Locally Grown - Availability for January 14th, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Oh, it was good to be back on Local Food this week. Tonight for dinner we had some of Mill Gap Farms broccoli raab and The Veggie Patch’s napa cabbage. Last night we had some of BG Farms Ribeye’s with some beautiful broccoli crowns from The Veggie Patch. Then since we had some leftover steak last night it was steak and KP Farms eggs for breakfast. Beyond good!

I love getting a great recipe idea from our Locally Grown FACEBOOK posts. The one I saw today from Leslie Montemayor was ironic because I already own Jamie Alred’s cookbook “Field Kitchen” but I’ve yet to make a single dish yet. The sunchoke soup with broccoli raab is perfect for the season we are in! I was short one pound of the sunchokes so they are in my basket as I speak so I can follow in Leslie’s footsteps while making a dish that many of you may have tried as Jamie has offered the soup for sale through the market a couple of weeks in the past.

We hope that in 2015 we get on average one good recipe a week from our customers! Not only does it help to inspire all of us on some new things to eat, it really makes the farmers feel good to see their food whipped up into a wonderful experience on your plate. You can post them to the RECIPES section of this website or to our Facebook page at

https://www.facebook.com/NGLGmarket

I’m gonna keep it nice and simple tonight! Thanks for eating local in the new year and we hope you enjoy all this week’s great offerings.

EAT WELL,
Justin, Chuck, Amy, Teri and Andrew
and the rest of the NGLG crew

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for Jan. 9

Good Evening Locavores,
One more cold night and we can look forward to some warmer days ahead.
The frigid temps and especially cold wind we experienced this week have set back some of the vegetables outside but, it also makes some of the root crops sweeter.
Many of your farmers are also growing vegetables in hoophouses and their value for providing wintergrown vegetables is now paying off with winter vegetables.
Now is also a good time to enjoy extra dishes of grassfed meats and eggs.
The delicious baked goods will top off a hearty hot winter meal.
This is a good time to stock up on the all natural skin care products to relieve chapped lips or hands.
Thanks for supporting your local farmers through the bitter cold this past week.
Keep warm, safe and enjoy local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for January 7th, 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Welcome back to Locally Grown after what feels like a very long break! My fridge is nearly empty of local food which is downright painful. Time to stock it back up!

We are bringing in the new year in style with the first of what will be numerous exciting changes and improvements to Locally Grown in 2015. I’m sure all of you have noticed the change in the appearance of the website. While everything functions exactly the same (please let us know if you found something that isn’t working properly), the site should look and feel just a little bit nicer. We also want to point out a very cool new logo designed by Andrew Linker. Very well done! Many of our Gainesville customers have already met Andrew, but you’ll be seeing a lot more of him in 2015 as he’ll be taking my place (Justin) as the full time manager at Gainesville. I’ll definitely be stopping by from time to time, but will be concentrating more energies in some of the logistics of growing the market this year.

I’d like to mention a couple of other things as we bring in the New Year. Locally Grown is supported by a huge fleet of volunteers and way underpaid managers. Since we’ve expanded to 3 locations now I thought I’d slow down long enough to mention all of our crew that makes the market possible.

Here’s how the LOCALLY GROWN CREW breaks down:

Justin and Chuck are co-managers of the whole market
Amy is the Tiger market manager
Teri is the Clarkesville market manager
Andrew is the NEW Gainesville market manager
Bruce King starts as our Shuttle Driver between Gainesville and Clarkesville this week!
Brooks is an occasional shuttle Driver between Tiger and Clarkesville
Lynn is an every other week Clarkesvillle volunteer
Crissy is an every other week Clarkesville volunteer
Annaclair is a substitute Clarkesville volunteer
Ron and Hildreth are our every other week Gainesville volunteers
Anne is an every other week Gainesville volunteer
Sue and Carrie are our substitute Gainesville volunteers

That’s a whole lot of people, and I apologize as I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. We also have lots of farmers that help coordinate order deliveries between farms to try and cut down the driving time for everyone.

