Ms. Julie of Ms. Julie’s Kitchen prepped some fresh, seasonal and delicious dishes. AND so easy, the word “recipe” in the title isn’t really applicable.
Vegetable Roll-Ups
Beet, Kale or Swiss Chard leaves. Spread with cashew cheese – a fermented cashew product made by and available from Ms. Julie’s Kitchen. Top with a spring root salad: beets, radishes, spring onions and garlic chives tossed with lemon juice and sea salt. Sprinkle some sprouts on top to finish.
Basket of Life Farm
In case you haven’t heard, Basket of Life has a new website this year. Click here to learn more about their farm and CSA program. You will also find great farm photos and recipes there too.
http://www.basketoflifefarm.com/
To keep up with the daily happenings at their farm, be sure to LIKE their Facebook page too.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Basket-of-Life-Farm/279073224620
Brunty Farm
Brunty Farm will be at the Countryside Farmers Market of course, but if you miss your chance to shop on Saturday, don’t forget thier Farm Store is open daily until 8 PM and Sundays until 6.
Like them on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BruntyFarms
Or visit their webpage: http://www.bruntyfarms.com/Brunty_Farms/Home.html
Canal Corners
Rumor has it they have asparagus available! Give them a call 216-624-3916 or visit their Facebool page https://www.facebook.com/CanalCorners?ref=ts&fref=ts And, returning again this year, the Lantern Theatre Group!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Lantern-Theatre-at-Canal-Corners-Farm-Market/184476561651621?ref=ts&fref=ts
Goatfeathers Point Farm wishes everyone a Happy Spring!
The goats are out a bit each day on pasture and the goat kids will be coming by the end of May! The Bourbon Red and Blue Slate heritage turkeys have moved to their intermediate brooder in the barn. They are gaining in size and will be on pasture soon. Our latest experiment for predation control, a pair of Guinea fowl are patrolling the chicken yard. They are loud and make a lot of wild jungle noise! Feeder calves will be at the Riverview Barn with the bucks. Stop by the farm for eggs (porch fridge honor system) or call 330-657-2726 to pick up a beef bundle.
Greenfield Berry Farm
Check out this really wonderful New York Times write up about Jonathon Sawyer that includes a great piece on Greenfield Berry Farm! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/dining/replanting-the-rust-belt.html?pagewanted=all
Visit Greenfield at the Countryside Farmers’ Market or call to plan your PYO visit to the farm or get CSA information! 330-657-2924. LIKE them on Facebook too https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenfield-Berry-Farm/165503750751?fref=ts
Halko’s Spring Hill Farm
Alan will be returning to the Countryside Farmers’ Market this year with his impeccably perfect produce! He is also adding to his CSA so swing by his booth at the market or give him a call for more information. 330-523-0590
Neitenbach Farm
Do you love herbs? Do you want to learn more about the relationship between our bodies and the foods we eat? Pamela and AJ Neitenbach offer a truly unique approach to farming and CSA programs. Visit them at the Farmers’ Markets and check out their Face book page.
https://www.facebook.com/theneitenbachfarm
Sarah’s Vineyard
The annual Summer Solctice Festival is just around the corner! Check out the region’s best wine festival!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarahs-Vineyard-Annual-Summer-Solstice-Festival/166978190072149?fref=ts
Thinking a glass of wine and gorgeous view would go good right about now? How about a homemade wood fired pizza? Check them out: 330-929-8057
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarahs-Vineyard-Winery/254214525337?fref=ts
The Spicy Lamb Farm
There is always something to do at the Spicy Lamb! Check out their events here: http://www.thespicylamb.com/ and LIKE them on Facebook for daily farm happenings, regional news on sheep grazing and agriculture, as well as fun musings and photos! https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Spicy-Lamb-Farm/173366318367
The Trapp Family Farm
Out of the gate running, the Trapp farm is really coming along! Stop by their farm for fresh eggs and pick up some information about their Food Guild memberships! 1019 W. Streetsboro Rd. (Rt 303) in Peninsula. The Trapp farm also had a mention in the NY Time’s Jonathon Sawyer article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/dining/replanting-the-rust-belt.html?pagewanted=all
This Saturday, May 11, we kick off the Countryside Local Food MOVment. When you sign up, you’ll receive a MOVband – a wrist-worn activity monitor that tracks all your movement and converts it into mileage. You’ll also receive instructions on how to create your own personal fundraising page on Fundly.com. Over the course of the next four weeks, we are challenging you to move 100 miles and raise $100 for Countryside.
