoy popcorn at all, this is worth the purchase.  Also, you may want to follow our example and buy extra bags in April: otherwise, you won’t make it through the Summer and Fall. 

Recently, we’ve gone from having fantastic local produce to having fantastic local produce and local products created from local produce.  Nowhere is this is more apparent than with cured meat.  Yes, we’ve always had great bacon, which I frequently use in my cooking rather than pancetta, but I would love to find local pancetta that matches what I can buy at DiBruno Brothers. First, there was hunter’s bologna, and now there is Hendrick’s Farm’s Tuscan Salami.  The tender, marbled meat is perfectly seasoned - nothing oversalted here.  It’s so satisfying, that, with some Pennsylvania Noble cheese and home-made pickles, it made a meal unto itself.     

Blue Sue

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

As I’ve often said, I’d gladly eat cheese over chocolate any day of the week…but chocolate is still pretty awesome.  I’m excited to say that now I can eat both - at the same time.  Betty’s Tasty Buttons is now making fudge infused with bleu cheese from Birchrun Hills Farm.  The fudge is named Blue Sue after Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills.

Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of fudge there ever was (it’s a texture thing), but I was fascinated by the subtle bleu cheese flavor of the fudge and how great a combination it is! 

I love that our local purveyors are collaborating - what’s next?  I hear Vosges (not local at all) is now making a dark chocolate bar with reishi mushrooms and walnuts.  Could our local chocolatiers be moving in that direction - maybe new partnerships with great local mushroomers?  Perhaps a B.T. Brownie loaded with local chili peppers? 

Local Green Heroes: The ChallaMan

Friday, January 16, 2009

As a compliment to Jackie’s post about making bread and Four Worlds Bakery, I bring you a video clip. I am a loyal patron to Four Worlds Bakery. I generally buy a half loaf of bread a week (my favorites are the multi grain levain, cranberry-walnut levain and spelt levain), along with the occasional bulk order of local flour, sucanat or bran litter. Customers receive a couple of emails a week concerning news, updates and order information. This week’s email included a five minute video showing interviews of the ChallaMan himself and documenting the move from baking in his own basement to a professional baking space behind Kaffa Crossing at 45th and Chestnut. This move was orchestrated not by U-Haul, not by Philly Car Share, but by the Pedal Co-op—bicycles! Michael Dollich has the noble goal of going carbon neutral, and moving via bicycles is an excellent way to support that goal.

Indeed, Michael Dollich offers the community with his bakery a true sustainable business model. He bakes to order. Bread that is not sold is frozen and sold at half price. He mills his own grains to ensure freshness and sells the remaining bran as kitty litter (my cats are living proof that this litter is just as good as S-Wheat Scoop, only much much cheaper at $0.25/lb, and perhaps a bit more powdery). To save waste in terms of packaging and payment envelopes, there is a reusable bag system into which regular customers can buy (a one time $10 investment), and for drop off payments, envelopes are offered, which are constantly reused and recycled for future order payments. All of this waste reduction is not for naught. After one month of baking out of the professional kitchen, Four Worlds Bakery produced one single bag of trash. If that is not commendable, I don’t know what is!

In the ChallaMan and his Four Worlds Bakery Philadelphia finds a true, green, community-oriented hero! Keep up the inspiring work, Michael.

Hello!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

I’m Eileen, the newest Farm to Philly contributor. I’ve been following the site for about 9 months and have been involved with local food in Philly since shortly after I moved here 3 years ago. If you can spare a few minutes I’d like to introduce myself.

When I was thinking about this post, I tried to come up with the start of my interest and involvement in local food.  I was surprised to realize that I’ve been involved in growing, storing, eating and enjoying local food my entire life - it was just not something I thought about until fairly recently.

While I was growing up in Western New York, my grandparents owned a farm. It’s been in the family at least three generations, it’s where my mother grew up, and it was about a mile from my house. My grandparents were never able to make a living on the farm - my grandfather was a postman - but it was a vital part of their livelihood as it allowed them to afford to raise nine children and get them all through college.  Some of my fondest childhood memories are from the farm - digging potatoes with my grandfather and cousins; drinking milk right from the cow; playing outside while my mother and aunts sliced corn off the cob to freeze, and picking blueberries and raspberries (funny-ish aside: my grandparents had almost all black raspberries and just a few red - up until college my generic image of raspberries was of the black ones - I was totally confused as to why I couldn’t find any at all in the grocery store - only the ‘specialty’ red ones.).

