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Sun, 11 Sep 2011 19:23:33 +0000

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Week 35 – Crab Salad

Julie — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:00:00 +0000

My husband and I went to Maine for our honeymoon. The adventure was a journey of compromise. You see, I am a planner. I like to know what I am doing, where I am going and when it is all happening. My husband wanted this adventure to be spontaneous. And so we compromised. We did not plan out our entire trip, with a list of hotel reservations with predetermined stops along the way, prior to our boarding the plane. We made our way up the coast of Maine, enjoying the rocky coast, stark lighthouses and small, New England towns. When the time came to move to a new town we consulted our map to figure out how far we might travel, and we called ahead to find a hotel room. Michael got his spontaneity and I always knew I had a place to sleep! Maine, in September, was our perfect honeymoon spot. I remember salt spray; quaint, tree-filled towns; white steeples; sleeping on an island where cars and electricity are not invited; stacks of lobster pots with their colorful buoys, and delicious food. Our favorite came from the many lobster shacks that dotted the coastline. We would sit down at an outdoor picnic table with a paper dish filled with sweet corn on the cob and a lobster roll. Consisting of fresh, succulent lobster meat held together with a little mayonnaise on a soft white bun, we repeatedly sought out this simple meal (whether it was for the meal itself or the view of the ocean and its fleet of fishing boats I can’t be certain!). It’s been thirteen years since that fabulous trip. Living on the West Coast, lobsters aren’t available locally. But crab is!! I concocted this crab salad, remembering our treat from Maine while respecting the local flavor of our own Dungeness Crab. Bon Appetit

Crab Salad

Served on a hot dog bun as a sandwich or on a bed of arugula as a salad, this salad makes an excellent light meal.

Serves 4

Salad:

lump crab meat from 2 whole crabs, cooked and cleaned

1 medium carrot, peeled and grated

1 stalk of celery, tough ribs removed and small dice

1 tablespoon red onion, minced

1 tablespoon fresh mint, minced

Dressing

¾ cup mayonnaise

¼ cup fresh lime juice, (or lemon juice)

1 teaspoon adobo sauce, (or tabasco to taste)

1 teaspoon salt

Sandwich

4 hot dog buns

arugula

Place crab, carrot, celery, onion and mint in a bowl.

Whisk together mayonnaise, lime juice, adobo sauce, and salt. Pour over crab mixture. Gently mix together. Let set to chill thoroughly.

Place arugula in each hot dog bun. Place a scoop of crab salad on top of arugula. Serve immediately.

Week 34 – Summer Garden Salad

Julie — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The kids are heading back to school next week. I will be sad to see summer end (especially since it arrived in the Pacific NW only a couple weeks ago!), but mostly I will miss the wonderful playtime I have had with my children. This year we tried something new. I have a friend who started his own architecture firm and so we are doing some ‘Shared Kid Care.’ My kids are with his kids at their house for part of the week and the whole raucous bunch moves to my house for the rest of the week. It has been a great way to keep up with work AND partake in our children’s magical world! Over the course of our summer the kids have created elaborate games with multiple tiers of rules, using my small garden as their backdrop. The other day they came in proudly displaying their own salad for my blog. Their recipe: A fistful of ‘greens’ with a sprinkling of flowers and a quartered tomato (one for each child of course!) all mixed together in their flower pot bowl. A garden salad at it’s finest!

My version of a garden salad is my own proud display of the few summer vegetables I grow in my garden (minus the zucchini). I grew pole beans this year and have enjoyed watching them wind up my trellis only to dangle their luscious fruit down amongst their large green leaves. I have yet to pluck anything larger than a cherry tomato from my tangle of vines, however there is a bevy of large fruit just waiting to ripen. My scallions are holdovers from my spring planting, their sharpness adds a delightful bite to any salad. And my basil, oh my basil, it is truly one of my favorite things about having a vegetable garden! The summer is short and fortunately I have enjoyed (almost) every minute of it! Bon Appetit

Summer Garden Salad

A delightful mix of green beans, tomatoes and scallions that go with almost everything!