Each week, we’ll send you an email tailored to how far you’ve moved. When you reach the milestones of 25, 50, 75, and 100 miles, we’ll tell you about the farmers’ market vendors that are located that same distance from our market, so you’ll get a feel for how far your food travels to get to your dinner table. As you hit each of those milestones, you can pick up a colored mileage marker to add to your band, and your name will also be entered into a raffle to win fantastic prizes! And you can mingle with other market supporters on family-friendly hikes with a Cuyahoga Valley National Park ranger departing from the information booth each Saturday at 10:00am. When you join us for those free hikes, you’ll earn another band in ranger green.
A nonprofit organization, Countryside Conservancy relies on your support to offer programs like Countryside Farmers’ Markets and Countryside U, featuring classes on gardening, preserving, raising backyard chickens, and more. The funds that you raise during the Countryside Local Food MOVment will ensure these programs will be around for years to come. Spread the word, gather donations from your friends and family, and you can win additional prizes! On June 8, join us at the market for a finish line celebration where we’ll award them all. Here’s a list of what you stand to win:
25 mile raffle:
50 mile raffle:
75 mile raffle:
100 mile raffle:
Fundraising raffle (1 ticket for each $100 you raise):
Youngest Participant prize:
Oldest Participant prize:
Fastest Finisher prize (first to hit 100 miles):
Most Miles prize:
Top Fundraiser:
…and more! Sign up today or at Countryside Farmers’ Market at Howe Meadow on Saturday, May 11.
The Countryside Local Food MOVment is sponsored with generous support from Kaiser Permanente and Parker Hannifin. Contact Heather at marketassistant@cvcountryside.org for more information about this event.
Heather Roszczyk, market assistant
Email me today to join our team of wonderful volunteers!
Volunteer and Chef Brian Doyle shakes things up. Photo by Gary Whipple.
Set-up (6:30am – 8:30am): Early birds only! We need one or two volunteers to meet us in the meadow at the crack of dawn, help us unload our market van, and set up some tents and booths. This job is great for those who want to get a jump on their day, or like to run or bike early in the park. Involves some listing.
Parking (8:45 – 11:45am, or a portion thereof): Don a stylish orange vest and work with other volunteers to direct traffic, guide customers to empty spaces, and help pedestrians cross the busy lot. This is a great job for people who don’t like to sit still. Friendliness is important – you are the very first market representatives to greet our customers!
Tear-down (12:00pm – 1:00pm): At the end of the market, we can always use a few extra hands to tear down tents and reload the van. Parking volunteers often stay to help with this, but it’s not a requirement Again, this involves some lifting.
Special Event (variable): Every so often we hold special events at the market and need extra help to manage them. It may be anything from helping children decorate pumpkins to organizing entries in a pie contest. This is great for people who can only help out once in a while.
Market Photographer (most flexible): We are always looking for beautiful photos of our market to use in our newsletters and, occasionally, in publication. If you’ve taken some gorgeous shots, give them to us in .jpg format and we’ll be sure to give you a photo credit whenever we use them!
Demo or Sous Chef (occasional, 8:30am – 11:30am): We often have food enthusiasts demonstrate their favorite recipes at the market. Occasionally they ask for a sous chef – someone to help with chopping, distributing samples, etc. Or, if you are an outgoing, seasoned cook who would be interested in demonstrating an easy recipe or two at the market, let us know that too!
Children’s Activities (3:30pm-7:00pm): Do you have a good rapport with small people? Share your local food enthusiasm as you execute planned activities like scavenger hunts, gardening, cooking, and comparative tastings. Duties may also include set-up/tear-down of children’s tent. Please note that this position may require a background check.
Demo Chef (occasional, 3:30pm-6:30pm): We often have food enthusiasts demonstrate their favorite recipes at the market. If you are an outgoing, seasoned cook who would be interested in demonstrating an easy recipe or two at the market, let us know! You need not be a trained chef – confident home cooks are welcome.
Set-up (2:00pm – 4:00pm): Give us a hand unloading our truck and getting the booths set up. Then, stick around to help the vendors unload as needed. A lovely way to get to know your growers better!
Tear-down (7:00pm – 8:00pm): At the end of the market, we and the vendors can always use a few extra hands to tear down our tents and reload our trucks.
Darwin P. Kelsey, Executive Director
I’m pretty sure humans – especially American humans – shouldn’t be eating a lot of the stuff in the so-called “Western Diet” now being consumed by millions of people living in our modern industrialized world. Four of America’s top ten deadly chronic diseases are related to that diet. The causes are complex and somewhat hard to understand – harder still to fix.
But homo sapiens (HS) were around for a long time before we began abusing ourselves with the Western Diet. There is evidence that early on, Mr. & Mrs. HS were doing things that my modern day vegetarian-vegan friends wouldn’t like. For example, archeological sites linking humans and charred animal bones date back at least a half million years. At some point – archeologists and others say about 10,000 years ago – many HS types began switching from hunter-gatherers to herder-farmers. And over the last couple of centuries, lots of HS cadavers have been carved open for careful examination of their digestive tracts. It turns out that like rats, pigs, and chickens, humans evolved as “omnivores” – eaters of both plants and animals. More on that shortly.
