Showing posts with label Buy Local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buy Local. Show all posts
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Bruce Bilmes & Sue Boyle
Road Food Digest
We’ve been dwelling lately on the subject of food-by-mail, and Oprah’s O Magazine continues the theme this month with a story by Celia Barbour featuring some favorite e-food sources. There’s Anson Mills for heritage grains (and a place often mentioned by top chefs when discussing grits and cornmeal), Murray’s Cheese (we’ve ordered from them with great success), Kalustyan’s for Middle Eastern and Indian specialties and spices (another one of our favorites), and La Tienda for Spanish groceries (we’ve enjoyed some wonderful true Spanish chorizo from La Tienda). They also mention the source of our “house” thick-sliced bacon, Nueske’s.
You’ll find sources for cured meats, heirloom beans, lamb straight from the ranch, Thai ingredients, Italian ingredients, fresh fish, baked goods, and much more. A few Roadfood favorites are also included: Zingerman’s for all sorts of specialty foods, the Grand Traverse Pie Company for great pies and local cherry products, and Frog Hollow Farm for top-quality stone fruits. You can read the whole story here, and check out the entire list of mail-order websites here.
A $25 ($30 at the door) ticket will provide attendees with fun, food from a variety of area restaurants, music, door prizes and twelve pours from local breweries including B. Nektar Meadery of Ferndale, Short’s, Founders, Bell’s, New Holland, Arcadia, Dark Horse and many more.
Additionally, bring in a coat for Community Sharing and receive an extra door prize raffle ticket.
Tickets are available for purchase at Bakers of Milford, Milford House, Pine Ridge Market or at the chamber office.
For more information, or to order advance tickets by phone, contact the Huron Valley Chamber of Commerce at (248) 685-7129. Baker’s of Milford is located at 2025 South Milford Rd.
Josh Smith
Kalamazoo Gazette
The full list of winners from today's beer competition at this year's Great American Beer Festival has just been released (of course, we've been following the live Twitter feed all afternoon).
We are very excited to report that Michigan breweries earned nine medals or 4% of the total awards.
The winners from the "Great Beer State" were:
| Arcadia Brewing Co. | Cereal Killer Barleywine | MI | Gold | Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer |
| Bastone Brewery | Saison Du Bastone | MI | Bronze | French- and Belgian Style Saison |
| Bell's Brewery, Inc. | Bell's Lager Beer | MI | Bronze | Bohemian Style Pilsener |
| Big Rock Chop House & Brewery | Red Rock | MI | Silver | Belgian-Style Lambic or Sour Ale |
| Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales | Bam Biere | MI | Bronze | Session Beer |
| Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. | 4th Dementia Old Ale | MI | Bronze | Old Ale or Strong Ale |
| Redwood Brewing Co. | Cream Stout | MI | Silver | Sweet Stout |
| Shorts Brewing Co. | Bloody Beer | MI | Silver | Experimental Beer |
| Sullivan's Black Forest Brew Haus & Grill | Pirate's Porter | MI | Bronze | Robust Porter |
Here are a few other highlights:
2009 Brewery and Brewer of the Year Awards
Large Brewing Company and Large Brewing Company Brewer of the Year:
Coors Brewing Company, Golden, CO; Dr. David Ryder
Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year:
Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD; Robert Malone
Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year:
Dry Dock Brewing Company, Aurora, CO; Dry Dock Brewing Team
Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year:
Pizza Port Carlsbad, Carlsbad, CA; Pizza Port Brew Guys
Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year:
Chuckanut Brewery, Bellingham, WA; Will Kemper
2009 Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am Competition
Gold: Herbal Joe’s Columbarillo IPA, Chama River Brewing Co., Albuquerque, NM
Brewmaster: Jeff Erway, AHA Member: Ben Miller
Silver: Alright Already Amber, O’Fallon Brewery, O’Fallon, MO
Brewmaster: Brian Owens, AHA Member: Jim Yeager
Bronze: Time of the Season, Upslope Brewing Co., Boulder, CO
Brewmaster: Daniel Pages, AHA Member: Brian Patterson
The most competitive category was American Style India Pale Ale with 134 entries. The gold medal went to Firestone Walker Brewing Co., Paso Robles, CA for Union Jack for the second straight year.