Serves 4

Salad:

1 pound green beans

1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise (or 1 cup of chopped garden fresh tomatoes of any variety)

4 scallions (mine were purple!), sliced thin

¼ cup walnut halves, toasted and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons basil, julieened

2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Dressing:

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt to taste

Prepare the green beans – Trim green beans and steam for a couple minutes until tender but still crunchy. Drain and shock green beans by placing them in ice water. Once cooled dry the green beans and cut into 2″ long pieces.

Mix salad ingredients – Place green beans in a large bowl. Add tomatoes, scallions, chopped walnuts and basil. Mix together.

Make dressing and prepare to serve – In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, olive oil, mustard and salt. Pour dressing over vegetables. Add goat cheese and lightly toss.

Week 33 – Zucchini Salad

Julie — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:43:00 +0000

Every year I plant one zucchini start, because one zucchini plant is all it takes. I love the plant’s large leaves and golden orange flowers, not to mention the green, tubular vegetable it produces. The thing about a zucchini plant is that it is one of the easiest vegetables to grow and it is extremely prolific. Every year, as the days heat up I start pulling out my zucchini recipes to begin plotting how to consume a vegetable that one day could be pencil thin and a couple days later the size of a baseball bat. As the summer rolls along they start coming faster and faster and my kitchen feels more like a zucchini processing plant than a family kitchen! We have already enjoyed zucchini bread (made even more palatable by chocolate chips!), zucchini gratin (my husband’s favorite dish) and stuffed zucchini blossoms (one of my personal favorites). I am also looking forward to trying out zucchini fritters and making zucchini pickles. And this Zucchini Salad recipe is a perfect use for the summer vegetable. It is light and fresh and very easy to make!! Bon Appetit

Zucchini ‘Carpaccio’

Sliced thin on a mandolin, the zucchini is tender with a slight crunch. The basil vinaigrette will be more than you need for this salad, so enjoy it drizzled over fresh tomatoes, green beans or any grilled meat.

Serves 4

Dessing:

2 cups basil , packed and given a rough chop

½ cup Italian parsley, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

? cup olive oil

2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

½ lemon, juiced

salt, to taste

Salad:

2 medium zucchini, sliced thin (preferably on a mandolin)

sea salt, sprinkle to taste

Parmesan cheese

Place the basil, Italian parsley, garlic, red wine vinegar, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor. With the blade running, slowly drizzle the olive oil in through the feed tube. Add salt to taste and blend again.

Lay the zucchini slices out on a plate. Pour the dressing over the zucchini. Sprinkle shaved parmesan and sea salt over the top. Serve immediately.

Week 32 – Caprese Salad

Julie — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:11:00 +0000

I wait all year to make my first Caprese Salad. The succulent tomatoes, creamy mozzarella, earthy basil and sweet/tart vinaigrette. It is one of my absolute favorite summer dishes. Best of all, it is super easy to make, making it the perfect outdoor/ dining food! Now, I will have to admit that I was hoping to show you tomatoes from my own garden, but our cold spring has turned into a cool summer. As a resident, I have no complaints of our summer… chilly, slightly overcast mornings move into warm, sunny afternoons. But as a gardener, I am looking at a bevy of tomatoes on the vine that can’t seem to make the change from green to red. I couldn’t wait any longer and so resorted to picking up some local tomatoes from our nearby market. The tomatoes are key to this salad. The best way to make this salad is with fresh from the vine tomatoes, preferably heirloom. And if you haven’t tried an heirloom tomato, this salad is the perfect opportunity to experiment a little. Heirloom tomatoes come in a wide array of colors from your classic red, to green with stripes, to deep purple to a beautiful yellow mottled with burgundy. Often misshapen in weird, sometimes grotesque forms, cut into an heirloom tomato and you will find succulent, juicy, sweet (with just enough acid) flesh that speaks of summer. Bon Appetit

Caprese Salad

This is just one of an infinite variety of ways to make this simple, summer salad. The key to its success is using the highest quality ingredients you can find.

