Just as we thought spring would never arrive in Northeast Ohio, farmers markets are opening outside, and long awaited daffodils, chives, ramps, and early green start to appear.  In addition to planning our gardens and planting our starts, here’s another great activity to include in your summer plans: pick up a copy of Patricia Latimer’s updated version of Ohio Wine Country Excursions.  After describing the rich history of wine making in Ohio, Pat offers six different tours including maps, descriptions of the more than eighty wineries included in the tours, and details on the wines produced and methods used.

What a great addition to your summer plans for enjoying the local bounty.

You can order the book from University of Akron Press by calling 1-800-247-6553 or visiting www.uakron.edu/uapress.  You can also contact Patricia Latimer: 216-591-0353.

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly July!  I bought what was probably the last asapargus and strawberries of the season this week.  Good thing I made my jam early!  Blueberries, red and black raspberries, red currents, sour cherries are showing up at markets in abundance.  I hear from farmers that peaches are going to be especially good this year.  I just want to slow it all down and enjoy each week’s worth of bounty.  Thanks to greenhouses and hoop houses, beautiful ripe tomatoes have been available for weeks.  The creative and hardworking market farmers of Northeast Ohio are extending the season on so many of the foods we love, the “What’s in Season” charts will need modification.

With so many farmers markets available now, there’s no excuse not to feed yourself and family the best, ripest, and most delicious foods from our local farms.  If you don’t know where to go, check out Debbi Snook’s great coverage of farmers markets at

http://www.cleveland.com/taste/index.ssf/2010/06/northeast_ohio_farmers_markets.html

Mary

2010 may one day be recognized as the year winter markets became a serious reality in Northeast Ohio! Of course, Coit Road has been open on Saturdays throughout the winter for many years. And North Union opened indoors at Shaker Square in 2001. But this winter, across the region, farmers markets are going inside to keep the local products available and sustain the community. (Check out your market on localfoodcleveland.org for hours and locations.) Looking outside on stark, dreary snow mounds makes one wonder just what could be available from local farmers in January?

Here’s a sample from farmers market newsletters: goat cheese, eggs, potatoes, apples, parsnips, milk and butter, cider, greenhouse lettuces and arugula, honey, syrup, beef, lamb, breads and pastries, sunchokes, mushrooms, spices, breakfast burritos, garlic, onions, shallots, nuts, winter squashes of all shapes.

And that’s just food! How about thick warm wool blankets, beeswax candles, jewelry, hand thrown pots! And then, of course, there’s the music, the knifesharpening, and the demonstrations (depending on the market.) Finally, there are the friends and neighbors to greet and spend some time with over a cup of coffee or hot cider. It almost makes winter tolerable.

Meanwhile, only four more months until asparagus and ramps greet us at the outdoor markets!

Nothing says I love you like a fresh, ripe from the vine tomato. Forget the diamonds, you can’t eat them. Not even Penzy’s spices are going to help.

If you been paying attention to Tammy the tomato’s travails this summer you know about about her challenging life in the ‘hood. If you’ve been trying to grow your own you probably noticed the effect this summers weather had on the local summer crops. And if you were lucky you managed to avoid a dose of “late blight” which devastated the tomato fields in the Northeast. It has been an interesting season.

But hey, hope springs eternal and the 2010 seed catalogues and all their temptations will be arriving soon at a mailbox near you. There’s nothing quite like the new seed offerings to chase the winter blues. All those pornographic images of fresh fruit and vegetables you can have in your own backyard.

For us at Blue Pike Farm we’re already in the 2010 mode. We’ve been planting garlic for next summers harvest, the Radicio and spinach are poking through and if the winter isn’t too brutal the Tuscan Kale and Swiss chard should be ready for Spring harvest. I guess this means were going to continue with this grand urban growing experiment for another year.

And while it seems like only 6 months ago that we had the May Open House (and by coincidence it’s only 6 months till the May 1, 2010 version) each morning seems fresh. Don’t you just love the symmetry of the seasonal cycles!

Just a couple a weeks left to visit us this season. Stop by.

Carl J. Skalak, Jr.
Blue Pike Farm

900 E. 72nd St
Cleveland, OH

On Wednesday, September 16^th, Middlebury college students, professors, area farmers and “foodies” convened in the basement of the Ilsley Town Library in Middlebury Vermont for a community potluck and discussion with local chef and author Amy Trubeck. The discussion was part of a larger community conversation around the issue of local food in Vermont.