Between my grandparents, my own parents’ big garden, and the local farm stands (it was a very farm-centric town), I would say that at least 50 - 75% of our produce growing up was local. It didn’t mean much to me because it was totally normal. It was also no big deal that the local grocery store stocked locally grown produce all summer (with prominent signage).  I also didn’t realize that we ate a lot more produce than most Americans - when one aunt-in-law remarked at a family party that she’d never seen people who ate so many veggies, I just thought she was from a weird family.

It really started to dawn on me when I went away to college in the Midwest.  I started going to Whole Foods because the produce in the ‘regular’ grocery store was awful. I don’t mean the taste - I was never able to find anything that even looked worthy of purchasing. It was routine for the pepper to be wrinkly and the carrots bendy. When people said, “Whole Foods is too expensive,” I thought – “Compared to what? They basically have a monopoly on edible produce.”  I also went to my then-boyfriend’s house for dinner several times, to find the only vegetables on the table potatoes and iceberg lettuce. I requested “a green vegetable” for one Easter dinner (a solicited request) and was served green beans with bacon. (I love my in-laws, they’re wonderful people - but they’re definitely the ‘food = meat, cheese, carbs‘ type, though they are getting better.)

After graduation, I moved to the Philly area, and soon read an article on CSAs. (I have no idea how I ran across the article, or where it came from, or what it was about.)  I did a google search and found that Charlestown Cooperative Farm was really close and convinced my husband we should sign up. One of my best decisions ever (and very fortunate timing, I was able to become a member right away, now there’s a three year waiting list). With Charlestown, we pick up our shares at the farm - which I love! It reminds me of going to my grandparents.  There are also several Upick items in the share - which I also love! Again it reminds me of my childhood, plus it makes picking up the shares more entertainment than a chore.  It pretty much snowballed from there

Right now we get 100% of our produce locally in the summer and about 75% in the winter (Jan - Mar). Besides Charlestown, we have a fruit CSA with Northstar Orchard, do U Pick at Linvilla Orchards, go to the Phoenixville Farmers’ Market, and frequently shop at Kimberton Whole Foods which stocks lots of local items.  We eat 100% local meat (from the farmers’ market and our CSA), and eat some local dairy.  That’s been something difficult for us. I do eat 100% local yogurt (Seven Stars), but we don’t drink animal milk - we do use cream and butter but I’ve been having a difficult time integrating sources for those into our regular routine.  90% local eggs. Dry goods are semi-local. We buy enough for a year’s supply at once. The supplier we use is located in western PA and sources most of their flours, grains, and beans from PA and OH, but some are from other parts of the US.  They do mill all the flours onsite in PA, at least. We do tons of canning and drying - with mostly local ingredients (only non local ingredients are onions in the salsa, salt, sugar, pectin in the jams, and the cranberries we dried), and some root cellaring (apples and squash and squash and squash and …). We also have a fairly substantial garden.

Well, I’m sure that more than you wanted to know about me so I’ll end with the fact that I’m thrilled to be a contributor to Farm to Philly and can’t wait to really get started.

Won’t you be our friend?

Friday, December 19, 2008

Farm to Philly has been on Facebook for a while, but only recently did I get off my butt and start really maintaining the group page.  I hope you’ll come and hang out with us there, too!  We’ve been posting notifications about our posts here, and will also be posting extra news items, discussing the latest in seasonal eating and local finds, and posting bonus recipes.

Full of piss and vinegar.  Well, vinegar, anyway.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

One of the things that I have always thought the Philadelphia area was missing in terms of locally grown food is basics - things like oil, vinegar, molasses, stuff like that.  Imagine my surprise when I saw half gallons of apple cider vinegar for sale at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market!  The cider comes from Green Meadow Farm in Gap, PA and is selling for $3.50 per half gallon.  Sarah Cain, the manager of the Farmstand, tells me that the vinegar will last indefinitely and does not need to be refrigerated.

Interestingly, it seems as if making vinegar is not all that hard.  Apple cider vinegar starts with apples, shockingly enough.  The full instructions can be found here.

I’ve already had the need to use the cider vinegar - in the cranberry sauce I made the other day.  It was delicious!  And now I’m imagining all the other ways in which I’ll be able to use it.  The salad dressing alone makes it worth it!

Farmers Need Websites, Too!

