This is about seven kinds of wonderful. Rena at Locavorious has expanded on the idea of a CSA in some really interesting ways. First, instead of a box of fresh vegetables, these CSA shares are made of frozen fruits and vegetables. All products are sourced locally within a short distance of Ann Arbor, Michigan, from existing farms (either by contract or U-Pick). After prep and freezing, Rena stores the veggies in a commercial-quality “community freezer” until November or December. There will be four monthly pick-ups, so there’s no need to buy a freezer to be able to enjoy locally-grown, frozen foods in the middle of winter. Not to mention the labor savings for folks who don’t have the time to tramp to half a dozen U-Pick places and then process all the food!

One of the things I like most about this kind of business is that it really is helping to build an interdependent local economy that’s accessible to mainstream culture. Let’s face it; most of the current US society isn’t going to cook every meal from fresh vegetables just harvested by Farmer Joan down the road. But they might serve a side of frozen green beans harvested by Farmer Joan and frozen by Rena two months ago.

Shares run for 4 months and will probably yield a total of around 30 pounds of food. The “early bird” price for 2008-09 is $100. Sounds like a great deal to me! I’ve already signed up. See details at http://locavorious.com/Eaters.html

Are there other innovative local food businesses out there that I’ve missed? Please let me know if you know of more innovators!

As my sweetie and I were eating at our favorite local restaurant tonight, the manager came by. Last time I was in, I’d asked if he might look into getting grass-fed beef for their burgers, if nothing else. He sounded very interested and promised to look into it…but really, what else was he going to say? So I nudged him again this week, and was able to point out to him that Eat Local Eat Natural, which I first heard about a couple days ago, would be moving in right across the street and could supply them with locally-raised grass-fed beef. His eyes lit up and he said, “Across the street? Then we wouldn’t have to pay for shipping!”

This reminded me that the township’s Planning Council meeting, where they were discussing rezoning a parcel of land for Eat Local Eat Natural, would be meeting tonight. And that I wanted to go and voice my support, because no one spoke up for it at the last meeting. (A friend who’s up on this sort of thing tells me no one ever says anything unless it’s to complain, so that’s not much of a surprise.)

So I quickly rescheduled my evening and attended my first township meeting. What’s it like to speak to the council? What’s the quickest way to make friends in a business that you’re passionate about? Read on…
I got there before most of the council members – guess I didn’t need to worry about getting a seat – and picked up an agenda. I had to ask the fellow next to me when was the appropriate time to comment (there were two “public comment” items on the agenda) and he said to speak up at the first opportunity, because the later public comment time usually happened around 11pm.

I was a little nervous – I’d never done this before and I felt like a bit of a curiosity standing up and saying, “Um, yeah. I like this. You should let them have this business” seemingly out of the blue. But c’mon – they are proposing to build the “missing link” of central distribution between local farms and local restaurants. How could I not speak up in favor?

I was also a little torn because I’m a big fan of land use planning. I didn’t want to encourage a special case scenario or set precedent for arbitrarily changing the master plan for every plausible idea that comes along. Since I wouldn’t hear any details about the project until after I said my piece, I kept it simple: I know we can’t throw the master land use plan out with the bathwater, but I think this business is a really good idea, and I very much hope that we can host it in our township. I think I used one of my allotted three minutes.

The council members smiled and nodded in that polite, uber-attentive way public officials often have. There were seven people arrayed in a curve in front of me, raised up a couple of steps. May I never have to face down a congressional committee…

When I turned around, I saw a line of pleasantly stunned faces. The developers, no doubt, who had no idea I would be there or what I was going to say. From the looks on their faces, I could tell they were really happy to have this spontaneous show of support. I smiled back and tried to breathe as the nerves hit retroactively.

