New Yorker Reporter Tries to 'Eat Local' in NYC

When you have a few minutes, check out this piece by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker partly about a Just Food program to proliferate community gardens with egg-layers.

Adam is trying to only eat food grown locally, including chickens raises in NYC. It's illegal, so that adds a little extra drama to the article.

Lots of slow food references in the piece and cornerstones of urban farming...including community gardens, urban/backyard chickens (for eggs) and rooftop honey.

But Adam wanted to see if he could get more than eggs for protein and set about trying to find locally raised meat in NYC. I won't spoil the ending.

Traffic Milestone...

Not that I'm counting or obsessively checking site statistics...but I was happy to see that Virtual Farmgirl has reached a milestone with more than 5,000 visits.

No telling how many of those were me from different computers. It's a nice number nonetheless.

Not exactly Wall Street Journal dot com numbers, but for a blog I thought only my family and I would read, it's satisfying.

Farmgirl Hero/Survivor Embraces Grass-Fed Methods

After cleaning up three floors of flooding thanks to my bathroom obsessed child, I found inspiration in the story of this cancer-surviving Alabama farmgirl: Melissa Boutwell.

Having trouble finding quality red meat to boost her red blood cells and wanting her family to eat healthier, she delved into organics...moving her family to a farm near where she was raised.

Now she and her family operate a certified organic and sustainable Boutwell Farms, according to the Dothan Eagle.

The story notes that organically raised grass-fed meat is more nutritious, and is higher in the latest nutrient star Omega 3 than mass produced meat. Also noteworthy is that because of the family's rotation system, the drought didn't impact their animals as much.

100K Honey Bees Shacked Up in Indiana Home

Have you wondered where all the honey bees have gone?

Well...about 100,000 of them were in an abandoned house in South Bend.

According to Fox South Bend, the city had to hire a bee keeper to smoke out the bees.

No worries though, the bee keeper intends to give the Italian-Russian bees a new home so they can continue protecting their queen and making honey.

Not exactly a resolution to Colony Collapse Disorder. But it's nice to know bees are finding shelter somewhere.

CSA 'Clients' Feel Flood Impact

There is such a thing as too much rain. The water in my basement last week is one reason I know this to be true. But my veggies, flowers and grass don't seem to mind.

Farmers have been far less fortunate, especially in flooded southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. This AP story in the La Crosse Tribune had the CSA "client" perspective.

This graph is a harsh reality that many learned this month:

The flooding provided a stark reminder that the customers share the risks of farming. Their weekly boxes of produce swell with the farm’s fortunes — or get washed away.

But it's good to know that these CSA members feel truly invested in their host farms. Love this quote from Jon Olsen:

“I actually said, 'My farm!“'..."And I don’t live on a farm. I live in north Minneapolis.”

The floods hit at a peak vegetable harvest for the region, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars in crops.

I'll be curious to know how forgiving these member/clients are and whether they'll continue to take risks.

If they are clients, as they are referred in the article, I'm thinking they will be less inclined to sign up again. If they are members, and feel a sense of ownership in the farming operating, my bet is they'll sign up next season.

Straw...Not Just for Animal Bedding Anymore

Loved this story on the front page of the Washington Post about the "Little Pig's Law of Construction" focusing on straw bale houses.

Apparently straw building isn't limited to the Great Plains and American Southwest anymore. Folks in the Washington, D.C., area have the bug to build out of grain shafts...including a school.

Still, the Post says stats are hard to come by. The paper cites an International Straw Bale Building Registry that lists 538 projects nationwide. I'd tend to agree that's low. I bet our friends in rural New Mexico aren't on the registry.

Mini Backyard Harvest

A cool rainy day is perfect for a lazy afternoon, catching up with the family and cooking.

It finally cooled off enough to break out my mother's famous tortilla soup recipe.

The best part was that we could enjoy our own little backyard harvest for the recipe...using some of the peppers I planted for the sauce and sweet cherry tomatoes for the topping.

Still no cilantro. I'll have to try that in the windowsill and soon. I had to go to two stores to even find any that looked worth buying.

Hoosier State Fair Bans Trans Fats

Just a quick post this morning to note my pride that the Indiana State Fair has banned trans fats.

There's lots of coverage about this, but the Indy Star notes that the ISF is the first state fair to make such a healthful choice. More details in this USA Today piece, including a trans fats primer.

Several vendors report that the trans fat ban won't impact the taste of their elephant ears, deep fried Twinkies, etc. But I beg to differ and agree with veteran concessionaire John Barto, who says he already made the switch to Omega-9 Canola and Sunflower Oils because the food tastes better.