Serves 2 (if you LOVE fresh from the vine tomatoes)

or 4 (if you have a more typical appetite)

Salad:

2 large heirloom tomatoes

8 ounces fresh mozzarella

2 sprigs fresh basil

sea salt

Dressing

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

Slice the tomato in thick (1/4″ or so) slices. Slice the mozzarella in slices about half as thick as the tomato. Julienne the basil. Place a slice of tomato on a plate, add a layer of mozzarella, another tomato and another layer of mozzarella (continue layering if serving salad on a platter for family style service).

In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, oil and mustard. Drizzle the dressing over the top of the salad. Sprinkle basil and sea salt over the top. Serve immediately.

I Love Blueberries!

Julie — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:00:00 +0000

As I have said before, each summer I look forward to loading up our baskets and heading to a nearby farm to do a bit of berry picking. My son will eat them as fast as he can pick them off the bush. My daughter, on the other hand, has never liked any sort of berry and so it is thanks to her that we end up with any to take home at all. I love the time I get to spend in the warm summer sun, with my children and we…

Have you ever been blueberry picking, with your kids tugging at your sleeve, and really looked at a bunch of blueberries? Many of us think of those supermarket berries, consistent in size, shape and color. But the berry on the bush is so different from those.

A little bit tart, but mostly sweet. Some are big and juicy and ready to pop. A couple have shriveled to the branch. And some are still forming a promise for tomorrow. Green, nearly white, brown, lavender, purple, each bunch is a colorful array.

Blueberry bushes thrive when living in a diverse community. You need at least two different plants (being of different cultivars with differing bloom times to ensure cross-pollination) to produce much fruit. Native to the east-coast, the blueberry is a cousin to our west-coast native, the huckleberry. They perform as members of the same large happy family.

And what a wonderful way to watch the change of seasons throughout the year. Their brilliant red leaves add a sparkle to any fall garden. During the winter months the bushes provide a striking form with their twisted peeling stems and in spring, they will put on an exuberant display of small white blossoms. Of course summer is my favorite season because it means berries, berries and more berries.

High in antioxidants, my son and I like blueberries with almost anything. In our breakfast cereal or waffles, sprinkled over a green salad, pureed as a sauce for meat or ice cream, frozen as a snack, the list goes on and on and on. In the winter my son and I survive off the bags we have frozen away from our farming forays. But come those warm days of summer, we hunt eagerly for those first boxes at our local farmers market… a sign that we can plan our next trip out to the farm to enjoy a community diverse in color, ability and character.

Blueberries

Latin Name: Vaccinium corymbosum

Height: 4-6 ft high

Spacing: Plant your blueberry bushes about 4 ft apart.

Sun: In the wild, blueberries will grow in dappled shade. Your harvest will be greater if you plant your bushes in full sun.

Water: Blueberries like about 1” of water weekly during their first three years. Do not irrigate through the use of spray nozzles. Irrigate from below (ie: with a drip system), to prevent powdery mildew forming on the leaves and berries.

Soil: Blueberries require an acidic soil (perfect for those of us in the Pacific NW!) that is also rich in organic matter. This is a time when checking the pH of your soil would be a good idea… it should be between 3.5 and 5.0.

Companions: One recommendation suggested planting the blueberry shrubs with a lingonberry groundcover. The glossy evergreen leaves and red berries play a nice counterpoint to the blueberry shrubs.

Planting: If your winters are mild, plant 2-3 year old bushes in the fall, otherwise plant in the spring. After planting, apply a thick layer of mulch. This will feed and protect the shrub’s shallow root system.

The first year after planting, remove any flower clusters to prevent shrubs from producing berries. This will help your plants establish their root systems and will enable the bushes to produce healthy abundant crops in years following.

Maintenance: Add a layer of mulch around the base of the bushes each year.

In the early spring, remove stems that droop to the ground.

After the shrubs are well established (after 6 years or so), begin annual pruning in the winter. Cut out any suckering stems near the ground. Prune out smaller stems (less than a quarter inch) to stronger branches. Cut out older, twiggy growth. Thin out stems in the middle of the shrub to allow air circulation.

Harvest: Depending on the variety, blueberries will be ripe late spring or summer. The blueberry is ripe when it is a deep blue and pulls easily from the branch.