Soon the issue came up before the council. The gist is this: Eat Local Eat Natural will start out as a distributor/warehouse sort of setup, and later add a cafe, retail store, and outdoor market. The warehouse is an approved use for the current zoning of I2 (a flavor of industrial zoning). The master plan calls for that area to eventually switch over to C4 (mixed commercial), which would be fine for the grocery and market aspects but not the cafe. If the area were zoned C2, it would be approved for all those uses. So it was decided that this property would get a temporary zoning change to C2, but would revert to C4 or I2 if they should move out of this leased building. A “special dispensation,” if you will, that wouldn’t permanently change the master plan. They still need to worry about sewer regulations, especially for the cafe, but they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. But the zoning change was OKed unanimously.

I’m still a little concerned about parts of the business plan and how it would affect Arbor Farms and the Westside Farmers’ Market if they were to go into full operation with their grocery and market, but given that that would only be about 1500 square feet, I think the other full-serve natural groceries in the area will be fine. And if there’s not enough business to support another farmers’ market, only one will survive…but could probably take on all the vendors. So I’m not too worried. So long as the retail supply of local products doesn’t disappear into the maw of local restaurants. But they really seem to have their heads on straight about not outstripping the ability of local farmers to be both productive and sustainable, and hopefully a steady outlet will encourage more farmers to sell their products in this area. Dare we hope for local or regional processing plants, too?

After the meeting, I met Dan Courser and Bill Taylor, the business partners who are starting Eat Local Eat Natural. Bill said he’d heard of me – didn’t remember where, but my name and writing apparently rang a bell. Dan gave me a packet of materials that they use when talking to restaurants about why sourcing products locally is a good idea. They seem like great guys and I felt like I’d made a couple of fast friends.

Hey guys, would you carry organic soybean oil from Thumb Oilseed Producers? Ubly is a bit of a hike just for oil…

According to this news article, a new enterprise called “Eat Local Eat Natural” will be opening on the west side of Ann Arbor. Explicitly inspired by The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it will serve as a warehouse and distribution center for local, natural foods – making it easier to get local meat and produce into local restaurants. They will also have a cafe and market. Hooray! The missing link in the chain from farm to restaurant – not to mention much easier local shopping – will soon be here!

A friend and I went strawberry picking this weekend, so Sunday arrived and I had to make jam…or expensive compost. I had planned to make freezer jam, as I’m feeling a bit lazy about the whole canning thing, but when I saw that freezer jam requires twice as much sugar as fruit, I was a little put off.

Then I discovered Harriet Fasenfest and Marge Braker’s Portland Preserve web site and their Small Batch Strawberry Jam. It’s a brilliant and simple recipe: 3 c. sliced strawberries, 1c. sugar, 2Tbl. lemon juice. You cook it in a skillet, and it makes about a pint. I put it up in half-pint jars, which hopefully won’t dry out before we eat them. I also followed their directions for inverting the sterilized jars, which will hopefully keep without refrigeration.

This recipe and method is perfect for me. We don’t eat a lot of jam, so I was perfectly happy to come away with five half-pints from the half-flat of berries I’d picked. And that was actually three different batches, so I got to play with the recipe some. The process felt manageable, too; I’d been dreading hours spent over the stove, five pounds of sugar used, and enough plain old strawberry to last us three years. This recipe is so do-able, I could see doing a batch from a quart of strawberries as the whim takes me during strawberry season, without feeling the need to mark off an entire weekend to pick, clean, cook, and can jam. Brilliant! Thanks, Harriet and Marge!

The first batch was straight strawberry. The second had candied, dried, and grated fresh ginger. The third batch – and I have no idea where this idea come from – had fresh rosemary (about 10 leaves) and sage (2 leaves) shredded and added in the last 3 minutes of cooking. Sample tastes suggest it’s going to be a fabulous flavor combination, especially with slow-risen wheat/rye bread.

And if you’re counting, this is local except for the lemon juice (actually, lime juice in my case) and ginger, because Pioneer and Penninsular beet sugars are grown and produced in Michigan’s thumb area. Strawberries were from Rowe’s U-Pick farm, and herbs came from the deck.

I just had a lovely belated Mother’s Day dinner with my mom, and I’m so excited by what she’s doing I had to share.

Mom and Dad run a bed and breakfast in Jonesville, Michigan, called the Rooms at Grayfield. The building is the 100+ year old Lakeshore and Michigan Southern railroad station that I grew up in – it was converted to a home in the mid-70s and the garage and most of the station converted to a B&B in 2005.

