Good evening local food lovers

Well, I’ve been an awful environmentalist this month. I wrote this from an airplane, and it’s my second plane trip this month. Alice Varon from Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) had seen some of my video work from our 2014 Farm Tour, and I am working on promoting a CNG farmer in Virginia this weekend. The farm was close enough to an old friend to make the trip worth it. A few years ago I bought a camera with the intention of promoting sustainable farmers through video, but it fell to the wayside in the last year. It’s also difficult to provide when most farmers themselves don’t have the time or funds to put towards marketing. Alice is in the middle of a two year grant and campaign that helps fund some great marketing tools for selected farms. CNG has a system that allows farms throughout the country to become certified, and many of the farmers in our market are proud to be a CNG farmer! Shade Creek, Leah Lake, Melon Head, Veggie Patch, Baker Springs, Taylor Creek, and Mountain Earth Farms to name a few, as you can see on the growers page. For those not familiar with CNG, it is a grass roots alternative to being certified Organic. The process is similar in that someone inspects your farm once a year, but with CNG, that someone is an accountable farmer in your area! It is a great opportunity for small farmers to show their commitment to a set of growing practices, and is less expensive. Becoming certified Organic through the U.S. Department of Agriculture can be very expensive, and CNG provides an alternative while still allowing farmers to stand out. Even though CNG is based out of New York, it’s interesting to see the participation in the Southeast growing rapidly. Which is great! Speaking of growth, Chuck Mashburn and I went out to visit two more growers this last week, and there are a few more growers in the queue. It is always interesting to see them appear out of the woodwork, hear how they started and their commitment to better practices. We look forward to introducing them to you.

Earlier this week I was dwelling on the choice of keeping these posts positive. I feel it is very important as it becomes more rare to hear or see positive stories surrounding our food system and farming conditions/labor/rights. The great news is that you are the change! This is the best thing we can be doing as a community. It is important to keep up with what’s happening in the political and economic realm but even if you have no interest, know that every dollar you spend is is helping build a stronger local food system. And with that I leave you with a favorite quote that has always challenged me to be the change:

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves. -Emerson

I’m going to go place my order, and I hope you join us this week!
Andrew in Hall, Teri in Habersham, and Chuck in Rabun

thank you notes

Everyone write a quick thank you email to a farmer this week! If you don’t know the email and don’t feel like looking it up on our growers page, simply respond to this email with the name of the farm you want to email and I will send you their email.

This market website can be seen as quick and easy way to buy fresh food, but I want to encourage you this week to actually see the name of the GROWER that is behind a product that you have enjoyed in the past. Caution: this might surprise the pants off them!

I also want to take this opportunity to say that it has pained me in the past to read some very impersonal emails to farmers from customers, just because this is an online market. Please use email to spread kindness to your growers, not only negativity and expectations.

I received a thank you email this week that almost buckled my knees. It had nothing to do with food, but it made me realize that appreciation still translates through email. It also made me realize how many times I miss the opportunity to send a genuine thank you.

Don’t forget to place your order before 9pm tomorrow night and we’ll see you Wednesday!

Weblog Entry

Wait… Justin isn’t going to write Sunday blogs anymore!? Looks like someone will have to develop a new skill. Free-writing I think it’s called. No promises. Having the opportunity to lead a nutrition meeting this last Tuesday, I suppose we can start there. In preparing for the topic at hand, I realized my priorities around nutrition have changed in the last year or so. My amazing mom has been a registered nurse for most of her life has always wanted to combine what we eat with our long term health. So she got a nutrition certification, started monthly nutrition meetings at her home, and asked me to share at this month’s gathering. Or was it just an excuse to share food with good people? The fruit not falling far from the tree, I also have an interest in nutrition… But my past concentration on nutrient density, bioavailability, blah blah blah has slowly changed with my education, involvement with this market, and getting to know more farmers. I pick my weekly food items based on diversity, peak harvest season, color, taste, methods used to grow, and I might even be a little biased towards my favorite people growing it. My diet is more and more centered around what’s fresh and available, and what’s fresh and available is new almost every week of the year. It’s also interesting to think about our relationship with our growers in turn affecting our meals. If enough people express interest in a certain variety of produce that grows well here, we might see it being grown the next year! That is the beauty in small diverse farms, they typically throw in an experimental crop from year to year.

