Slow Food Commentary

Seems that topics suited to this blog pop up at the oddest places ....... like waiting to get a haircut and finding this article in the September 15 issue of TIME magazine. Something to chew on, so to speak. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1838757,00.html

Michael Pollan is quoted in the article ..... have you read The Omnivore's Dilemma? It's the story of 4 meals, but here's a better description ....... http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php
Get it from your local library. Enough of this for a while .......... ;~)

Roadtrip Part IV - Local Flowers, Local Artists

Our first stop on the Wild Western Prince Willaim County Farm Tour was actually LynnVale Studios. http://www.lynnvale.com/ We didn't get any pictures of the cut flower garden beds since it was raining steadily when we arrived, but here are a couple of pictures of the floral design and studio area inside of the converted dairy barn. Cut flower grower Andrea (in the brown coveralls), has quite a selection of both annual and perennial beds on the farm. It's always an advantage for flower growers to have the perennials ....... some of the work maintaining them can be done outside of the busiest times planting & harvesting from the annual beds. She has a large stand of curly willow along with many other shrubs. If you're interested in the cut flower business, here's an association link to check out:

http://www.ascfg.org/.

Some other useful resources:

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/cutflower.html

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/woodyornamentals.html

http://www.growingformarket.com/

After we enjoyed walking through the gardens and looking at the gallery and arrangements in the barn/studio, we picked up a bunch of dried sunflowers to take home.

Roadtrip Part III - Now for the Sizzle!

A great coincidence for this local food blogger, during last weekend's visit to Virginia, was finding that a local farm tour was underway. http://www.pwcfarmtour.com/ Thanks to my indulgent family members, (!) we were able to visit 3 farms. We followed that up with wine tasting at a local winery on the way home.

Check out this great T-shirt from the Smith Family Farm! http://www.beefandhayproducer.com/home.nxg

This farm was serving lunch and taking visitors out on hay rides to see their Angus cattle herd. People were lining up to purchase beef and by Sunday, several of the cuts were sold out. We were able to pick up Porterhouse & Delmonico steaks ........ they were delicious on the grill that evening. Thanks to Smith Family Farm for hosting such a diverse crowd from the community on a rainy day! Nothing like scheduling a farm tour to bring on the rain ......... We also got a look at their pastured poultry operation and all of the equipment needed to run such a large family farm operation.

Roadtrip & Somerset Farmers' Market Part II

Part II .............
Some of the things that I just knew I could get at the Somerset County Farmers' Market - hereafter referred to as the SCFM - were Certified Organic & Certified Naturally Grown products as well as a selection of heirloom tomatoes. I purchased some really nice green (and purple) beans and purple cauliflower from my friends Ray, Kathy, & Yvonne of Providence Acres Farm. http://agmap.psu.edu/Businesses/2055 They've chosen to farm under the guidelines of the Certified Naturally Grown, Inc. organization. If you're interested in learning more about this program, check out the following link. http://www.naturallygrown.org/

Heirloom tomatoes were the fun purchase of the day, since my plan was to have a tomato tasting to complement a local dinner Sunday evening. The tomatoes came from Hi-View Gardens - just look at their beautiful displays! I took notes as Todd deferred to Sarah to give me the names of all of the tomatoes that I purchased ........ she really had a colorful variety for sale. Hi-View Gardens can also be found at the farmers' market in Wilkinsburg if you're from the Pittsburgh city area. http://www.farmersmarketalliance.com/farmers/FarmerPage.php?farmID=5 Stop in and get some tomatoes before it's too late this season. They were also among the growers featured in this recent restaurant food story.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08241/907344-34.stm

Just look at the gorgeous platter of tomatoes sliced and ready for our family tomato tasting! All of the tomatoes were great with the exception of ---- sorry Sarah :~( ------ Moonglow. It looked really nice and sliced well, but we didn't like the distinctly "different" flavor. You can see in the background of the picture that we had come from a wine tasting, but we were fresh out of words to describe Moonglow ......... afterwards, the rest of the tomatoes went into a delicious salad with green onions, shredded mozzarella, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Yes, this was the same meal that included the grilled Shiitake mushrooms ...........

Local Food Goes On a Roadtrip!

Everyone seems to define "local food" in a different way ...... home town, home county, home state, 100 mile radius, etc. Well, this weekend, local food went on the road and made stops on the way to Virginia and in the Prince William County Virginia area.

The weekend started with a stop at the Somerset County Farmers' Market just off of the Somerset Pennsylvania Turnpike exit behind Georgian Place. http://www.somersetcountyfarmersmarket.com/ As usual, it's always windy & cooler in Somerset!

We started with some colorful good looking produce. One of the unique items of the season are locally grown strawberries! Grandma's Produce had customers lining up for their strawberries. Grower Joel has figured out a way to produce local strawberries in late summer/early fall. What a treat at this time of year. For the technically inclined out there, here's a link to a report on how this is being done by some growers in the Somerset County, PA & Garrett County, MD area. http://www.sare.org/reporting/report_viewer.asp?pn=ONE06-060&ry=2007&rf=1

For most of us, it's just good eating .......

We also picked up some maple products and Shiitake mushrooms at the market. The mushrooms and tomato chunks drizzled with Italian dressing grilled up great for dinner on Sunday. They were a side-dish to local Angus beef steaks that we'll talk about later this week.

That's it for now ...... more on heirloom tomatoes and other products on the next post!

It's Local Food Week!

Don't forget that it's Local Food Week in the Pittsburgh area. Check out the story at this link for events still planned for this week! http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08262/912869-34.stm?cmpid=fooddining.xml

How about the Main Street Farmers' Market in Washington, Pa on Thursday?http://buylocalpa.org/event/view/46
http://www.washpa.net/FarmersMarket/home.html

Or Farmers@Firehouse in the Strip on Saturday?http://buylocalpa.org/event/view/31

Is this blog working?

This is a test to see if we're up and running today ..... wouldn't allow this bloggist to "save" & post on the 18th! Otherwise you would have seen the mums yesterday ...........

Another crystal clear September afternoon at the Ambridge Farmers' Market. I got 5 purple mums to plant, but I really liked these "daisy" like mums too.