Mom cooks the gourmet breakfasts and also caters private parties. I have to brag a little about my mom…bragging and the local food connection after the jump…

Mom’s always been a great cook, but a long-time dream of hers was to study at a real cooking academy. She decided that when she retired from her job as a high school librarian, she would do just that.

Six months before retirement, she came down with a combination of health issues out of the blue that knocked her literally flat on her back for months. For a while, she thought she might have to change her plans, but no – that fall she set off to attend a six-month course at the French Culinary Institute in New York City. Alone.

Now, Mom’s no rube, despite living most of her life in a town of 2000. But NYC is a pretty daunting proposition, even to someone in prime health. And at first, she was pretty daunted. The housing she had arranged through the school fell through (a blessing in disguise), but she found an efficiency apartment that she would eventually share with a friend who was doing a 6-week course. She has asked the rental agent if she would be able to cook dinner for six in the kitchen. The agent replied, “Yes, but they’ll have to come in one at a time to eat it.”

After no time at all, though, she settled into the big city routine. I’d call and ask what she’d done that day, and pretty soon, every explanation of where she was included the complicated combination of buses and subways she’d taken to get there. She walked miles every day, her health continued to improve, she carried a briefcase full of knives on the subway, she gave the young whippersnappers in her classes what-for, and oh, my, did she learn to cook. She was a very good cook before; now she is a great chef.

One of the things that tickles my fancy is that as Mom is seeking out the best ingredients she can find (and she roams far and wide looking for them!) she often finds the best ingredients are from the small farms right near Jonesville. She has local sources for organic milk and cream, fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs. She has, on occasion, bartered fresh goat milk and cheesemaking classes for cooking classes she’s taught. She sources some prepared items, like cakes, from other local folks – mostly women, as it happens. Sometimes her demand outstrips local supply – but she delights in fresh, seasonal, regional foods, like the leg of lamb with wild leeks and asparagus she made for a party last spring.

So yes. I’m rambling on because she’s my mom, but I’d write this article about her even if I’d just found her in the phone book. If you’re looking for a great weekend getaway in southern Michigan, or if you’re celebrating a special occasion in the area, do look them up. You’ll not only have a wonderful night’s stay in a gorgeous B&B, you’ll have amazing food – simple or fancy, and made to order – that you can feel good about.

Pork and apples go together like…pork and apples! Pork chops and applesauce, pork loin and baked apples, roast pork and sauteed apples, potatoes and cabbage stir fried with ham and tart green apples. But a local organic apple orchard is re-discovering an even older pairing: hogs and apple orchards.

Apple Schram orchards (sorry, no web site that I can find…), run by Jane Bush near Charlotte, Michigan, has long supplied SE Michigan with organic apples and cider. In 2003, they started raising hogs, too, in a very impressive bit of orchard ecology. I spoke with Jane on the phone this morning – I hope you’ll be as impressed with her setup as I am.

Details of hogs, apples, and phenomenal sausage after the cut…

Apple Schram orchards are certified organic. The pork is not 100% organic, but it’s pretty close, and no antibiotics, growth hormones, etc. are used. The hogs are very healthy and rarely need medical attention, and non-chemical interventions are used in many cases. For example, internal parasites, when they occur, are controlled with diotomaceous earth and wood ash.

The pigs are always free to roam in the pasture. Bush uses movable fencing to herd them into fresh pasture every day, so they don’t stay long enough to tear up the soil too much or over-graze. Their favorite food is red clover, from sprouts to flowers. Bush also plants turnips, which the pigs root up in their natural foraging behavior. All apple pulp left over from cider making, goes to the hogs. They also get some grain (soaked for a few days first) to supplement their forage diet. The spelt and rye are grown by Apple Schram; non-GMO corn comes from a neighbor.