Monday, September 29, 2008

What could be more idyllic? A local farmer, working his/her land. Bringing the bounty to market. Blogging about this year’s tomato pests. Updating the farm website to include eCommerce. Wah? Insert   sound of a record scratching. But what might sound funny at first is actually really important to seizing the momentum of the locavore movement and continuing it’s ideals: namely, of the connection between farmer and his/her customer. Unfortunately farming, especially Pennsylvania farming (with it’s high Amish population), is reluctant or simply not equipped to jump on board. And the few that do have, well, I’m sorry to say, they have bad sites. I have yet to see a well-designed, well-constructed and effective website for a farm.
A website is such an important medium for farmers, not just to promote their farm, but to promote their farming idealology. As much as we would like to believe that we can converse — farmer and customer — the sad fact is that’s nearly impossible (have you been to Headhouse? I’ve seen rock concerts that were less crowded.) But with a website, farmer’s have a FAQ area. They have an About Us area. They now have the chance to say what they don’t get the opportunity to say at market. Plus, they can get responses, via email, from their customers. And despite the perceived high learning curve of websites, you don’t need to know squat about HTML or code. All you need is a bit of easy jargon and a clear set of goals for your site. And with proper help, you’ll be off and running in no time.
So you’re convinced: “I NEED a website!” you say. Where do you start? Before you go running off to your friendly local web professional (for your information, a professional would be a graphic designer or web designer) you need a plan. Yes, it is definitely the job of these professionals to help you, but they aren’t mind readers. You need a goal: what do you want to accomplish from the site? And are you willing to invest the time needed to develop it? If you just want a basic, nuts-and-bolts informative site (basically, an interactive Yellow Pages listing), there’s not much you need. Throw in an About Us page, a Contact Page and a Products page and rush off to the professionals. You’re ready. But I don’t want you to stop there. The web is such a rich media device that it deserves to be developed. You care about your farm, you care about your products. Tell people that. Here’s your chance. If you’re not a writer, hire someone. Put a request on Craigslist (a design/web professional can help you here, just realize that there will be a mark-up). And even if you can write, get a proofreader. It’s the difrenc btwn amatre and professiona (that’s on purpose, BTW).
Once you have a goal (i.e., “more customers”, or to “better inform my customer’s”, etc.) and you have your content, then get moving. A designer/web professional will walk you through the steps. They can help you get a domain name (such as “www.farmtophilly.com” or “www.myfarmname.com”) and a hosting service (hosting service is the company that provides the server space for your site to rest on, so it’s available to the world). Besides “domain name” and “hosting service”, really, all the other jargon you need to know (and you might not even need to know these) are: eCommerce, database, shopping cart and payment gateway. These 3 terms describe increased website functionality. In all likelihood, you will probably not even need them. At it’s simplest, eCommerce is a blanket term that means an online marketplace as well as the connection between the shopping cart and the payment gateway. The rest of the terms are how eCommerce functions. So, if you decide that you need an eCommerce site, then first you need is a database. A database is simply the individual products that you offer. Unlike a typical HTML site, where if you want to add something (or subtract) you need to go in and change the entire page, a database is able to be updated on the fly. Once you have your products, a shopping cart is what allows your customers to place your items in their “cart”, to purchase at the end of their web visit. Once they’re ready with their purchases, they use eCommerce technology, coupled with a gateway payment provider, to take the customer’s credit card information and process it. Voila. This is probably far more information that the typical farm website would need, but I just wanted to take the mystery out of these words and terms.
The jargon is one thing, but what about the content? As I described earlier, every single farm site that I’ve been to is just awful. I’m sorry. I really am. I know that there is an aversion to “marketing” — it’s an ugly word that conjures up images of sleazy ad men and disreputable business’s using all forms of trickery to snag innocent customers. But that’s (technically) not the case. Marketing is really just communicating to your customer. You think you have the best salad greens and you want to shout that from the rooftops? That’s marketing. You don’t use pesticide and you want your customers to know how and why? That’s marketing. Your cows only eat grass and you want people to know why that’s better than corn fed? Yep. Marketing. Tell people what makes you special! Your website is the best opportunity to explain everything and tout why. Don’t blow this chance. Keep a pen and notebook handy at all times. Jot down ideas about why you’re special (or anything else that you want people to know about you). Then, at the end of one month, collect them and organize. I’ll guarantee that if you write down ideas when they occur, at the end of a month, you’ll have to throw copy out!
The point is this: whether you want to blame or congratulate Michael Pollan, the locavore movement is increasingly bridging the gap between urban and rural populations. To remain vital, farms need to utilize 21st century tools. Big box markets are using all of their powerful marketing tools to tout their “local” cred. We need to get in front of this shift and affirm the importance of our local cred and why it trumps theirs. Your customers crave information — they are tech-savvy people who think nothing of spending an hour “researching” (by visiting websites) which cheese is more local. By using the tools that are available to all you can help your customers make the right decision.

Greetings!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Hello and welcome to my first post! As I understand, my posting “hook” is a bit different from the usual Farm To Philly postings. So let’s use this time as a “getting to know you” chit chat, shall we?