The conversation centered on Trubeck’s 2008 book, The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. The book describes the abstract French concept of terroir and explores the possibilities for a regional food system in Vermont. Terroir is the idea that foods from a specific place take on qualities from the soil and become unique to that place. The first part of Trubeck’s book focuses on the implications of terroir on France’s food production systems. Different regions of the country focus on producing a particular product, and producers receive a special label from the state through a system known as appellations d’origine contrôlées. These regional labels give products such as wine and cheese a certain level of authenticity and they become inherently linked to their region of origin.

The discussion on Wednesday night focused on the possibility of re-creating a similar system of terroir in the United States, specifically in Vermont. Trubeck prefaced the conversation by arguing that food production in the United States has never been focused on regions.

“The history of agriculture in our country is that it has always had the mentality of, ‘We’ll stay here until it doesn’t work anymore,’” said Trubeck, “We’ve never been particularly localized.”

However, she pointed out that in recent years Vermont has begun to focus on its regional specialties, such as milk, cheese, honey and maple syrup. Trubeck argues that these products are beginning to constitute a regional food culture. One example of a co-operative regional food system that is helping to contribute to this culture is the Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro. This dairy farm has invested in a 30,000 sq. ft. cheese cave, and is allowing many local area dairy farmers to age their cheese in the caves.

“The cheeses that are produced in this cave will all have a similar quality,” said Trubeck.

Another way that Vermont is beginning to develop its own terroir or regional food commodity is through the production of maple syrup. Trubeck, along with Middlebury College Professor John Elder and others, has been working to identify particular sensory qualities in maple syrup from different regions across Vermont. Trubeck’s book has garnered much attention to the idea of creating a Vermont terroir.

“Amy’s book has been an important part of the conversation around local food,” said Elder. “She has influenced the state – (Vermont Governor) Jim Douglas recently took a trip to France to learn more about the concept of terroir and its implication to build on terroir in Vermont. Taste of Place has helped place cultural value on our agricultural systems and get support for our farmers.”

One community member brought up the fact that although Vermont is known as a dairy state, many dairy farms throughout the region are struggling to stay afloat. Trubeck argued that this is because there is no regional, localized system for producing milk despite the fact that Vermonters pride themselves on their cheese and milk.

“The milk from all of our local dairy farms goes straight to the Hood processing plant and there is no distinction made between milk from different farms,” she said.

Trubeck clarified that her interest in local food is based on “food as a source of pleasure and as a sensory experience,” rather than a moral interest. When asked about Vermont’s future for developing a terroir, Trubeck stated that her interest is in “creating a livelihood for producers, preserving the natural landscape, and creating a cultural heritage.”

As community members began to chime into the conversation, it became clear that Trubeck’s book has become a part of the broader dialogue about how the majority of our nation’s food is currently being produced. Several community members expressed an interest in local food because of environmental interests, while other stated that they simply wanted to feed their children good, healthy food.

From the Middlebury Campus Newspaper, Molly Holmes, staff writer

It’s such a simple idea.  We know the chefs around Cleveland who use local products have the best tasting food and most interesting menus.  So why not seek out the locavore chefs when you travel?  It is, by default, what we do when we travel abroad, because “national” or “regional” foods are, in fact, local foods or at least based on local ingredients.  This may be the most exciting opportunity in the “travel close to home” trend that has yet to be recognized.  The enthusiasm for local foods that has been fueled by the explosion of farmers’ markets across the county makes it easier than even to find restaurants that offer the taste of the place.

Last summer I went with my sister-in-law to the open farm tour at Polyface Farm in Virginia.  The lunch served that day was so local it had been alive or in the ground on the farm just days before!  But for dinner the next night we decided to find a restaurant Staunton, where we were staying, that featured farmers on the menu.  The Staunton Grocery was just what we were looking for–everything was fresh, seasonal, and prepared with skill and affection.  Our next time together we were in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and the local food passion took us to the Route 7 Grill–another farm to table success.

It has become my guiding principle when I travel.  Find the restaurant that features farmers on the menu and you are certain to have a delicious and memorable meal.  I was recently in Washington D.C., where I met Dean Zimmerman of Dino’s whose enthusiam for local farm products is so intense that he regularly sends email blasts to his customers about what he bought at the farmers’ market or from local farms that will be on the menu this week.  My three course fixed prix ($35) dinner started with white peaches from Heyser’s Farm wrapped in procuitto!  As we were leaving, he collared us to talk about the wild blackberries that were ripening in the backyards of a Maryland housing development, where foragers go each summer to pick and resell the sweet bounty.  He could hardly wait for the flats of berries they would bring him.