A couple times a year, the pigs are let into the orchard to clean up fallen apples. This is especially important during the summer after the “June drop” – the natural thinning of the unripe fruits. The fallen apples harbor the Plum curculio, an immensely destructive weevil that’s the bane of orchardists. The pigs play a critical role in keeping the trees healthy by eating the fallen apples – helping eliminate the need for pesticides.

The hogs are processed in a USDA-inspected facility near Battle Creek. No nitrates, MSG, or other additives are used. Bush doesn’t sell a myriad of cuts – mostly chops, hams, bacon (smoked but not cured), and sausage.

And oh, let me tell you about the sausage! It is truly divine. My favorite is the bratwurst, which has black pepper and fennel, and she also makes hot and sweet Italian sausage and 1/4 lb. sausage patties. Jane tells me there are a couple reasons why her sausage is so good: first, it’s “whole-hog” sausage, meaning she makes it with really good cuts of meat, not just leftovers. All those loins, roasts,and such go right into the sausage. But the real secret is the hogs’ diet. All that fresh food, and especially the apples, give the pork a richness that can’t be matched by industrially-raised pork.

So, want to get your own? Here are a few places to look:

• Year around Saturdays 8am-2pm Lansing City Market, Lansing, Michigan.
• May-Oct Saturdays 8am-2pm Meridian Farmers’ Market, Okemos, Michigan.
• Wed 2:30pm-6:30pm Allen St Farmers’ Market, Lansing, Michigan.
• People’s Food Co-Op, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• Arbor Farms Natural Foods, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

A couple of interesting final notes:

• The name “Apple Shram” is a family name – Jane’s mother’s maiden name was Schram, and she bought her orchard from an uncle nearly 20 years ago. Remember – “Schram” rhymes with “ham”!
• Jane Bush is also the organizer behind the Michigan egg cooperative Grazing Fields, which are also available at the Ann Arbor Food Co-op, among other places. I’m really impressed with the extent of community Jane has built in this region. She’s given strength and options to Southern Michigan farmers through cooperative distribution systems, opening new markets, and raising awareness of the food treasures grown right here. Thanks, Jane.

Thanks to my sweetie for naming this dish. I was getting tired of calling it “pumpkin pie that isn’t really a pie and isn’t made from pumpkin.”
Recipe:

2 c. butternut squash, baked and mashed (imagine the neck of the squash in a 1c. measuring cup, and bake twice that much. The neck of a largish squash is usually about 2c.)
1.5 c. milk (soy works fine)
2 eggs (don’t add these until after the milk, or the hot squash can cook the eggs)
1/4 c. +/- maple syrup, or sugar to taste
1 tsp. ground dried ginger
3/4 tsp fresh shredded ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves

Pour into ceramic dish and bake at 350 for 15-20 mins. In the meantime, combine until crumbly:
1/2 stick butter or 1/4 c. oil or 1/4 c. coconut shortening
1/3 c. rolled oats
1/3 c. flour (wheat is fine)
1/3 c. (or a little less) sugar

When the filling is half-cooked, spread a handful of crystalized ginger (diced small) over the surface. Then top with the crumble and continue to bake for another 20 minutes or so.

I believe this should be categorized as a breakfast food.

We’re well into December, and I haven’t written since Thanksgiving. Mea culpa. Actually, I don’t feel all that bad about it; this is the most family-centric time of year for me, and if the blog suffered, so be it.

So, how did I do on my self-imposed challenge?

• Write or adapt and test 10 new recipes using 95% locally-sourced ingredients. Exceptions include spices and oil.
  • Corn cake sandwiches
  • Quick chicken stew
  • Root veggies, baked beans (not new recipes)
  • Squashycrumble
  • Chicken-cilantro soup
  • That’s it for new recipes; I ate lots of local meals (including Thanksgiving) but the recipes weren’t new.
• Investigate 5 new sources of local foods.
  • Williams and Amish Country cheeses (local cheese available at Wal-Mart)
  • Potato Chips
  • Boulevard Market (local cheese)
  • Thumb Oilseed Procucers (have asked my co-op to carry their oil)
  • Westwind Milling
  • Almar Orchards
• Blog about my finds and update http://foodorigins.wikispaces.org/ Write 1-2 articles for newsletters.
  • I did update the wiki but didn’t write the newsletter articles.