The second most hotly contested category was Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer with 110 entries (up from 79 in 2008). The gold medal went to Arcadia Brewing Co., Battle Creek, MI for Cereal Killer Barleywine.
By Minehana Forman
http://michiganmessenger.comDuring a visit here on Tuesday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced the launch of a pilot food service program that would provide fresh produce to city neighborhoods.
The program, which will be funded by a $75,000 low-interest loan from the state, will deliver fruits and vegetables to residents with a vendor-style truck, according to the Detroit Free Press. When the produce truck, which will bear a MI Neighborhood Food Movers logo, rolls through neighborhoods on a fixed route and schedule, residents in Michigan’s largest city will have the option of buying some fresh and reasonably priced fruit and veggies for the dinner table.
Detroit has been identified as a “food desert” or a place where groceries and produce are not readily available. Many Detroit residents are forced to shop for groceries at convenience stores and gas stations because there are few real grocery stores inside the city limits. Many of those have limited operating hours and inflated prices.
What do apples, baby food, coffee, desserts, eggs, fruit snacks, granola, hair products, ice cream, juice, kielbasa, lemon cake, milk, noodles, oatmeal, peaches, queso dip, ravioli, sugar beets, Trout Chardonnay, vitamins, woodpecker cakes, X-strength pain relievers, yogurt, and zucchini have in common with Michigan's economy?
Plenty! This A-Z grocery list represents products grown and produced in Michigan towns like Acme and Zeeland, and nearly all points in between. More to the point, buying local Michigan made products is a simple - and healthy - way to boost the state's economy.
In fact, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, if each family in Michigan started spending $10 per week of their grocery bill on Michigan products, we would keep more than $37 million in Michigan, EACH WEEK.
To pay tribute to Michigan farmers and businesses and help residents identify Michigan made products, Grand Rapids-based Spartan Stores is launching its MICHIGAN's BEST statewide campaign in its 99 Family Fare, D&W Fresh Market, Felpausch, Glen's, Glen's Fresh Marketplace, and VG's throughout Michigan on July 5, 2009.
Spartan Stores carry over 2400 products grown and produced in Michigan. The products will be identified in all corporate owned stores with the MICHIGAN's BEST logo. In store specials, signage, and easy to fix recipes also will encourage shoppers to consider purchasing Michigan made products.
Locations:
Family Fare Supermarket/Quick Stop www.familyfaresupermarkets.com
D&W Fresh Market Supermarket/Quick Stop www.dwfreshmarket.com
Felpausch Supermarket/Quick Stop www.felpausch.com
Glen's Markets Supermarket/Quick Stop www.glensmarket.com
Glen's Fresh Marketplace Supermarket/Quick Stop www.glensfreshmarketplace.com
VG's www.vgsfood.com
MarketwireDuring Michigan's beautiful summer months, Westborn Market is encouraging customers to munch on local "grillables" while they do their weekend shopping.
Westborn Market's three stores are all hosting outdoor grills from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, now through the summer season.
Grill selections range from as low as $1 for a Dearborn sausage hot dog, up to $5.50 for a grilled Michigan Amish chicken breast or pulled pork sandwich, each served with Westborn's new cherry barbeque sauce, famous slaw and killer brownie bite. Other popular selections include cherry turkey burgers, Westborn's famous 1/2 lb. handmade ground round burgers, Better Made potato chips, Cherry Republic sodas and Faygo pop.
"We began our outdoor grill several years ago by serving hot dogs, chips and pop," said Mark Anusbigian, one of three brothers who manage the family-owned gourmet grocer. "Because of the grill's growing popularity and our efforts to promote Michigan produced items, we've greatly expanded the menu. These selections also help customers make purchasing decisions for their own summer grills and picnics."
