Local Food Fest

Last Saturday Charlie, Luke and I met up with our friends Rachel, Tony and Helen and we cooked. Man, oh man, did we cook. It was Rachel's idea to have a day of bulk cookin' in order to fill her freezer and feed her family while she's in Ghana for a conference for 10 days. We're not headed to Ghana, but I love the idea of having meals on hand for fast fixing in the mid-week when the evenings seem to go so fast.

The Mosier Tracy family committed to bringing two chickens and a few veggies. The Faber Machacha's brought huge bunches of greens and some root vegetables to the table.

A note about the chickens: I had no idea that chicken sales were seasonal. As I called around to local farms that claimed on websites to sell chicken, I was told that the "last slaughter" is typically in the fall and unless there are frozen birds left, we're not likely to see local chicken until spring. I asked our friend Liv, who actually gets paid to work in the local food arena, if she knew of anyone with a frozen chicken for sale. She gave me the name of a chicken guy and, sure enough, he still had some birds left from the fall. The Chicken Guy (aka Tyler Jones) is an unexpected farmer. Mostly because he is surprisingly young and hip-looking. This helped to break down a stereo-type that I didn't realize I ascribed to: that farmers are in their mid-to-late 50's (or older), wear dirty overalls, and live quaintly simple lives...sun up to sun down. Or maybe some are ex-hippy-types who live quaintly simple lives...sun up to sun down. But I hadn't considered that some folks in my own demographic might be raising or growing animals and vegetables for my consumption. Interesting.

So at the end of the day each family took away 4 quarts of soup (roasted root vegetable and potato leek), most of a roasted chicken plus a carcass for stock, and some sauted greens. And that's after we had a fine meal together. Charlie and I shared some of the plum wine we made about a year and a half ago, and some hard apple cider from last summer. Local food fest success!