Below is the monthly Newsletter from Foothills Connect in Rutherfordton, NC where my Dad manages connecting local farmers to local markets. If you are interested in getting a hold of some really FRESH food and some REAL meat, this is the place to check out! Enjoy!
For anyone interested, there are three local markets that you can visit weekly: Thursdays from 5-8 over at Boiling Springs YMCA, Saturdays from 8-11:30 in downtown Columbus NC, and Saturdays from 8-12 in Forrest City NC in the parking lot of the Tri-City Mall. From breads to meats, these people sell it all! And, if you don't have the time to drive all over, check out the produce, meats, and breads available on www.farmersfreshmarket.org, order, and drive to one place to pick it all up at the same time...can't beat that!
Urban Box Newsletter for 9-16-2011!
Greetings all !Did I hear someone say today that they rolled their windows up on the way to work the other morning? I did. Did I see my breath morning before last? For sure. It's called livin' in the Blue Ridge... (Another sure sign it's football time. Hope your team won, mine did...) Apple time, punkin time, cushaw time, tailgating-with-local-brats-or-weiners time and yes, even candy roaster time! OK, OK, the candy roasters are listed on the market/featured page and as stated previously, what a conversation piece. Talk about it, admire it, take family pictures with it, paint a face on it and hide it in your kids' beds so they'll see it when they wake up, take it for walks in the stroller... Now that is something I could get into! Almost as much fun as using a banana for a cell phone while in rush hour traffic. Because it stores so well, you can have all this fun with it and then you get to eat it. Oh what scrumptious pies! Save the seed and plant your own next spring. What a deal! Yes, this silly diatribe about a squash will bring on an UNSUBSCRIBE reply or two, but bless their hearts, I bet the last time they smiled was when they cut someone off from getting on I-85. Anyway, hurrah for the harbingers of Fall!Candy roasters aren't the only conversation piece on our virtual farmers market www.farmersfreshmarket.org. I'm seeing a cornucopia box with corn and even cayenne peppers all strung for drying, jams and jellies of all kinds including a gift box that would mark someone right off the Christmas list, shiitake mushrooms, chocolate mint cookies, local honey and yes, for a wee bit longer, those Big Red peaches. 2nd crop tomatoes are just around the corner along with a bunch of other apple varieties and cider. Yummy! We here at the Farmers Fresh Market also would like to express our thanks to all of you who have made the last three weeks the biggest three week run in our short history. Something just broke loose about three weeks ago and we've been running to keep up! Our buying club hostesses have borne the brunt of it and continually amaze us with their creativity and perseverance in dealing with what one youngster said when they walked in, " Mommy, it looks like a store!" This would not be happening like it is without these ladies and whenever you're there, on the scene, and the van arrives, go ahead and help where you can. But a lot of you do... Somebody told me, so thank you one and all!It's SO obvious that more and more folks are opting out of "government food." Here's a quote from my pastured poultry mentor-“If you want government food, go to the supermarket and buy government food. But for those who want to have a relationship with their food, and the accountability that inherently comes with voluntarily and informatively opting out of the supermarket to go ask around, smell around, sniff around, look around and opt out of the government food system, they ought to have that right.”- Joel SalatinYes, it is not easy at first to "opt out." It might mean getting a food processor or a Champion juicer or a freezer or a grain mill or a dehydrator or taking a food preservation class or bless your heart, a cooking class. It might mean deciding to eat locally and then figuring out that, wait a minute, bananas and coffee aren't local. It could be that you find a bulk food co-op and carpool the pickups. It definitely means changing your home library or your Kindle requests. It could mean a little less soccer/baseball/football/swim team and more farm tours/gardening/edible schoolyard. Yet, as daunting as it may seem, the rewards far exceed the cost! I think I may have used this quote before, but it bears repeating- " You either pay the farmer or pay the pharmacist !" Who knows, maybe someday we'll have a Dave Ramsey-like radio show with people cutting up their Food Lion cards and screaming, " I'm government food free!" These farmers are doing their part to help. Nutrient-dense, local, fresh and worth-offering-to-the-three-trillion- microorganisms-in-your-digestive-tract food is right at your fingertips. With the click of a mouse, you can begin, continue or expand your crusade to opt out of food that my Granny said was causing us to "dig our graves with our teeth!" Just go do it. Do something. All it takes for us to lose food freedom "is for good men to do nothing."