Anyway, the topic I chose for the nutrition gathering was “Stress and Food.” I went through the mechanics of short term stressors and long term stressors, how your body produces some powerful drugs/hormones, and how those hormones like cortisol can affect how your body assimilates food. I learned some interesting things while researching, but the in-short, the message was to come to the plate relaxed and with a clear head. When you do this, your body is able to more efficiently transport, store, and build more efficiently. A whole other topic is being aware of stressors (like driving in Atlanta, resenting your boss, or a sleepless night) and how you can create ways to dissipate the cortisol from your system.

That being said, I leave you with: Don’t be an Orthorexic. Because stressing out about eating healthy would be irony at it’s finest.

My current kitchen experiments: cold brewed chamomile tea (unsweet or honey sweetened), chilled chanterelle and watercress salad, lemongrass and nutmeg infused pickles

Oh! And if you are interested in growing food, there is a workshop for small and beginning farmers Tuesday August 18th 5pm in Clayton (Register by this Friday) See Flyer: https://goo.gl/BdGMdd

Market closes at 9pm Monday

Locally Grown - Availability for August 5th, 2014

Hello Local Food Lovers,

After 5 years and 4 months of writing a weekly message for Locally Grown nearly ever Sunday night, tonight it is my bittersweet privilege to write one last one.

For those who are newer to Locally Grown I’d like to share a very quick history of this fun little market. Keep in mind this is just my recollection. I could get some or all of this wrong!

In May of 2009 I moved back to Clarkesville after nearly 5 years living in Athens, GA. While in Athens I’d grown quite fond of eating good local food. There are a ton of farmers in the Athens area, and finding fresh food was pretty easy.

Once I’d returned to Clarkesville, local food wasn’t impossible to find, but it had it’s challenges. For instance, one guy would deliver his micro-green salad mix right to my downtown office every week. That was terrific. But not many farmers had that kind of service. So on the weekends I would drive up to Rabun county for the Simply Homegrown market. At the time it was one of the only places to find organic local foods.

After meeting about a dozen farmers scattered across a pretty wide distance (Rabun, White, Habersham, Stephens and beyond), this one farmer who’d made a pretty big impression on me had this radical idea. He’d been selling some of his produce to a market in Athens I knew well called Athens Locally Grown. Not only had I been a customer, but I was close friends with the software designer Eric Wagoner who invented the whole concept and made it a reality. I thought it was brilliant. Local food for the modern age, and it solved a whole lot of challenges to boot.

That radical farmer was Chuck Mashburn of Mill Gap Farm up in Tiger. I hope all of you have the privilege of meeting him, as he’s what all us “into farming types” consider “The Man.”

Chuck knew from experience that the Locally Grown market had some great advantages to our need and desire for more local food. It created a permanent space on the web for farmers and customers to meet, provided a year round market, allowed farmers to meet each other and collaborate, reduced the amount of time farmers had to spend at numerous markets and most important allowed farmers to get food to locations and customers much further away than they could alone. After all, most farmers are out in the country! Distance can be an issue.

My guess is that once Chuck realized I was familiar with the Locally Grown approach, and desperately wanted to get my hands and teeth into some local food every week, he thought “That guy may be foolish enough to help distribute food every week at a market location down in Clarkesville.” Or maybe he said, “this guy’s not what I was hoping for, but he’s the best we got and I’m ready to implement my master plan to dominate NE Georgia with local food for everyone.” Or similar words to this effect. Needless to say, I fell for the cut of his jib, hook line and sinker and jumped right in (I think I’ve mixed my metaphors once or thrice). Or maybe I should say, I was damn lucky to be in the right place at the right time, with the right kind of interest….food and farms. Or maybe it was I who talked Chuck into all this foolishness. No one can get the story straight anymore but it did happen and we were pretty durn excited and giddy about it at the time.