Westborn Market has stores in Dearborn, Berkley and Livonia.
Store locations, hours of operation and weekly specials are available at www.westbornmarket.com or by calling 313-274-6100.
Clare Pfeiffer RamseyA New Yorker cartoon shows two sharks in the water. One has a foot dangling from his jaws. "I'm eating more locals," reads the caption.
When it comes to eating, lots of Detroiters are going local, too. Yet, while veggies are in abundance much of the year (OK, unless you totally love root vegetables, maybe not so much right now), what about meat?
After all, this is not just the vegetarian's dilemma; it's the metro Detroit omnivore's puzzle, too.The good news: It's actually quite easy to consume locally grown meat, raised on small farms and often in methods that would make folks like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan smile.
More good news: Local farmers say they are seeing an increase in demand for meat and eggs grown locally, and especially those raised with more natural, eco-friendly methods.
What's it matter?There are many good reasons to seek out producers of local food, and not all of them suggest you wear cork sandals, eat buckwheat, or have named one of your children after an act of nature.
In fact, some of the best reasons sound almost -- gasp -- fiscally conservative.
Maybe you want to support the local economy and Michigan farmers. The "buy local" movement tells us that if we spent $10 a week on Michigan products, the state economy would gain $36 million every week. If the real payoff is even half that, that's still not too shabby.And maybe you want to decrease the country's reliance on petroleum. If your blueberries have to get a passport stamp before hitting your cereal bowl, it's obvious the energy cost of that meal is significantly more than eating berries grown down the road. (Maybe it's time to think about the real cost of eating fresh blueberries in Michigan in January, but I digress.)
There are other reasons, too, that skeptics may find too granola-ish to consider, but basically boil down to this: Is there a better way than a food system that is so automated and impersonal it's nearly impossible to trace the origins of the sandwich you ate for lunch back to the field where it grew?But that brings us back to our dilemma: What's a girl who likes a perfectly grilled steak now and then or her eggs with a side of bacon once in a while to do?
All around Detroit, thankfully, we have many options for eating locally produced meat. Your best bet? Find a farmer. How? Easy: a farmer's market or the Internet.
Online Bounty
Flash back to a few days before Thanksgiving. A local woman -- let's call her Clare Ramsey -- decides she wants a locally raised, free range, happy turkey on her table. Eastern Market Saturday has passed, and may not have helped, so she turns to Google. She finds far more producers of turkey within 100 miles of the Motor City than she's ever imagined.
And many farms actually have Web sites. (Those of you who knew this already, sorry, but it was news to a city kid who can't come up with answers to her young daughter's questions about agriculture, like, "Do chickens eat flies?")
Getting back to that turkey: She likes the sunny, bucolic farm pictures posted by Sunshine Meadows Farm in Ortonville in northern Oakland County. It's a small family farm. She thinks she sees the animals smiling. The problem: The turkeys have been reserved since October. No dice.
She finds the same "try us next October" response at several other farms, including Harnois Farms near Pinckney, where John Harnois lets his turkeys roam around the wooded farm until the big day gets near.
She ultimately finds a turkey, this one raised at Roeske Farms in Hartland, about an hour northwest of Detroit, near M-59 and US 23. Patricia Roeske's farm is blanketed in snow, and in cold months when the local farmer's market is closed, the family runs a store out of a huge unheated garage attached to her house, complete with industrial walk-in coolers to keep the meat fresh.
Patricia hasn't always been a free-range hog and turkey farmer. It just kind of happened. It's actually such a beautiful supply and demand story it'd make an Econ 101 a little misty eyed. "We had a lot of people requesting some of our meat, because that's how we always raise our meat for ourselves," she says. Then Hartland started a farmer's market, and the Roeskes, whose kids are big into 4-H, decided they could make this into a business. "We've got the property, and we're already doing a few, so we thought we might as well do more. It just got little a bit bigger," she says.