Local living has become an obsession of mine. There were several instances that led me to the Locavore lifestyle (to be discussed in future postings). But rest assured, I am here and there is nothing that I would love better than to have a vibrant, local Philly (or, should I say, Southeastern PA) economy. The more you become involved in something, the more you want to help it along. So here I am — a graphic designer and marketer by trade — trying to find a way to parlay my talents to the benefit of what I love and believe in. And all roads led to here.

My goal for these entries is to bridge the gap between the local economy and their potential customers. Without proper messaging, no matter how great — how noble — a movement is, if it can’t relate to a larger group, it is destined to fizzle out. And there is nothing inherent in the local foods movement to make it a fringe activity. This isn’t a simple, fanciful trend. Because it’s not just local-lovers who truly believe in their heart of hearts that something needs to “give” in our food distribution mentality.

Put plainly, how we eat now is not sustainable. If left as is, it will collapse. I’m sure there are several people out there far smarter than I am, working diligently on this project. But for those of us at the grass-roots level, local living is the “answer”. It combines all the different food-activism goals: it’s beneficial for humans (from farmers to eater’s health); it’s beneficial for the land (at it’s most basic, due to simple accountability); and it’s humane to animals (no true Locavore mistakes Hatfield for “local”). Ideally, the locavore movement is something that vegetarians, farm-worker union organizers and eco-warriors can all hang their hats on. But if people don’t know about how appealing this idea is, it runs the risk of petering out. Does anyone remember macrobiotics? Well, you might. But rest assured: Joe Sixpack doesn’t. And that’s the key: relevance.

The Green movement is still germane. And why is that? It’s not because our planet is going to hell in a hand basket. No, I’m a bit too cynical to believe that. It’s because certain key players — from Al Gore to the Christian Right (yeah, even they did) — got on board. That kept it from being sidelined in the media’s “flavor of the week” flow chart. And as someone who truly believes in the local movement, that’s what I want for my crusade: an assurance of sustained relevance.

So, fellow local-lovers, here we are, on the precipice of change. The word “locavore” is on the tips of everyone’s tongues. I’ve taken it as my personal mission to ensure that it moves from the tip to the stomach: that local-living becomes ingrained in our daily lives. My posts will be appreciable to those buying locally, but it will be most relevant to those selling locally. I want to give you brave and needed business owners the tools necessary to compete and to (reasonably) profit. Because I believe that when you gain, we all do. Happy Localling!

chives, continued!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

This month has marked the beginning of my second summer managing farmers’ markets, and in fact this very week was my one-year anniversary of working for Farm to City.  It’s been rewarding and challenging in ways I couldn’t imagine before I had a job that I loved, but one of my favorite things about my job is that there are always new vegetables to discover!

One of my newest discoveries is chive blossoms.  I had never paid particular attention to chives themselves, but on the first Saturday of the Rittenhouse Square farmers’ market, I found myself unable to resist the light purple thistle-resembling blossoms at the tent of Crawford Organics (one of the partner farms in Paradise Organics, if that name is familiar to people).  I’d heard that people often put them in salads, and since buying that first little bag of chive blossoms, I’ve done that myself.  I slice off the stem end of the blossom, to let the blossom fall into individual petals so the taste isn’t overwhelming, and sprinkle it over the lettuces and other salad greens that are so plentiful at this point in the season.

But what I happened to do the first morning after I’d bought the blossoms—and what I think is so far my favorite, tastiest way to use them—was sauté a chopped blossom or two in butter, then scramble eggs in. 

Perhaps it’s an idea for tomorrow’s brunch. 

(I promise I was thinking about the entry all week, before seeing Nicole’s entry about chives in general!)

Dinner for one

Saturday, May 17, 2008

I think the main reason why the universe gave me a family for which I am responsible, is so that I stay in line. 

I have once again proven that, if left to my own devices, I surely would subsist strictly on a diet of red wine, peanut butter, salsa, crackers, refried beans and the internet.  Behold, my dinner:

This is what happens when I eat alone.  Having no responsibilities to feed my only son a nutritious dinner, nor to remind my boyfriend how lucky he is to have a partner who cooks fabulous meals, clearly means one thing to me:  LAZINESS.  I won’t let this deter me, however, for I have actually convinced myself that this meal was a good choice, not an irresponsible one. Readers of this site will be with me I know, once I point out that this meal is comprised almost completely of local ingredients.

Aw yeah, just what I need:  reinforcement by way of rationalization to continue with this ridiculousness.