Now all that foolishness wouldn’t have amounted to much if it hadn’t been for those willing to grow the food. At the table that very first meeting was Joe Gaitins of La Gracia Farms (always to be remembered as the most focused pioneer of the local food movement our region has ever known, I miss you Joe), Brooks Franklin of Leah Lake Farm (though he wasn’t farming yet, he’d soon become the master of the Locally Grown business model, for reals) David Lent (for those who remember Coleman River Farms) and Linda Johnson of Sylvan Falls Mills.

This story could go on and on but let’s try and wrap it up.

Locally Grown has Grown and evolved immensely in 5 years. We’ve learned how important it is to have standards and rules that we use to both co-market all our farms in the region and to help educate each other about what sustainable farming is (another reason Chuck is such an assett is his incredible knowledge and dedication to the art of sustainability).

Locally Grown has also led to a lot of positive changes around local food that just never would have happened if we hadn’t all started talking and working together. For starters, its how an incredible number of us met in the first place. Markets tend to be local (like 30 miles from your home local), but this market gave us a reason to reach one or two counties over and go over and meet and hang out with other farmers. As result we formed a Georgia Mountains Farmers Network, which went on to host the FARM TOUR, then other good things happened like the Farm to School program (Ronnie Mathis of Mountain Earth Farms initiated that ball a rolling), and on an on.

It’s only been five years but it feels like a true Northeast Georgia community around good food from good farms has been created that stretches from Rabun down to Hall and from White (maybe even Lumpkin) over to Stephens and even into the Carolina’s. That’s probably what is coolest about this to me. I now have friends in 9 counties who grow food, or buy it, or cook it in their incredible restaurants. I’d never felt that connection to the whole Northeast Georgia region before. The work that I did as my day job was pretty narrowly focused on one small place (protecting the Soque River in Habersham County). But building Local Foods, that work made it possible to feel a sense of relationship with people, and with the landscape across a very broad, and very beautiful region. Isn’t that a big part of what this is all about. That sense of connection.

Believe me when I tell you it feels great to farmers to know when they drive through Gainesville that there are many, many dozens of people who eat their food every week. Their’s a kinship with a place that you’re feeding. I bet many of you feel something similar about places that feed you, that kinship, especially if you’ve been on the farm tour. You can never drive through Clarkesville or Clayton and feel the same way about it right? When you know a region’s farms, you’re no longer detached. There are people who feed you who live there, and you know where and who your food comes from. That’s cool! It’s also nourishing. That land has literally contributed to the very fiber of your being. And it’s a highlight of one’s life if you take the time.

I’ve tried to take the time these last many years and it’s one of if not the biggest blessing I’ve experienced. I’m so proud of the opportunity to help get Locally Grown Foods to where they are today in our little neck of the woods. And now since my neck of the woods has shifted ever so slightly to the west (to Dahlonega) and I’ll no longer be able to be involved week to week, and buy and eat the food offered every week it’s time to let Locally Grown continue to evolve with some NEW voices. However, I don’t plan on disappearing entirely. We still have big plans for Locally Grown and our farmer’s network (GMFN) that runs Locally Grown in the weeks and years ahead and I plan to stay intimately involved in those efforts as a board member. But no more Sunday night (sometimes Monday morning) messages, which after this extremely long one you may think is for the best. I’ve really enjoyed spending a few minutes each week reflecting on what I ate how I cooked it and where it came from, what was going on in my own garden, which farms I’d seen recently, and what crops I knew were coming down the pike. It’s been an awful lot of fun.

I just want to close by saying thanks. Thanks to all the people who do this work. And by that I mean, all those wonderful salt of the earth people who sweat in the field, but also the people who browse the web and click ADD TO CART, and come to market on Wednesdays. Many of you are so loyal to Local Food you deserve an award! You know who you are, and each of you taught me things I didn’t know about good eating/and or good living. Thanks to the volunteers whom without this market simply wouldn’t exist. Thanks to those who went ahead and came for that 4th visit when we slap you with a membership fee. This is a non-profit market so not only is that fee tax-deductible (we’re working on a receipt for that by the way), but it’s absolutely necessary to help pay for coolers, transportation costs, the very very small volunteer and market manager stipends, checks, postage, etc. etc. I assure you this is a labor of love, and your support and encouragement is what makes it possible for us to continue. Thanks for your passion!