Things I really hope to find:

• A source of MIchigan non-gmo vegetable oil
• A couple food products that are fantastically good that you can’t find anywhere else
  • Almar Orchard Cider
  • Apple Schram Bratwurst
• A workable local starch on which to base meals
  • Westwind Milling flour

Saturday I took a drive with a dear friend and visited the Boulevard Market in Tecumseh, Michigan. I’d found them on the web by searching for “Michigan Cheese,” and when I found out what all they had to offer, I knew I had to make a trip even though my relationship with dairy foods is strained, at best.

Read about all the goodies within…

The shop offers a wide selection of gourmet cheeses from around the world. John himself several varieties, including mozzarella, chevre, a French-style blue (softer, more like brie, rather than crumbly in the English style), a soft herbed cheese called Northern Lights, and a few others. Selection varies daily; John supplies some restaurants as far away as New York with his cheeses and some days they take his entire stock of certain varieties!

Both the Aylwards were wonderfully friendly, doling out slivers of this and tastes of that to the crowded store’s patrons. I pestered Erika with questions, which she took in stride, telling me about the cheeses, their origins, and offering samples upon samples. For the cheeses they make in-house (under the Four Corners Creamery brand), only the herbs come from more than 50 miles away. The herbs come from Europe, where they are processed in a way especially conducive to cheesemaking that US-grown herbs are not.

The shop also has a nice selection of wine, beer, and spices, most of which are not local, but very tasty-looking nonetheless. While we were there, live music was being played and over a dozen people came in to sample, browse, and buy treats probably destined for the Thanksgiving appetizer tray, as ours were.

After we’d made our purchases and I told John about this blog, he offered to show us the cheese kitchen! We took a quick tour; it’s hard to believe so many good things come out of such a small place. As you’d expect, it was sparkling clean stainless steel, right down to the large milk cans that John uses to tote his fresh, raw milk from the farm to his kitchen pasteurizer. There were logs of goat cheese draining in what appeared at first to be a bundle of uncooked spaghetti noodles, but what turned out to be a device similar to a sushi-rolling mat that lets the cheese be formed properly and drain excess whey.

All the cow milk comes from one farm a few miles from the store, where third-generation dairy farmers tend a herd of about 120 cattle. The cows live in a real pasture, though this being Michigan, their diet is supplemented in the winter when the grass quits growing. The goat milk comes from one of the few USDA-approved goat dairies in the state – about 50 miles away between Jackson and Lansing.

At the moment, the only place to buy John’s Four Corners Creamery cheeses are at the Boulevard Market, but if you’re in the area, it’s well worth the trip. There’s a local winery across the street, too, and Tecumseh is an easy 15 miles from Dundee, Michigan. So, if you’re traveling from points south and driving up US-23, exit at Dundee (Cabella’s) and head west 15 minutes on US-50. Then continue your trip north on US-52 through Manchester to connect with I-94. You’ll like the back roads better, anyway.

I started with a whole, local, free-range chicken from Ernst Farms.

To make stock:

• I had roasted the chicken earlier in the week, then, after we’d eaten all the easily-accessible bits…
• Throw chicken carcass in crock pot. Cover with water and simmer on “low” overnight. (If you don’t have a crock pot, simmer on the stove for 2-3 hors on low.)
• Strain the broth into a large pot. Pick over the bones and put the chicken back in the pot.
• Add salt – about 1/2 tsp. per quart of stock.
• This stock was so rich, I also added a little more plain water to make it a more normal broth strength. Still, it was richer in flavor and less salty than anything store-bought.

To make the soup, add:

• One large potato, diced
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tomato, diced
• 2-3 c chopped kale

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until potatoes are done, about 15 minutes. Just before serving, add:

• 3 Tbl minced fresh cilantro
• 1-2 c. frozen corn kernels
• a squeeze of lime juice (not local, but a nice touch)
• ground red pepper to taste

The frozen corn will bring the temp of the soup down from scalding to merely “hot,” and that’s all the cooking it needs.