Of Note: There are two types of blueberry plants. One is Highbush Blueberry and is the one I describe here. The second is Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium) and is a groundcover that forms a dense mat, has a lower yield and grows well in colder climates.

As a fruiting bush, blueberry shrubs produce abundant delicious berries. As a landscape element, blueberry shrubs provide year-round interest. In the spring, they are covered in little white/pink urn shaped flowers, in the summer their green foliage is studded with blue berries and in the fall their foliage turns bright yellow and red.

Find the variety that is appropriate for your climate.

Week 31 – Cherry Quinoa Salad

Julie — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 06:58:00 +0000

It’s been an extraordinary couple weeks. My sister gave birth to an adorable, snuggly, baby boy, Benjamin. My brother got married to a wonderful, beautiful woman and the parties that marked the occasion were joyous and festive. And my husband’s family came into town from their points scattered around the country to vacation together and to celebrate my niece’s tenth birthday (double-digits is big-time!). For two weeks my house has been filled with the sound of delightful chatter and laughter. Amazing meals were conjured up and the wine flowed freely. The big events that marked our days were celebrated and the quieter moments with family were cherished. And then, one-by-one, everyone went home. The house has been cleaned and the laundry put away. It’s just the four of us again, and it is so, so quiet! So, when a friend invited us over for dinner, we jumped at the opportunity. It was a delightful evening with fabulous friends, enjoying the setting sun, eating outdoors, listening to the waves as they lapped at the rocky beach. The quiet, intimate evening was very much appreciated. From the various tidbits leftover in my fridge I was able to conjure up the following salad as my contribution to the table. Bon Appetit

Cherry Quinoa Salad

A delightful blend of sweet and earthy and sour, this salad was served with grilled chicken and a green salad.

Serves 6

Salad:

1 cup uncooked quinoa or cous cous

2 cups cherries, pitted and chopped

2 cups arugula, julieened

1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

½ cup fresh herbs (basil, mint, parsley), minced

Dressing

3 tablespoons walnut oil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoons shallot, minced

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add quinoa, stir lightly, cover and simmer for 12 minutes or until all water has evaporated. Fluff with a fork and set aside for 10-15 minutes.

Place cherries, arugula, walnuts and herbs in a large mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, shallot, dijon mustard, salt and pepper.

After the quinoa has cooled slightly, pour most of the dressing over the quinoa. Let it cool to room temperature and add to the cherry and herb mixture. Taste for seasoning and chill. When ready to serve, pour the remaining dressing over the salad and serve.

My Pig – Part 2

Julie — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:00:00 +0000

So, I have to admit something to you. My friends have been laughing at me. When I tell them that I met the farmer that raised the pig that is now sitting in little white packages in my freezer, they remind me of a recent TV show that pokes fun at Pacific Northwestherners and Portlandia specifically. The first episode features a Portland couple who try to order dinner at a restaurant. They ask about the sourcing of the meat, which might not be an uncommon request, but then, as good fun goes, they drill down asking about the living conditions, the animal’s feeding habits, even it’s name and then they finally decide that they will visit the farm themselves. I found the episode to be hilarious, a humor that hits so close to home.

As I reported last week, I recently visited Kookoolan Farms. Kookoolan Farms is a ‘small, diversified family farm’ that offers a variety of livestock, vegetables and fruits. They have CSA shares through which they offer a wide range of organic crops. They raise heirloom chickens for meat and eggs and Jersey cows for milk. They also offer turkeys, Cornish Cross chickens, lambs, pork and beef steers. However, this last list of animals doesn’t come directly from their farm. They come from the neighbors.

Chrissie and Koorosh Zaerpoor have surrounded themselves with a community of small, family farmers (many of whom have been farming for multiple generations). The community consists of farmers that each have a passion and a special understanding for a specific product. Mark, for instance is a 4^th generation pig farmer. He raised my pig. My pig, who was a happy pig, who lived a much longer life than CAFO pigs and who was slaughtered in a respectful and humane manner. I shook Mark’s hand and I thanked him for the most delicious pig!