It’s the simple things in life right? And one of those simple things should always be to do our best to …..

EAT WELL,

Justin in Lumpkin now
Chuck in Rabun
Teri in Habersham
and
Andrew in Hall

PS – We have NEVER yet held a big farmer and customer get-together, but we’ve talked about it, and it’s coming one day. Imagine for a moment the hundreds of people throughout our region committed to this market through farming, eating, volunteering,etc. all getting together to break bread, slice tomatoes, then squeeze ‘em together with some mayo, pepper maybe a couple leaves of basil in between. In other words, we’re due for a party. If you’d like to help us organize it let us know. No dates set or even discussed yet, but if you’re interested give us a hand and we’ll do something fun and memorable!

Northeast Georgia Locallygrown Availability list for July 31

Good Evening Locavores,
This is the last day of July and what a month it has been. This month we saw the full range of summer produce available on the market, in spite of some extreme swings of weather.
We are lucky here in Northeast Georgia to have been blessed with enough rain to keep the summer crops growing. Much of the state south of us is in drought conditions that have really limited farm production there.
Today as I was sweating in the garden, Amy brought me some cold, cubed, Melon Head cantaloupe. Cantaloupe has never been better than that delicious,juicy, cold treat.
Garlic season is also in full swing now. Simplyhomegrown Farmers Market in Clayton (at the Covered Bridge Shopping Center)set the season off with their 4th Annual Garlic Festival. Fridays events in downtown Clayton included a garlic tasting and a garlic pie contest.
First place was won by Jane Tomlin of Tomlins BBQ in Dillard and Second place went to Chef John Bradley of the Beechwood Inn in Clayton. Slices of the pies were sold for a donation to the Northeast Georgia Food Bank and Chef Jamie Allred, Fortify Kitchen and Bar, baked a huge shepherds pie laced with garlic as well as round pies for the Food Bank fund raiser.
If you ever have been afraid of using too much garlic in recipes these pies would allay your fears.
Janes winning pie featured spinach and portabello mushrooms and most notably, over 30 cloves of garlic. The judges rated the garlic flavor of the pie as mild.
Check out the garlic and poultry available and it just might be time for you to bake that French classic ‘Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic’.
I will leave you with the following tip from the French for using garlic.
‘Sliced garlic is sweeter than chopped garlic which is sweeter than crushed garlic.’
Have a great week and enjoy fresh local food.

Locally Grown - Availability for July 29, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Another week with a very short message. It’s a busy time and for some it feels like the summer is beginning to wind down and we’re looking ahead to the FALL.

Andrew is on vacation this week so be sure and be nice to our incredible volunteers in Gainesville this week as they host the market solo! Be sure and thank our volunteers. They do this because they love it, and Locally Grown would’ t be possible without so many people who are willing to give their time and energy to be a part of good, wholesome food.

I hope to have a longer message next week. In the meantime, be sure you’re enjoying all that summer has to offer.

We especially hope you enjoy the delectable photos that Andrew sends you on Fridays tantalizing your taste buds with featured products. This week the 3 items chosen are Mo’s Spicy Mix lettuces from Leah Lake Farms, Granola from Baker Springs, and cucumber salad which you can get from 5 different farms. We hope you’ll try some new things to make your week more interesting!

Highlights of my week were chipotle gouda mashed potatoes using O’hana’s fingerling potatoes. Also from O’hana, Shishito peppers. Just fry them in olive oil with sea salt. Great pre-dinner appetizer.

We’ve got two more promotional projects we’re working on completing before the end of the summer. Can’t wait to tell you about them. Until then…

EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for July 22, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

No messages this week, just thanks and appreciation to each of you for eating Local Foods and supporting Local Farmers. Best way to do that is to eat local every week, better yet every day! The only way you can do that is to support local markets, csa’s etc. and we do think that you’ll find Locally Grown is one of the best sources for a broad diversity of products from a wide diversity of farmers, and very convenient too. Just a few clicks and then only a few minutes to pick up on Wednesdays after work and voila! You can EAT WELL!