If you get a chance, please thank these individuals for giving so much of their time and energy to make this market possible. Each year that the market has grown we’ve had to expand our base of volunteers to help make sure we could continue, and each year, the right people have been there at the right times and we are very thankful for them. We have a great crew!

Maybe one day soon I’ll describe the history of the market again, and how we are organized by a farmer led non-profit called Georgia Mountains Farmers Network. But tonight I have a few other announcements to make.

Here are some of the things to look out and prepare for in 2015
New Farms are joining and will continue to join Locally Grown this year. We want to welcome The Veggie Patch at Bouchard Farms this week. The farm is certified organic, located in Commerce, GA, and has an incredible mix of greenhouse grown goodies (to keep us stocked up all winter) and a whopping 15 acres of field grown veggies that’ll come on strong for the spring and summer. We’ve posted a photo of Michelle Berzack the Farm Coordinator at The Veggie Patch showing off their greenhouses on a tour we took right before Christmas.

A Gainseville Farmer Drop Off Site will be coordinated sometime in the next 3 months, likely somewhere at the History Center pickup location. We’re in the process of looking at all the logistics now to make it as smooth as possible. What this will mean to you the customer is that we’ll be able to expand the number of farms and food vendors that can sell to the market, by adding a location that is closer for them to deliver to. This should greatly increase the diversity of products offered through the market. We could use your help. If you know of farms or food producers (that also meet our market standards) that would like to sell and are located within a 30 min drive or so from Gainesville, please let us know or let them know or both. Our focus is on food producers so we’re not encouraging other locally crafted goods at this time.

We’re working on our first ever Marketing Strategy with a great group of folks at FORUM COMMUNICATIONS in Gainesville. We’re very excited about this process and reaching new people in 2015. We believe with some creative approaches to engage more people with Locally Grown food, people could eat better, and farms will have a solid and growing customer base every month of the year. We also have found that quite a few of you are more than willing to talk us up. We thank you for that. With a few new cool tools and resources we think we could make it even easier to make Locally Grown look irresistible to people. That’s our aim, to become irresistible! And we look forward to engaging all of you in that process.

Before we wrap up tonights message, I just want to let each of you know that we consider everyone who buys food from the market, or reads these e-mails on a regular basis, or just keeps up with what we are doing to be a very important part of our Locally Grown team. Up until this point the success of our entire little market has been because of word of mouth from folks just like you who like good food, and like learning about sustainable farms, and then supporting those farms. We love the deep conversations we have with customers on market days about everything from how to cook jerusalem artichokes, to the benefits of probiotics, to how to plant, harvest and cure sweet potatoes successfully. It’s fun, it’s educational, it’s about building community around the things we love and above all else it’s about eating well. So THANK YOU for making 2014 our best year yet, and thanks in advance for your help in making 2015 …..well let’s just say it’s gonna be BIG!

So EAT WELL this week and here’s to the beginning of a GREAT NEW YEAR!

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew
in Clarkesville, Tiger and Gainesville

will be working on some other Locally Grown

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for Jan. 2

Good evening Locavores,
Welcome back your Locallygrown market to begin a new year of fine dining with local healthy food. You will find some nice changes to the markets appearance with more to come.
We are very pleased also to introduce a new grower to the market, The Veggie Patch at Bouchard Farm. The Veggie Patch brings a bounty of fresh vegetables as well as prepared foods to the market.
Enjoy your new choices for 2015 and also your old favorites from 2014.