Now the challenge is to make a Twinkie, non fried, without trans fats.

The Indiana State Fair wraps up this Sunday.

A Glimpse of the Hoosier State Fair

Two correspondents in one week! A 4-H Hoosier Farmgirl I know submitted this photo of the Cheese Lady while she was sculpting at the Indiana State Fair.



I couldn't convince her to take money for the shots, so she'll have to settle for getting published.

I'm told that the Cheese Lady put on quite a show and was pretty gabby while she sculpted those 1,300 pounds of dairy into an Indy 500 race scene.

VFG Lives Vicariously Via SF Correspondent

I've been so busy on the Net for work that I haven't had much time to focus on finding a new post.

But as my Irish (Italian, German and a pinch of French Huguenot) luck would have it, I've found a VFG correspondent in San Francisco, who told me about a super cool restaurant.

Here's his review...with art!

The Virtual Farmgirl San Francisco bureau chief reports on his visit to Sears Fine Food:

Half a block off Union Square stands a mecca for lovers of breakfast – always the most important meal on the farm, virtual or otherwise.

Sears Fine Food has been in business since 1938, with the exception of 8 months in 2004, when the founding family shuttered the place before selling to a new owner. It’s always prided itself on buying local ingredients whenever possible. It’s a star in the pantheon of Road Food -- “colorful places enjoyed by locals (and savvy travelers) for their character as well as their menu.”

Go for the breakfast, but go late – like around 12:30 or 1 – to avoid the omnipresent morning line of diners. Breakfast is served until 3 p.m., seven days a week.

Your humble Virtual Farmgirl correspondent can only speak to the quality of the house specialty – “World Famous” Swedish pancakes. The 18 paper-thin silver dollar-size flapjacks are studded with holes that almost poke through to the other side. They have a sweetness to them missing from most pancakes – perhaps because, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, they are made from a mix of buckwheat, soybean and rice flours. Delicious. There can be no finer pancake in the food-obsessed town. (It doesn’t hurt that they come with an enormous ramekin of butter.)

I had them with a side of bacon – because breakfast is not really breakfast without a pork product. The rasher was plenty porky, but I found the slices too thick for my citified tastes.

Were I to return, I might partake of the “Authentic Sourdough French Bread dipped in Our Own Special Recipe.” But I suspect I would be hard pressed to mute the siren call of those hot cakes.

Sears Fine Food
439 Powell Street, between Post and Sutter streets
San Francisco, CA 94102
415-986-0700
Open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Breakfast served until 3 p.m.
Menus
Online store for pancake mix by mail

Prohibition Spawns Raw Milk Speakeasies

I've been nearly too busy to post this, which would be a shame since I have a particular affinity for this site.

Needless to say, this post on the ABA Journal's page is irresistible - Somewhat Illegal Substance: Raw Milk

The post, which links back to the original article in the New York Times, focuses on an "unlikely brand of law-breakers," raw milk seeking parents who are forming clandestine clubs to circumvent RM prohibition.

Here's a notable graph:

Proponents, who are a varied group, not only "trust the traditional food chain more than the industrial one,” but are willing to spend significantly more for raw milk, says Nina Planck, the author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why. “You cannot categorize the people who are drinking raw milk," she says. "They are people from the blue states and red states, farmers and yuppies and Birkenstock-wearers.”

Say Cheese!

I don't know that I can ever be a real farmgirl until I've actually attended my home state's state fair. It's doubtful I'll make it to the Indiana State Fair this year either.

But if I were to go, I would definitely want to check out Sarah Kaufmann, a/k/a The Cheese Lady, and her cheese sculpture.

Sarah is apparently planning to carve a rendering of the Indy 500 out of nearly 1300 pounds of cheese.

Now that's a lot of dairy. If you really want to see something...don't miss Sarah's online cheese gallery.

Teen Farmgirl Preps to Take Over Family Farm

I've been pretty busy this week, but I wanted to share this cute story from the Brainerd Dispatch about a 19-year-old Minnesota farmgirl whose plan is to take over her family's dairy farm.

Ashley Hyovalti, who was home schooled, has apparently known she wanted to run the farm since she was 13.

The farm has grown with her, from 80 acres to 320 with an additional 200 or so leased.

She's quoted saying:

"You never stay in the farm business for the money. It's a lifestyle and lots of hard work."

Not a lot of depth in the piece, but an interesting read.

God knows I had no idea what I would be doing for a living at 19.