The community of farmers work together to share resources, marketing and equipment. The larger group allows each farmer to stay small, while also reaching a broader audience then if they offered a single commodity. The community can work together to meet the needs of their customers in a personalized manner. And the customers are lining up at the door.

Kookoolan Farms has developed a strong community of customers. Chrissie said that there are primarily three ways that her customers find her. Every time the media reports another outbreak of food contamination, caused by unsafe farming or animal husbandry practices, she gets more calls. Second, the quality of her products keeps the customer returning to her door. Chrissie produces organic and natural products that are of the highest quality. Take the milk for instance. Her milk is unpasteurized. It doesn’t need to be, because it is far cleaner than the milk that is produced in the large milking houses. Standard milk has to be pasteurized (a heating process) in order to kill all the germs that are in milk from a large milking house. Her customers tend to be those with compromised immune systems, who turn to her milk as a safer alternative than pasteurized milk. And thirdly, Kookoolan’s presence at a neighborhood Farmer’s Market has informed and inspired a strong customer base.

Looking around the farm, I also see a community of plants and animals. Kookoolan Farms does not produce a monoculture as many farms have been forced to create in order to keep relative costs down. This farm consists of a beautiful garden where each row produces a different vegetable. While I was there, I asked about goats. I was surprised by the lack of goats. Chrissie responded that they had tried goats once, but it was not a compatible relationship. While goats are helpful at keeping weeds down and eliminating the need for a mower, they ate EVERYTHING, including the vegetable garden and the chicken feed and more. So, they got rid of the goats in order to create a healthy environment for the rest of their creatures. What they did discover is the beneficial relationship between chicken and raspberry bush. The chickens, who are able to wander around the yard as they wish, love the shade that the bushes provide and the berries that fall. The bushes love the scratching around that the chickens provide. A beneficial relationship for all.

I asked Chrissie what advice she might give to my in-laws, who live in the mid-west, if they wanted to get their meat and produce from a humane, sustainable farm. What are the characteristics they should they look for when making their selection? Her answer: Go meet the farmer. Observe how they raise their animals and grow the produce first hand. Find a farmer that you are comfortable with, based on your own personal needs. Develop a relationship and expand your community.

Week 30 – Corn Salad

Julie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:33:00 +0000

In the summer months, there is nothing better than fresh corn on the cob. Fresh from the farm and into the pot. Corn (and peas) begins to lose its sweetness as soon as it is plucked from the stalk. The more direct the route from stalk to pot, the sweeter your corn will taste. My yard is not large enough for me to grow my own corn, so I must rely on my Farmer’s Market to provide the sweet treat. As soon as it shows up, you can be sure that corn will be served at the dinner table that night. And, in the off-chance I purchase too much (which is difficult to do, since my children could eat their weight in corn on the cob), then I get to make corn salad, one of my favorite salads of the year. Bon Appetit

Corn Salad

Crunchy and sweet, this salad speaks to the essence of summer.

Serves 4

Salad:

4 ears fresh corn, leftover from the night before and cut off the cob

(or about 2 cups frozen and defrosted)

1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise

½ cup red onion, minced

1 tablespoon basil , julienned

Dressing

2 tablespoon cider vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 lemon, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

Place corn, tomatoes, red onion and basil in a mixing bowl.

In a small bowl whisk together vinegar, oil, mustard, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Pour over vegetables and mix together. Let stand at room temperature about half an hour before serving.

My Pig

Julie — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 07:00:00 +0000

I have two children. As I have said before, my son is my little gardener. My daughter is my little environmentalist. She has always been one who looks at the big picture. It was a result of her encouragement that you will find me riding my bicycle to accomplish my close in errands. During a farm unit at school, she made the unique choice to forego the tractor (relying on ‘clean’ horsepower instead) and the slaughtering of any animals; they would instead be used for their wool or their eggs or their milk. And she is, in part, the reason I have purchased my first pig. Or half a pig… or the parts and pieces of half a pig.