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown closed

Good Evening Local Food Lovers,
We want to remind you that Northeast Georgia Locallygrown market is closed for Christmas and New Year.
The next market will be opened for orders Friday Jan.2 for Wednesday Jan. 7 pick up.
Thanks so much for supporting your local farmers this year and we all hope you have enjoyed a bounty of fresh, local, healthy food.
Have a beautiful Christmas and finish the year in good health and joy of life.
Andrew Linker
Chuck Mashburn
Justin Ellis
Terri Parker

Locally Grown - Availability for December 17th, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

This is the last Locally Grown week we’ll have before Christmas (we’re closed for two weeks after due to the holidays). We have a ton of Christmas Specialty items that’ll make the holidays special: buche de noel cake, dried herb bundles, flan, Christmas cactus mugs, jerusalem artichoke soup, and if you’re hoping to introduce somebody to the Locally Grown market in 2015, buy a GIFT CERTIFICATE for a friend in any dollar increment you’d like. We have some nice new full color certificates!

We want to THANK all of you for a just incredible 2014 year! Really, this has been an incredible year! If all goes well this week, we’re likely to finish the year with sales above $75,000. Just for some perspective that’s about 60% growth from last year. What’s much more important than the dollars and cents, is that many more of you out there are eating local foods and eating local more often. Helping to make that happen is farmers who are working to grow more food, and grow it more months of the year. I know of several greenhouses under construction right now.

The expansion to Gainesville this year has really been something special. But it’s only the beginning. It’s really kind of been like a trial run up to now. In the new year we’ll be setting up a farmer drop off down there, so that even more vendors can join the market. We’ll also be launching a marketing campaign that should help all of Hall County, and hopefully even beyond that the market is there! We’re looking forward to some very fun events as well in 2015, and opportunities for you all to meet some of the farmers behind Locally Grown.

It feels early to be saying this, but we wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Everyone who orders meat this week should get it this week. Please don’t forget your orders (and remember it’s always a good idea to have a backup person you can call in a pinch to come get your order for you).

EAT WELL, and EAT WELL OFTEN, and THANKS!

Justin, Chuck, Teri, Andrew and all the growers, and all the volunteers here at Locally Grown!

Locally Grown - Availability for December 12th, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Everybody ORDER BIG this week since this will be the last order of 2014! We’re taking Christmas Week and New Year’s Week off so get all your goodies, all your greens, all your everything while you still can.

Just a quick reminder that we sell GIFT CERTIFICATES to LOCALLY GROWN in $1 increments (just add the quantity you want). A $20 gift certificate would be a great gift to a friend or loved one. We’ve met a lot of great people this year and we hope to meet a lot more in 2015.

Thanks and enjoy this week’s offerings,

The Market Managers!

Locally Grown - Availability for December 10th, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

We only have two more markets until Christmas! Shop local this year and buy some gifts for family, friends and your own self right here. There are some brand new and very exciting items again this week.

First off, we’d like to welcome long time customer of Locally Grown Jamie Alred to the market this week as a vendor. Those of you who don’t know Jamie, I often call him the biggest purchaser of local foods here in the mountains. He serves it up at his new and highly acclaimed restaurant in Clayton called FORTIFY (opened up back in March). If you can’t get all the way up to Clayton for an awesome meal at this tremendous farm to table experience, no worries, Jamie can send it to you! This week he’s offering BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP made with Mountain Earth Farms butternuts and apples, and even comes with 2 ounces of roasted pumpkin seeds to drop on top. YUM! Sold by the quart, and you should just go ahead and buy two and freeze one to break out over the holidays. You’ll be glad you did.

If one reason you love Locally Grown is to learn how to cook good local foods, from hip local farms, you’ll also love Jamie’s Cookbook available for sale on the market for the first time this week called Field Kitchen: Farm Fresh Food from the Northeast Georgia Mountains. It features 9 farms (2 of which sell here on our market) with 3 recipes featuring products from each farm. What better way to enter the new year with great new recipes. And obviously a perfect gift for other local foodies! Buy two, one to keep and one to gift.

And there are even more exciting items this week both for gift giving and for personal enjoyment. Sylvan Mills Falls has brought back their Christmas Specialty the Buche de Noel, which is a french style sponge cake that comes in two flavors, chocolate or almond. I had one of these and it blew my mind! Don’t buy a crummy supermarket cake, do it up right with organic water wheel ground flour cake with just the right amount of Gran Marnier to make it punch.