The wine is Chaddsford Winery’s 2006 Pinot Noir 25th Vintage.  It’s said to be a “light, delicate red with a mouth-filling combination of fruit and earthiness,” and I must whole-heartedly agree.  At about $15 a bottle, it’s my favorite, stand-by local red wine.  And that adorable little jar is filled with a sweet and sassy Rosemary Rosé herb jelly from Little Isobel.  The texture was a bit more watery than I’m used to, but the flavor was absolutely refreshing.  The unique labels and little sprig of Overbook Farm-grown rosemary suspended in the jelly really makes this product a local gem.  The crackers are not local and not remarkable.  They simply served as a vehicle to get the jelly to my mouth, and to cleanse my delicate and sophisticated palate in between sips of wine.  Ahem.

I’m thinking of using this dinner-for-one theme during One Local Summer.  But first, I suppose I’ll have to get rid of that family.

Ethnic food and small farms

Monday, March 31, 2008

A draft of this entry has been sitting on my hard drive for…oh, at least a month.  I apologize that I didn’t post it in a more timely fashion after the PASA conference, but I still find myself thinking about this workshop session and referencing it in conversation, so I hope you’ll all still find this entry interesting.

So, in the middle of February I attended the PASA conference (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture).  It was my first visit to the conference, and—besides suffering from work-induced exhaustion and cold-induced aches—I was overwhelmed by all the organizations’ tables and circulating farmers and activists.  Despite being intimidated, I still managed to learn a little about various subjects, but I won’t attempt to summarize everything.  For now, I’d just like to talk about the workshop/lecture I enjoyed the most!  It was the last one I attended, given by Sandra Miller of Painted Hand Farm near Carlisle, called ‘Feeding the World in Your Community: Capturing Ethnic Markets’.  The Powerpoint presentation for this workshop (as well as other articles) is actually on her farm’s website, for further explanation.

She started by explaining why ethnic groups are an excellent customer-match for small farms.  Recent immigrants understand seasonality, spend a higher percentage of their income on food than the average American, and are accustomed to shopping frequently for fresh food.  Through modern shipping routes and the internet, these immigrants can maintain some of their identity through their food, but they want a local source for some ingredients.  When they find a source, they are frequent and loyal customers who spread the word about a farm within their own community, which may rely heavily on word-of-mouth for places to source particular food varieties.

The presentation included various steps that farmers can take to research and prepare for these markets, which I won’t reiterate here.  I just enjoyed hearing her entrepeneurial but respectful attitude!  For instance, many of her customers have specific halal butchering requirements and want to slaughter the animal themselves.  Instead of being intimidated or annoyed by this, she thought to herself, ‘I don’t need to pay for a device to de-horn the goat (and run the risk of occasionally killing one during the process), or a device to castrate the goat (and again, might occasionally lose an animal)—and hey, I don’t even need to pay anything to a butcher, so I come out ahead!’  She also emphasized the value of talking about the food with the customers, to discover how the meat or vegetables are going to be prepared; she gave an example of some squash seeds given to her by a Sicilian who wanted to prepare the squash when it was young and tender, but once she brought to market an example of the squash when it was hard and fully grown (a huge tan squash shaped like a ram’s horn!) and someone from a *different* part of Italy came up and asked if the squash could be allowed to grow even more hard!

Sandra Miller primarily raises meat goats, and the primary group of customers she mentioned were recent immigrants or visitors from Southeast Asia and Africa, many of them Muslims looking for goats for holiday meals—or just ethnic groups for whom goat meat is a staple part of their diet.  One of the reasons to explore ethnic markets, that she mentioned repeatedly and that I found most exciting, is that these are people who may be relocating to or visiting in the States (e.g., families of academics teaching/studying at various educational institutions, like the American War College near her in Carlisle) who for *months* haven’t been able to find food (like goat meat) that they’re accustomed to consuming all the time—and they’re *so* happy to find a source for this food; she said interactions with these customers, overjoyed to find these staples, are very satisfying.  She said she’s had adult Muslim men come to her farm and weep with joy that they can now enjoy a goat at a celebration, like the birth of a child or whatever.  It made me want to have a goat farm! 

One other perspective of ethnic groups that I found especially compelling was the truly sustainable approach to consuming food.  Between the variety of ethnic groups that buy food from her, everything is used—right down to the turkey feet a Chinese co-worker wanted from her during one year when she was sourcing Thanksgiving turkeys for coworkers.  This co-worker wanted the feet for soup broth, a fundamental part of the holiday celebration in the co-worker’s family, and paid her $50 for a part of the animal that would’ve otherwise gone to waste.  That’s so cool!