At six years old, Meagan came home from school and made the firm announcement that she was not going to eat any meat that had not led a happy life. We discussed what this meant and how we might find the appropriate information. Fortunately for her, this pronouncement followed my earlier reading of ‘In Defense of Food’ (which I wrote about here) and coincided with my reading on ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’, which provided me with just enough tools to start my own search for humanly raised animals. (Oh, and I had also just finished reading the hilarious ‘Farm City‘ by Novella Carpenter ) I would highly recommend reading any of these books if you are interested in the subject of food and where it comes from.

I don’t entertain every new wish my young children bestow upon me. But this one seemed worthy of further research. After looking into it, I found the conventional way we raise animals in order to satisfy our country’s incredible demand for meat to be truly alarming. The increased efficiency, in order to meet our insatiable hunger, comes at an economic, environmental, and personal cost. CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) have been created to house animals by cramming them by the thousands and tens of thousands into small pens, corrals and cages, where they are unable to walk around, breathe fresh air or have exposure to daylight. Take a pig for instance: Industry might argue that hog CAFOs with climate control and automated feed and water systems, are a modern version of hog heaven. But the realities can be hellish: 1,000 to 2,500 animals in a single building, with as many as 20 hogs crammed inside pens no bigger than a bedroom, with no straw, no mud, and absolutely no way to be a pig. A CAFO hog lives out its short miserable life on a hard concrete surface, producing huge volumes of waste, which falls through the slatted floors into a massive cesspool underneath the building before it’s dumped out on the landscape. There is an economic cost: Smaller family farms find it difficult to compete with large farms that warehouse their animals. Market prices for these warehoused animals are so low that farmers aren’t able to compete against CAFO. There is an environmental cost: CAFO’s produce a high amount of animal waste that pollutes our waterways, air and soil with pathogens, pesticides, poisonous gases and other contaminates. And there is a personal cost: We have become so disconnected from our food supplies that our children don’t know where their food comes from or that there is an appropriate season for our food, even meat. (and here is another informative website.)

Timing is everything. In the midst of my endless Internet searching that led to more questions, concern and confusion, my friend sent me an email about splitting a pig that is being raised as a happy hog at a nearby farm. Portland and the Willamette Valley is know for a variety of things, among them are our coffee shops, brew pubs, restaurants and the incredible men and women who supply these eateries with fresh fruits, vegetables and meats grown sustainably and, well, happily!

Kookoolan Farms is a wonderful diverse farm that has wrapped itself in a community that supports each other. The Kookoolan owners, Chrissie and Koorosh Zaerpoor, have a passion for farming, animal husbandry and the land that supports them. It is immediately evident upon meeting them that they want to provide their clients with the best possible products while also giving their animals the best life they can. Don’t be fooled, these animals are not pets. They are raised for their meat, but in Chrissie’s eyes that doesn’t mean that the living creatures shouldn’t have a healthy, happy life. The chickens range free (when they aren’t being protected by their humans from the bandit predators that stalk the yard at night… The day I visited the farm, Chrissie’s husband and another farm worker had stayed up half the night protecting the yard of chickens from a band of pillaging skunks and raccoons!), the cows wander the field and the pigs play in their spacious pen.

My pig had actually come from a neighboring farm. And so Chrissie took me to see her neighbor Mark who raises, I can assure you, the most delicious pigs I have ever tasted! These pigs live together in spacious pens where they can dig in the dirt, wallow in the mud and sleep high and dry in a bed of straw. The pigs were given the opportunity to live as pigs should live. They were ‘clean’ and curious and very frisky. They were not afraid when I walked up to the pen to admire their pink and red and brown coats. My pig was not fed antibiotics, or growth hormones. They were instead fed grains, grass and hazelnut treats, that are locally harvested. These were definitely happy pigs, which resulted in tasty pigs!

I grew up in the Portland suburbs. We lived the suburban life, which meant that the only food that didn’t come from the grocery story were a few tomatoes and strawberries we grew in our back yard. We weren’t hunters or foragers or farmers. We were barely even gardeners. As an adult I am learning about food and where it comes from. My intention is that my children have a deeper relationship with their food and the land it comes from. Every week, we look forward to our Saturday morning at our neighborhood Farmer’s Market. And now, I am excited to extend that connection to our meat, through my relationship with Kookoolan Farms and their menagerie of pigs, chickens and beef.