Cleveland is extraordinarily blessed with chefs who are sourcing as much as they can from local farmers.  For years, Parker Bosley was the lone champion of local foods and his efforts consistently put Cleveland on the Gourmet Magazine list of top 50 restaurants in the U.S.  But now, for a number of reasons, Northeast Ohio has an ever growing number of chefs who are connecting with local farmers to create some of the tastiest meals anywhere. 

Parker, of course, trained many of these new chefs.  Others, thanks to the Northern Ohio chapter of Slow Food, have experienced Terra Madre (see the link) and sampled “local” foods from around the world at the Salone del Gusto.  Some grew up with families that raised fruits and vegetables, canned, jammed, baked, and otherwise consumed the local harvest.  And many more are learning from farmers and producers as farmers’ markets spring up across the region.

I have invited these chefs to tell their own stories in this category.  Come back and visit often to learn more about what these folks are cooking up for us from the bounty of the western reserve!

Mary

It all came together pretty easily. Maybe because it was all so local. Maybe because a group of interested people were committed to making it work. Maybe this will be the beginning of a larger local food movement for our own area.

We recently participated in hosting a screening of the documentary, “Polycultures: Food Where We Live” on a Monday evening in a nearby community. It was slated to be shown at an outdoor location, the Warren Community Amphitheatre, a beautiful venue built into the hillside rising up from the Mahoning River in the historic section of downtown Warren.

Bobbie Brown, Director of the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County (FACT) coordinated the event. She’s a dedicated supporter of local food, really anything local, as she is a Trumbull County native and relies on her strong connections to the community to do her job. She is also a subscriber to the CSA we coordinate for a group of local farmers in our area.

The director of Polycultures, Tom Kondilas has a connection to the Warren area. His parents are both from Warren. He graduated from school here, and had many relatives present at the screening to offer him support.

Interviewed in the film in his role as Ohio Farmers Union president, is Joe Logan, a life-long resident of Gustavus, in northern Trumbull County. His family has farmed there for five generations. Joe currently serves as Director of Governmental Affairs for OFU; years ago we custom-raised dairy heifers for him.

On this evening our goal was to showcase farmers who are working hard to produce food that is raised locally and naturally and bring their products to the attention of a wider audience.

Here’s what we served, free of charge before the film screening:

Grass-fed Beef Sliders with caramelized onions and cheese– grass-fed beef produced by us at Miller Livestock, Kinsman, Ohio topped with grassfed cheddar cheese. The cheese is made from milk produced by a group of dairy graziers in New Wilmington PA who Aaron has had a longstanding relationship with; this is the same group who grows vegetables for the CSA we subscribe to. The onions were from KJ Greens in Bristolville, OH.

Savory Bread Pudding with Tomatoes - tomatoes grown at Red Basket Farms, Kinsman, Ohio, milk from Hartzler Dairy, which is featured in the film, and eggs from Broadview Farms.

And a Blueberry Crisp made with blueberries picked locally. We also made a light, refreshing summer drink by putting cucumbers, which Bobbie is growing in her plot at a community garden in Warren, and mint from another CSA subscriber, Kim Mascarella, who coordinates a farmer’s market in Howland Ohio as a part of her job as Assistant Planning and Zoning Director for that community, into icy cold water and served milk from Hartzler’s.

All of the food was prepared and served by Melissa and Steve Murphy who own the Blue Iris in downtown Warren; Melissa estimates they source about 80% of their food locally in season.

The food was sourced from within a 50-mile radius. It was delicious, fresh, and full of flavor. People were blown away!

We passed out information about the sources for the food, the farmers’ market, and the restaurant before the screening. Kondilas spoke briefly to the assembled crowd and afterwards was available to talk with people and answer some questions.

So we made some connections. With other farmers, with chefs, between people we know as our customers and some we hope will become our customers in the future. Connections between people we’ve known for years or those we have recently met who were a part of the Polycultures documentary. Between the people who were present at the Amphitheatre, who are completely new to the local food movement and those who’ve been working in it as their vocation, passion, or profession.

Strengthening connections. Building community. A satisfying, successful evening.

Melissa Miller, Miller Livestock