Many thanks,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for July 15, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Just want to make a very short and sweet last minute reminder to get your orders in before tonight at 9PM.

Today I want to say just a few words about how much fun it is to feed your one year old baby wholesome local food. We’ve been joking around the house for the last year that if everyone ate as pure a food as what we’ve been feeding our daughter then we’d all be a lot healthier.

I have to give my wife almost all the credit. She’s been dedicated to making our babies food from day one. That means all organic ingredients. I won’t get into the details of peas, carrots, sweet potatoes and apples getting cooked and chopped up, but I will say often the smells in the kitchen are so good I want to eat the baby food.

What’s been more fun for me lately is our daughters interest in anything and everything we’re eating, and the faces she makes when she takes a bite of something for the first time.

Lately I’ve been slicing Mtn Earth blueberries in half and slipping them in her mouth. Did I already mention how she’d mash and suck the pulp and then spit out the leathery (somewhat bitter) peal. This morning we were sitting outside drinking coffee (just me silly) and she watched as the birds came down and were plucking all the berries (even the unripe ones) from the bush. I could see her little gears turning realizing HEY, they like the same stuff I do, and HEY wait a minute what do they think they are doing.

Also this weekend I scrambled some Homegrown Products eggs with Baker Springs heirloom tomatoes cooked in. I’ve always loved all kinds of veggies in my eggs and especially yummy heirloom tomatoes. I was pleased that Ayla liked the combination too. Then I wanted to see if just a bit of tomato uncooked was tasty to her as well….and yes….success, she loved it.

There’s some sweet treats as well but those you can feel good about. A blueberry, raspberry and banana smoothie with Mtn Fresh Milk, organic yogurt, organic apple juice, and dollop of Mtn Honey. Ok, I did put one small spoonful of vanilla ice cream too. That’s my secret to incredible smoothies. Ayla and I shared a glass and towards the end there was some competition on who would get the last full spoonfuls. And why does it taste better one spoonful at a time?

There’s so much more but hopefully that’ll whet your whistle for local foods this week.

One last plug to take our FARM TOUR SURVEY! Your feedback is very valuable to us. It only takes a minute of your time. And if you were a farmer on the tour, we’d like your feedback too!

Order big. It’ll improve your week!

EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for July 15, 2014

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Just want to make a very short and sweet last minute reminder to get your orders in before tonight at 9PM.

Today I want to say just a few words about how much fun it is to feed your one year old baby wholesome local food. We’ve been joking around the house for the last year that if everyone ate as pure a food as what we’ve been feeding our daughter then we’d all be a lot healthier.

I have to give my wife almost all the credit. She’s been dedicated to making our babies food from day one. That means all organic ingredients. I won’t get into the details of peas, carrots, sweet potatoes and apples getting cooked and chopped up, but I will say often the smells in the kitchen are so good I want to eat the baby food.

What’s been more fun for me lately is our daughters interest in anything and everything we’re eating, and the faces she makes when she takes a bite of something for the first time.

Lately I’ve been slicing Mtn Earth blueberries in half and slipping them in her mouth. Did I already mention how she’d mash and suck the pulp and then spit out the leathery (somewhat bitter) peal. This morning we were sitting outside drinking coffee (just me silly) and she watched as the birds came down and were plucking all the berries (even the unripe ones) from the bush. I could see her little gears turning realizing HEY, they like the same stuff I do, and HEY wait a minute what do they think they are doing.

Also this weekend I scrambled some Homegrown Products eggs with Baker Springs heirloom tomatoes cooked in. I’ve always loved all kinds of veggies in my eggs and especially yummy heirloom tomatoes. I was pleased that Ayla liked the combination too. Then I wanted to see if just a bit of tomato uncooked was tasty to her as well….and yes….success, she loved it.

There’s some sweet treats as well but those you can feel good about. A blueberry, raspberry and banana smoothie with Mtn Fresh Milk, organic yogurt, organic apple juice, and dollop of Mtn Honey. Ok, I did put one small spoonful of vanilla ice cream too. That’s my secret to incredible smoothies. Ayla and I shared a glass and towards the end there was some competition on who would get the last full spoonfuls. And why does it taste better one spoonful at a time?

