July 12th, 2010 by Outreach Department
How long are you willing to wait for locally grown strawberries and are they worth the wait? Those big, perfectly shaped orange-red berries that always precede the locals are tempting, especially now that food science has been able to sweeten them up. Never “designed” for shipping, local berries are juicy, soft, and a deep, blood red color. Their sweet/tart flavor is something I dream about in January. By March I am all but counting the days until local berries ripen. I even view the arrival of the big orange berries as a sign that it won’t be much longer until local berries are ready. My intuition tells me that dark red color is a sign of higher antioxidant levels and the tart part of the flavor is what gives strawberries their exceptionally high vitamin C content. This is not why I eat them, I am fulfilling a year long wait for that combination of flavor, juiciness, and color that is so deeply satisfying. It is the strawberry who taught me to wait for fruits and vegetables to be in season where I live. I grew up eating Willamette Valley berries so I cannot be fooled by the orange berries from afar. I will wait, and I wait for other foods too like corn, tomatoes, and peaches.
Tags: Strawberries
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August 31st, 2009 by Matthew
“A Georgia peach, a real Georgia peach, a backyard great-grandmother’s orchard peach, is as thickly furred as a sweater, and so fluent and sweet that once you bite through the flannel, it brings tears to your eyes.” -Melissa Fay Greene
Dave Belzberg is no georgia-peach-growing great grandmother. But given the right mood and circumstances, his peaches just might bring tears of joy and delight to your eyes. They are really that good.
Dave has been growing his organic peaches at Rolling Hills Farm in Southern Oregon (Griffin Creek area) for almost 24 years. Before moving south to the Rogue Valley, Canadian-born Dave grew plums up in British Columbia for 10 years. That gives him almost 35 years of experience in the orchards!
To view full blog with pictures and links click here!
Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, Eat Local Week, Heirloom Foods, Local Farms, local food, organic, Slow Food, sustainability
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August 20th, 2009 by Matthew
“Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.” -Frank Lloyd Wright
When Ken and Susan Muller first looked at the Rogue Valley with their new farm in mind, they saw an abundance of exceptional produce farms and talented produce farmers. Operations like Whistling Duck, Barking Moon, Hi Hoe Produce, Blue Fox, Rolling Hills, and a multitude of others were getting the job done, and doing it well.
But the one thing that Ken and Susan didn’t see much of was poultry. Specifically, high quality pastured poultry and eggs. And so a little over two years ago, equipped with family histories in farming, experience and skills gained from WWOOFing, and a healthy dose of inspiration, Ken and Susan set out to fill this niche and transform Margaret Krout’s (Susan’s mother) seven acres into a bonafide pastured poultry operation.
Today that transformation is complete. The infrastructure is in place, the chicken houses are beautiful, their flocks are growing strong, and their customers are spreading the word. And as a new customer myself, it’s time for me to help spread the word about this amazing local food resource!
There have already been some great articles about Rogue Valley Brambles that are worth a peek: Mail Tribune, Friends of Family Farmers, Daily Tidings. But in this article, I want to delve a little deeper into all the amazing foodstuffs the farm is producing and let you know where and when you can find Rogue Valley Brambles.
FARM FRESH EGGS:
Rogue Valley Brambles’ eggs are truly in a different class. They’re beautiful, rich in color, extremely fresh, flavorful, and sustainably raised. They’re some of the best eggs I’ve seen, and well worth the cost and a trip to the growers market to find them. This is what sets them apart from the rest:
COLOR – Ken and Susan’s eggs are so beautiful you’re almost tempted not to touch them. Many of the rare breeds that they raise (Araucana, Wyandotte, Buff Orpington, Delaware, Polish, New Hampshire,Cochin, Jersey Giant, and Gold Sex Link) lay eggs with unique and beautifully colored shells. The blue eggs from their Araucana hens are particularly striking………
To view full blog with pictures and links click here!
Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, Eat Local Week, Heirloom Foods, Local Farm, Local Farms, local food, organic, Pastured Poultry, Rogue Valley, Slow Food, sustainability
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July 29th, 2009 by Mary
Science didn’t invent fermented dairy foods like yogurt and cheese. Cave drawings from 4000BC show humans enjoying their homemade or should I say cavemade dairy products. In fact, little crusts of cheese have been found in Egyptian tombs. Quality fermented dairy foods were a mark of sophistication in Greek-Roman times so the ultimate insult was to call someone a “barbaric milk drinker”. These fermenting skills were carried to all of Europe, and all European countries have a long history of fermenting dairy. No one had a refrigerator to store their raw milk , so creating a lactoferment food that preserved the dairy for a few days to a few weeks was the way to go. The ferment process converts the lactose sugars into lactic acid, an antibacterial. Lactic acid also predigests the casein or protein in milk making it much more digestible than non-fermented milk.
Freshly made Curd
It’s been 30 years since my days revolved around the goat milking parlor, but I still miss the fun of making my own fermented dairy products. Occasionally I still make soft cheese for East Indian cookery because it’s so easy and so delicious…..
To view full blog with pictures and links click here!
Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, Creme Fraiche, Dairy, Eat Local Week, Heirloom Foods, milk, Sustainable
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July 21st, 2009 by Mary
My favorite way to eat corn is dried, and my favorite corn to dry is blue. In fact I have quit growing corn to eat fresh on the cob. I buy all the fresh corn we eat from a local farmer who grows nothing but sweet corn, 5-10 ears for a dollar, depending on the quality of his crop. I grow an heirloom variety of blue corn called, Black Aztec, dry it on the cob, and remove the dried kernels from the cobs while watching a good Netflix.
Then I store the kernels in a gallon jar until we need cornbread. My favorite recipe is the Joy of Cooking, southern style cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet. Just before I make the bread, I get out my coffee mill that I bought just for grinding corn, and I grind a cup and a half of corn to make a beautiful flour.
This takes about 3 minutes. The aroma alone makes this process worthwhile! Freshly ground corn smells sweet and corny, just like the first bite from summer corn on the cob. Next, I just follow the recipe and bake this delicious blue food which we eat warm with lots of honey butter………To view full blog with pictures and links click here!
Tags: Blue Corn, Corn, Cornbread, Heirloom Foods, Recipes
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