The turkey was huge -- over 19 pounds – and cost about $50 -- maybe about twice as much as an average store-bought one, but not too much more than an "organic" or "free-range" bird at a fancy grocery store. The results were divine, and the fresh bird had less icky gooiness than a previously frozen fowl. Clare slept well that night.
The T-day scramble also revealed this fabulous site -- Eatwild.com. It features all kinds of purveyors of grass-fed meat, many in this region. It's a great resource, especially if you can't for some reason go the super easy-peasy route for finding local meats: farmer's markets.
The markets
Todd Wickstrom, owner of Heritage Foods USA (a web site that supports small farms' products) and part owner of Corktown's new Mercury Coffee Bar, is as picky as it gets when he buys meat for his businesses and his home. His best suggestion for home chefs is to find a farmer, and visit the farm if possible, but at least talk to them at the market.
"People are dying to know the source of their food and where it comes from, and the farmer's market allows people to have a direct relationship with the people who are growing their food," Wickstrom says.
Detroiters are blessed with a farmer's market that's open year-round. And even on the coldest of cold January days, Eastern Market has many, many options for the discerning carnivore.
One eye-catching vendor is Johnny Gyergyov of J & M Farms in Allenton, MI, in northern Macomb County. He says he raises "happy hogs," and his signs portray cartoon swine looking quite chipper.
It turns out Gyergyov's another accidental farmer. A former autoworker and city kid, he had moved his family to the country in the '70s. They started raising animals -- just a few -- and then got "the farming bug." Gyergyov invites people to stop by the farm and see where the hogs grow. He keeps them free of antibiotics and hormones. He takes his meat to a USDA facility for processing. At Eastern Market, he sells other products like sausage, chickens and beef. The prices are competitive to what you'll find at a meat counter at the grocery store, and sometimes better.
At Eastern Market, you'll also find a great number of egg producers -- many of whom regulars may only know as the "bee guy" or the "potato guy." But don't be afraid to ask them how they raise their birds -- or their real names. And if the eggs look multicolored and multisized, that's a good thing, people.
A scan of other area farmers markets also shows some good producers (staunch Detroitists cover your ears). Royal Oak's Farmers Market, for instance, offers a handful of meat vendors.
Gary Otto hauls his free-range chickens from Middleville on the west side of the state about twice a month. He sells many different cuts, and even smoked chicken and a particularly tasty chicken breakfast sausage that beats out most pork versions I've sampled from local vendors.
Otto is a fourth generation poultry farmer. He used to run a more standard, tightly packed factory farm as a producer for a big U.S. company, but it never sat well with him. He says he won't go back to that type of production. "I decided if I was going to do this -- raise chickens -- I was going to do it differently," he says.
Elmer Miller also drives a ways to sell at the Royal Oak market. The farmer from Up North in Marion offers grass-fed beef -- something not easy to come by. (Most U.S. cattle is "grain-fed," meaning usually fed corn, which according to Pollan's book, is not the preferred bovine diet.)
Miller also sells pasture-raised chickens and "natural" pork. Asked what natural means, he says free of antibiotics and hormones, and with pigs given the freedom to do what pigs are meant to do -- wallow in the mud, move about as they please, etc. If you think this is what every pig gets to do, you might want to read the aforementioned book.
When cows, chickens and pigs are allowed to grow in a more natural setting, and given the freedom to exercise and move about, it "changes the flavor of the meat" for the better, Miller says. I believe the guy. He wears suspenders. I bought a big roast and it was great. I slept well that night, too. Some of his beef prices are higher than grocery store averages -- about $6 a pound for most cuts, including ground beef.
Miller says he sees more customers seeking out his products. "The public awareness of the food system has made people look around for better options," he says.
And in Detroit, options abound. Finding them is as easy as taking a few minutes, going to the Internet or market, finding a farmer, and asking a few questions. Oh, and if you are looking for a Thanksgiving turkey, it's probably not too early to get your order in.
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