“The bigger issue here is, to me, that when we can't access our neighbors with food, then farming just dries up. The fact is that all these hurdles that prohibit local food commerce keep what would be millions of dollars circulating in the rural local economy are therefore denied to the local economy. So farmers go out of business and sell to developers.”-Joel Salatin
Know your farmer, know your food, know you're right! Putting a face on the food,Kirk
Foothills Connect Business & Technology Center was established in 2005 to support the development and growth of small businesses and entrepreneurship in Rutherford County.Greetings all !Did I hear someone say today that they rolled their windows up on the way to work the other morning? I did. Did I see my breath morning before last? For sure. It's called livin' in the Blue Ridge... (Another sure sign it's football time. Hope your team won, mine did...) Apple time, punkin time, cushaw time, tailgating-with-local-brats-or-weiners time and yes, even candy roaster time! OK, OK, the candy roasters are listed on the market/featured page and as stated previously, what a conversation piece. Talk about it, admire it, take family pictures with it, paint a face on it and hide it in your kids' beds so they'll see it when they wake up, take it for walks in the stroller... Now that is something I could get into! Almost as much fun as using a banana for a cell phone while in rush hour traffic. Because it stores so well, you can have all this fun with it and then you get to eat it. Oh what scrumptious pies! Save the seed and plant your own next spring. What a deal! Yes, this silly diatribe about a squash will bring on an UNSUBSCRIBE reply or two, but bless their hearts, I bet the last time they smiled was when they cut someone off from getting on I-85. Anyway, hurrah for the harbingers of Fall!Candy roasters aren't the only conversation piece on our virtual farmers market www.farmersfreshmarket.org. I'm seeing a cornucopia box with corn and even cayenne peppers all strung for drying, jams and jellies of all kinds including a gift box that would mark someone right off the Christmas list, shiitake mushrooms, chocolate mint cookies, local honey and yes, for a wee bit longer, those Big Red peaches. 2nd crop tomatoes are just around the corner along with a bunch of other apple varieties and cider. Yummy! We here at the Farmers Fresh Market also would like to express our thanks to all of you who have made the last three weeks the biggest three week run in our short history. Something just broke loose about three weeks ago and we've been running to keep up! Our buying club hostesses have borne the brunt of it and continually amaze us with their creativity and perseverance in dealing with what one youngster said when they walked in, " Mommy, it looks like a store!" This would not be happening like it is without these ladies and whenever you're there, on the scene, and the van arrives, go ahead and help where you can. But a lot of you do... Somebody told me, so thank you one and all!It's SO obvious that more and more folks are opting out of "government food." Here's a quote from my pastured poultry mentor-“If you want government food, go to the supermarket and buy government food. But for those who want to have a relationship with their food, and the accountability that inherently comes with voluntarily and informatively opting out of the supermarket to go ask around, smell around, sniff around, look around and opt out of the government food system, they ought to have that right.”- Joel SalatinYes, it is not easy at first to "opt out." It might mean getting a food processor or a Champion juicer or a freezer or a grain mill or a dehydrator or taking a food preservation class or bless your heart, a cooking class. It might mean deciding to eat locally and then figuring out that, wait a minute, bananas and coffee aren't local. It could be that you find a bulk food co-op and carpool the pickups. It definitely means changing your home library or your Kindle requests. It could mean a little less soccer/baseball/football/swim team and more farm tours/gardening/edible schoolyard. Yet, as daunting as it may seem, the rewards far exceed the cost! I think I may have used this quote before, but it bears repeating- " You either pay the farmer or pay the pharmacist !" Who knows, maybe someday we'll have a Dave Ramsey-like radio show with people cutting up their Food Lion cards and screaming, " I'm government food free!" These farmers are doing their part to help. Nutrient-dense, local, fresh and worth-offering-to-the-three-trillion- microorganisms-in-your-digestive-tract food is right at your fingertips. With the click of a mouse, you can begin, continue or expand your crusade to opt out of food that my Granny said was causing us to "dig our graves with our teeth!" Just go do it. Do something. All it takes for us to lose food freedom "is for good men to do nothing."
“The bigger issue here is, to me, that when we can't access our neighbors with food, then farming just dries up. The fact is that all these hurdles that prohibit local food commerce keep what would be millions of dollars circulating in the rural local economy are therefore denied to the local economy. So farmers go out of business and sell to developers.”-Joel Salatin
Know your farmer, know your food, know you're right! Putting a face on the food,Kirk
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Ok, this made me smile all.the.way.through. (WHAT its a cushaw???) I wish I was close enough to get in on all those fresh goodies! Yum!
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