But first, I have to explain what got me started on this subject just now – or, more accurately, blogging about it (a modern habit I have been resisting). Last Fall, I drafted a “foundation document” to help guide planning and development of a Countryside Center – a new administrative and programming hub for the Countryside Initiative here in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It included things about the origins and purpose of both CVNP and the Countryside Conservancy (CC) that caused staff members to say “I didn’t know that”. Then they said, “You should share that on our blog.” I said, OK. Then they said, “what about all those books you are always reading and talking about – you should be sharing that stuff on our blog, too”. Uh, OK.
Actually, I began to feel better about this blogging thing when it occurred to me that it could be a little like the column I used to write for the Lake Farmpark Almanac when I worked at Farmpark in the 1990’s. Those short articles were intended to get people interested in and reflecting on some ideas and issues important to their lives, not to mention the planet in general. Some of the things I wrote about then are just as relevant today. So, I am going to begin this particular “blog series” which I’ll call “Homo Sapiens Are Supposed to Eat What?” by sharing a column I wrote for the Lake Farmpark Almanac (Summer, 1999), Vol. 5, No. 3. It was called “Ice Cream for Omnivores” – and it introduced three other articles on the history of ice cream and ice cream making. Most of what I said fourteen years ago remains valid today – and I think interesting. As you’ll see, it does raise issues about what kind of animals HS are, and how their food choices can affect the ecological, social, and economic health of their communities.
Homo sapiens only recently evolved as a consumer of ice cream – the luscious stuff featured in this issue of Farmpark Almanac. Perhaps evolved is the wrong term for the process by which we acquired the habit of consuming vast quantities of frozen and flavored milk. As the following article on ice cream history reveals, the habit was acquired recently, suddenly, and is now just a little shy of universal. In a few countries, such as China, where a “milk culture” is lacking, ice cream remains something of a delicacy. But in western countries such as the USA, an average family consumes ice cream daily. And I don’t blame them.
But lusting after ice cream raises the contentious issue of animal products in the human diet – and that inexorably sucks us into profound questions about human nature. Peter Cheeke ponders this controversy in his recent book Contemporary Issues in Animal Agriculture (1999). He weaves a diverse array of scientific and cultural information into a balanced, fair, and good-humored account. Cheeke possesses a rare gift for putting things in context and perspective. What follows here is based on a small section of his book called, “What Kind of Animal Are We?”
The dietary habits of all animals are strongly related to taste reception, teeth, and digestive tract. Cows, for example, like to eat grass. They have teeth well adapted to grazing and mastication. And they have an enlarged digestive tract, housing a huge population of microbes that digest grass. Fortunately, cows do not like to eat animal flesh, because they lack long sharp teeth, claws, and the speed and stealth necessary to stalk and kill prey. And their digestive tract is not adapted to digesting meat. One might infer, therefore, that cows are herbivores (eaters of plants only) rather than carnivores (eaters of meat only). By the same logic, we can infer that a tiger is a carnivore and not an herbivore. So are pussycats, despite efforts by many owners to feed their kitties anything but meat.
The dietary habits of human animals are also closely related to taste preference, dentition (teeth type), and the way our digestive tract works. It turns out that we are neither herbivores or carnivores. Like rats, pigs, and chickens, humans are omnivores (eaters of both plant and animal matter). We prefer, and are well adapted to nutrient rich, low-fiber stuff like seeds, nuts, fruit, and meat. If you doubt this, try a hearty meal of grass, corn stalks, or oat hulls. Then wait a few hours for additional sensations from the other end of your digestive tract. Should a passing cow ask “was that as good for you, as it was for me?” I think you’ll know the answer.
Some scientists argue that humans must have evolved on a high-fiber, low-fat diet much like our cousin, the gorilla, who finds a vegetarian fare yummy and healthy. They note that captive gorillas, fed diets containing meat and eggs, develop high cholesterol levels and premature cardiovascular disease. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Well, our ancient ancestors really did like high-energy, low fiber foods but they didn’t have access to the massive doses of concentrated sugars and fats we consume daily. Nor were they plagued with the sedentary lifestyle, common to modern humans and captive gorillas. Modern humans and captive gorillas simply have not had time to evolve complete tolerance for the potent stuff we pour into our pie-holes.
So – should we or shouldn’t we eat lots of animal products? For starters, it is no longer possible for those of us who hanker after steak and ice cream to claim they are nutritionally essential. Since 1948, when vitamin B12 was identified as the “animal protein factor,” it has been possible for non-ruminants like pigs, chickens, and humans to get along without eating anything animal. Millions of healthy vegetarians – not to mention our modern swine and poultry industries – are proof enough. By using synthetic vitamin B12, we can now satisfy the basic nutritional requirement our bodies have been satisfying for millions of years with animal parts and products. But should we? Do we really need to?
Some people believe it is morally wrong to hunt or raise animals for food. That ethical question can be debated endlessly without arriving at one single right answer. Like the issues of abortion, pacifism, or environmental pollution, the issue of eating meat is complex and value laden. Some say slaughtering a hog is murder. Others say such an idea is irrational, that animals are part of the food chain. Some must live and die, so others can eat. In a normal ecosystem, they note, no wild rabbit ever dies of old age.
What about the global ecosystem? What are the roles of plants? What are the roles of animals – herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores? The answers to these questions are also value laden – ultimately, perhaps, matters of opinion. Like Peter Cheeke, I think herbivores such as rabbits, voles, and deer convert vegetation to a more nutritious form for animals further up the food chain – animals such as hawks, eagles, bobcats, and wolves. Indeed, many kinds of vegetation need herbivores to survive. And many carnivores and omnivores still need herbivores to survive. Domesticated herbivores – like cattle, sheep, and goats – are essentially prey for humans and play an ecological role once filled by herds of bison, elk, and deer. They also make possible “milk culture” – and ice cream. So, think about that the next time you order two scoops of triple fudge chocolate.
Well, I hope this gets a conversation started among Countryside related HS on what we should eat and why – and what that’s got to do with the countryside. In my next blog on this topic I want to “ruminate” on stomachs and guts – how yours and mine work differently than cows’, and how theirs work differently than horses’. I’m not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg – but I know HS guts came along long before the Western Diet; and the two of them are definitely having trouble getting along.
Spring is hopping along! The cold temperatures can’t slow a farmer down, nature won’t wait. The farmers here in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park are busy prepping the ground and planting seeds. Here is a taste of what some of them are up to:
The Spicy Lamb Farm
The Blessing of the Sheep: Saturday, April 20st, 12 to 2pm: Do not miss our annual Blessing of the Sheep with bagpipes and herding demonstrations. $10 for adults and $5 for children.
Our spring hours for picking up lamb or wool products are Mondays from 4-7pm from April 8th to May 20th or by appointment. Please email laura@thespicylamb.com for an appointment.
Support programming like Countryside Farmers’ Markets by participating in the Countryside Local Food MOVment
This spring, we at Countryside Conservancy are expanding our focus on food access and nutrition to include physical activity. On May 11, we’ll kick off a four-week-long event, Countryside Local Food MOVment, to engage market supporters with local food by encouraging them to travel the same distance as the products they enjoy from their favorite market vendors while raising funds for Countryside.
To participate in the MOVment, market supporters will don a MOVband, a simple and fun wrist-worn activity monitor created by Brecksville-based company, Movable, that leverages the latest accelerometer technology to track all movement and convert it into mileage. The MOVband is equipped with three settings – time, movement, and total mileage- and easily syncs data to an online account. Through this free account, they will track their physical activity as they move their way to 100 miles over the span of four weeks. The 100-mile mark is a common benchmark for what is considered “local.” Because all of our farmers’ market vendors are located less than 100 miles from the market, participants will get a feel for exactly how far their food travels each week to get to their plate. Along the way, they will raise funds and awareness for Countryside with the help of a personalized fundraising page. As they progress, Countryside will send them personalized emails of encouragement, containing detailed profiles of the farmers and producers that provide their food, as well as information on nearby beautiful and historic points of interest in the national park system. Guided hikes will depart from Howe Meadow on Saturday mornings to encourage customers to get active together. Participants will also be entered into weekly raffles based on the distance they cover, with the chance to win exciting prizes.
A one-time $30 fee enables participants to register for the Countryside Local Food MOVment. Once registered, they will receive their own MOVband, and a personal fundraising page where they can recruit sponsors and collect donations online. Participants will be encouraged to raise $100 ($1 per mile) for Countryside Conservancy to support programming like Countryside Farmers’ Markets, Countryside Food
MOVbands come in loads of fun colors. Sign up to get yours!
Swaps, and classes for farmers, backyard gardeners, and DIYers.
The event will kick off on opening day of the Countryside Farmers’ Market at Howe Meadow on May 11, 2013. Participants may pre-register beginning April 1 via the Countryside Conservancy website (www.cvcountryside.org), at Countryside Winter Farmers’ Market at Old Trail School on April 6 and 27, or at the market on May 11. A finish line celebration will occur on June 8, where prizes will be awarded for Highest Fundraiser, Fastest Finisher, Most Miles Moved, Youngest Participant, and Oldest Participant.