There’s so much more but hopefully that’ll whet your whistle for local foods this week. Order big. It’ll improve your week.

EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew

Locally Grown - Availability for July 8th , 2015

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Well I don’t know about you guys but it feels like we’re almost at the height of summer production. This is the time of year where we see nearly all the diversity of local foods converge. When you can still get a few of the cooler season crops like cabbage, beets, fennel, carrots, but most of the summer stuff is here like tomatoes, cukes (that’s short for cucumbers by the way), eggplant, peppers, corn, and beans.

As is typical for me, it’s the rare and somewhat hard to get stuff that makes me happiest. For example I went down to the Clarkesville Community Garden last week to take a quick look at things and noticed that the raspberry bushes that I planted 3 years ago (and have been weeding and mulching that bed every few months since) was just chocked full of raspberries. I was a bit surprised as a kids group had been by earlier that week and I assumed the gardeners would keep a close eye on the bushes and nibble every time they went. Lucky for me I think most folks don’t know that you gotta get down on your hands and knees and reach deep under the vines to see all the berries. Raspberries are not an easy fruit to pick. By the time I was done I had well over a pint of beautiful red berries. Well everyday for the last 7 or 8 days I’ve had a smoothy with fresh local strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, milk from Mountain Fresh, honey from Mtn Honey, and then non-local bananas, yogurt, and sometimes a bit of ice-cream and squirt of lime. I absolutely love fruit season. Since not many farmers do raspberries I encourage anyone with a sense of adventure to plant your own. You do have to trellis them which can take some practice. But if you plant 2 or 3, they quickly will become 8 or 12, and you can start giving them to your friends. In fact, find a friend with raspberries and ask for a small rooted plant to get you started.

Also had Wauka Pork Chops this last week that we let marinate in fresh herbs from our garden. Chopped up rosemary and thyme and I mean a lot of it, like a cup or more. Then just pat that on the chops thick with olive oil. I add a little pepper and salt too. Let ’em sit for a half hour. Longer lets the flavor penetrate even more. Then on the grill on low, low heat. Succulent. The left overs were even better as the herbs just keep penetrating.

Chanterelles. I spend a lot time outdoors….my work fortunately has me tromping through the woods a bit from time to time, and after all the thunderstorms this week I was happy to finally find my first patch of Chanterelle mushrooms. These shrooms only grow wild and they are a true delicacy. Cook them in butter of course with a bit of garlic. Then add some cream and cook on low and put over pasta or my favorite is on toast of some really good bread.

You may notice from my writings here that I love to eat food from local farms, but wow, what joy in eating foods grown yourself or even better found through your communion with nature. That’s my kind of worship time, just being thankful that the world provides food if we cultivate our knowledge of it. We all could cultivate a lot more with just the tiniest of efforts. And that is a more sustainable way of living, and perhaps most importantly a more enjoyable way of living. Crusting my food with my own local herbs kind of makes my heart sing.

Also this week, the birds have been eyeing my blueberries. No way about it, I’ll have to share. In fact, they, the birds, are probably watching me thinking, I hope that tall human doesn’t eat OUR berries.

It’s not too late to enjoy some Shade Creek Farm red white and blue potatoes in the spirt of the 4th of July Holiday. Also Shade Creek’s zephyr squash are my favorites. Got two pounds coming on Wednesday.

Been improving my flower and garden beds lately and thought I’d plant some interesting and sometimes medicinal plants from Holman Holllow. Black Cohosh and Wild Ginger should be both beautiful and useful in the years ahead. I love the service they are providing helping to educate us on native plants. Buy one or two and expand your plant brain!

Thanks again to all who enjoyed the FARM TOUR just over a WEEK AGO. Please share with us your ideas to improve it next year by taking our survey at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eatwellbuylocal2015

And don’t forget to post photos from the TOUR to
the GA Mtns Farmers Network Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/GeorgiaMountainsFarmersNetwork?ref=hl

We hope you have a great week….. and EAT WELL,

Justin, Chuck, Teri and Andrew