One last cool holiday item is the Christmas Cactus mugs. Everyone needs a Christmas Cactus, so anyone you know who doesn’t have one, this is a very cute gift. And if they are just incapable of keeping it alive then they can still use the cute mug for morning coffee. Also available are hibiscus tea mugs, and tulsi tea mugs.

Before I wrap up I’ve been on a greens kick this week. Long stewed kale is my standby straight out of Alice Waters cookbook. The recipe is posted on our recipes section. Don’t forget to use our Recipes link and post your own recipes too please. I get bored making the same things, but I never tire of the taste. I also made a swiss chard gratin, also an Alice Waters creation. If I had a clone I’d ask him to post that recipe too, but alas my free time is gone for the night.

God Bless and EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for Dec.5

Good Evening Locavores,
This week there will be a new and exciting item on Locally Grown. We have a new category ‘Books’ and the first listing will be Field Kitchen: Farm Fresh Food from the Northeast Georgia Mountains. Written by Chef Jaimie Allred and Martha Ezzard; this is a book with fantastic recipes along with great pictures and introductions to local farms growing the ingredients. Chef Jaimie is the Executive Chef/owner of Fortify Kitchen and Bar in Clayton,has been the leader in the Farm to Table movement in Rabun County,and is active in the Farm to School pilot program in Northeast Georgia. Martha Ezzard is owner of Tiger Mountain Vineyards in Tiger, Ga. Tiger Mountain Vineyards has won many awards for excellence for their wines and they are also great supporters for Farm to Table.
The book is not listed at this moment but,check back for it later.
Have a great weekend and enjoy fresh local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for December 3rd, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Welcome Back! This was our first Thanksgiving off in Locally Grown history and I have to admit it was kind of nice. One thing that made it so nice is that our last market the week before was the 2nd Largest sales day in our four year history, nearly $2,800. Everyone really stepped up to make it a special Thanksgiving, from growers listing new items to you guys buying it up.

I enjoyed a lot of things over the holidays, but that pumpkin pie exceeded all expectations. You can find it under Gluten Free Items. If you did eat your local foods over the holidays and took a snapshot, please, please, send us a copy. We’d love to see your food pics.

It’s hard to believe but there’s only 3 and a half weeks to Christmas. We talk so much about food around here, but in the run up to the big gift giving day I’m gonna talk a little more about our non-food items that make great gifts at the Holiday Season. This week I want to mention some items from Wild Earth Gardens and Herbals. Marantha has been with Locally Grown from the start and you’ve probably eaten some of the vegetables that she grows as well. She keeps quite a few bath and beauty items such as bath salts, salve and lip balm all times of the year. This year she has some special gift sets, that include herbal mist, salve, lip balm and vegan soap, with a handmade organic cotton face cloth.

Before we go I want to say a special Thank you to one of our newest growers this year. KP FARMS who is one of our rare EGG Producers on the market is run by Larry Kennimer who lives over near Dahlonega. I know that I personally have probably eaten close to 100 eggs from Larry’s momma hens over the last 6 months or so and I’ve loved and been thankful for every one of them. We’re also especially thankful that Larry appears to be recovering quickly from some very scary heart trouble a few weeks ago. It’s a very small group of people that make it possible for us to eat so well, and we want to wish Larry well in what appears to be a speedy recovery. In fact, Larry showed off his new truck decal advertising the farm the other day and he had the northeastgeorgia.locallygrown.net website posted right on there under his farm name. That means a lot to us, and Larry means a lot to us. I hope everyone will wish him well while they scramble up his delicious eggs this week and every week for weeks and weeks to come. You can see his truck magnet and a photo of Larry our FACEBOOK page which you should friend (oh wait it’s like now). Larry’s Facebook can be found there as well.

FACEBOOK

or

https://www.facebook.com/NGLGmarket

Well that ought to do it. Looking forward to meeting our new customers this week. There’s at least 4 newbies!

EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew