More Tidbits

Pictured here: I think it's cilantro sprouting at Ella Bella Farm last week. (The next photograph is also out at Ella Bella Farm.)

• Here's a treat for you. I found a beautiful essay online: "My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm."

• If you are on the central coast of California, and are a farmer or a business that supports organic/sustainable agriculture (restaurant, market, etcetera), it's not too late to get listed in the CAFF Local Food Guide. CAFF is the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, and you might have seen their "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" sticker campaign. they produce a food guide listing CSAs, farmers markets, farms, restaurants, caterers, and even school programs that support buying from local farms. Just click here to go to their site to sign up. The deadline is Monday, October 31. 

• Remember the Eat Local Challenge? Read about a couple who took it to the limit. They vowed to eat within a hundred miles of their foodshed for an entire year, and I mean everything. Every single thing. Here are related stories.

• I enjoyed my trip to San Diego so much earlier this year, and found this post, "San Diego: A Hot Culinary Destination." You might enjoy it, too.

• Another great post at The Accidental Hedonist informs us that "factory farms are not organic farms." It's brief, and there is a call to action to sign the petition. "On November 16, in Washington, DC, organic consumer and farm representatives will attend the National Organic Standards Board meeting to urge the USDA to stop allowing giant intensive confinement dairy feedlots to illegally market their milk as 'organic.' The OCA will be presenting a petition with thousands of signatures."

• This week, I interviewed Brooke Hayes of Speckled Hen Farm in Cardington, Ohio, this week, for Local Harvest's Thanksgiving newsletter. She put the phone up to her flock of turkeys--about a hundred of them--and gobbled to them. They gobbled back: a hundred turkey wattles in unison was something to hear, I'll tell you. Brooke is raising heritage turkeys (Narragansetts and Kardosh Bronzes), as well as a number of heritage hens for meat and eggs. She started with Speckled Sussex hens, which gave her the name for her farm, and has other laying hens now, too: Buff Orpingtons, Australorps, Rhode Island Reds, Auracanas, and two conventional breeds: Cinnamon Queens and Cherry Eggers. Her meat birds are Delaware, Bard Rocks, and Silver Laced Wyandottes. She guesstimates eight hundred chickens (600 heritage birds)! It was a delightful conversation.

Brooke's heritage turkeys will be available fresh at the North Market Poultry and Game in Columbus's Historic North Market. Their phone number is (614)221-7237. If you're not close to a turkey farm, you can buy heritage turkeys (and all kinds of other items for your Thanksgiving table, including organic cranberries) at LocalHarvest.

• I also did some research on cranberries: did you know that cranberries grow on trailing vines like strawberries? And that ripe cranberries bounce—you can dribble them like a basketball. Read more here.

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MORE RECOMMENDATIONS
I love In Praise of Sardines, and it turns out Brett and I were both at the Slow Food Fast Food Picnic a couple of weeks ago. Read "Cursed is he who doesn't believe eating is an act of love." (And then check out the rest of his blog.)

And more Zine than Blog is Treehugger, but you can still subscribe with Bloglines.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity." —Roberto Benigni (Happy birthday, one day late to Roberto!)

Thanks for visiting.

Comments

[Jamie]

That is indeed cilantro! I should recognize it, after spending a little while this morning de-weeding mine. :-)

We have continued to eat mostly local ever since August. I can't imagine taking it all the way, but I am pleased that somebody is!