Farm To Family Now Offering Home Milk Delivery

Mark Lilly's Farm to Family Bus, Shop, and CSA enterprise have just added home milk delivery. You can visit the shop at 2817 Mechanicsville Turnpike, friend them on facebook or twitter for updates on the bus whereabouts, or sign up for their CSA. The CSA includes Polyface meats (including a thanksgiving turkey), and locally made bread. In addition it includes a half pound of Mountain View or Goats R Us Cheeses, as well as Mountain view milk, and yogurt. To just have milk and yogurt home delivery is $10 per week plus a $10 monthly service charge. Click Here for their website.

Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

The new Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD) is offering up their first issue for free online until October.
Looking at this peer reviewed journal you can check out topics such as Commentary on Why Aren’t There Any Turkeys at the Danville Turkey Festival? (That's Danville Ohio) Or you can read columns like The Economic Pamphleteer: Rethinking Government Policies for Growing Farmers, as well as Views from the Food System Frontier: Measuring Agricultural Stewardship: Risks and Rewards. Click here to read from the August issue or to subscribe.

Photo Essay from International Food Bloggers Conference

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend the International Food Bloggers Conference in Seattle. I was definitely a small fish in that pond, but I loved every minute of it. Since I returned to real life in RVA, I have been thinking a lot about recipe development as well as community efforts and artisan foodstuffs, inspired by the conference. One of the most immediate components I can attend to is photography- so here are some select moments from the conference captured in pictures. Truly, everything was so gorgeous-

Yep, that is me in the foreground. This photo of the main conference room at Theo chocolate was taken by Marie Asselin of Food Nouveau. Check out her lovely blog, with recipes, travel fantasies, and her take on the food at the 2010 IBFC. Swoon.

Every detail of the conference was most civilized, including this tapas party put on by the Secret Sherry Society. How fun are they?

There was always tons of food around- of course. Plates- nay, platters- of chocolate, vats of coffee, a menu read every few hours. I am still thinking about the donuts from Top Pot that came out of these boxes. Well fried, and thus, the best I have ever had. I miss them.

And then, there were the food trucks. Oh my goodness- what fun. Do you see the one on the left dressed like a pig? Guess what they serve...

Lunch on Sunday was provided entirely by these lovelies. And the beer was crafted by Pike Brewing. Their Dry Wit was amazing- hoppy and infused with herbs like lavender and chamomille. Pike also made a Kilt Lifter ale made with a bit of scotch. Brilliant.

Every time I see this photo, I want one.

My favorite truck had falafel- do we even have one of these in Richmond? Anybody want to go in on this idea with me? Beautiful falafel, creamy raita and pickled veggies- I could eat this all day!
My other favorite (I have never been very good at owning superlatives) was the mobile pizza oven. Can you see the flames in the back, and the wood? Amazing pizza- crispy, bubbly crust- Seattle is so lucky.

These food trucks are usually part of a regular street market that goes on every Saturday in the Freemont neighborhood. There were some fruit, veggie and flower vendors there, but I liked photographing the shoes best.

Finally, below is a photo of the building where the magic happened for us that weekend, and where many fine ideas and products emerge every day- the Theo Chocolate factory. I am so enamored of their work (and their fine, fine chocolate) and I can't wait to share with you soon. For now, I can show you this:

Thanks for hosting us, Seattle, and thanks for reading, y'all!

Book Reccomendations From My Summer Reading List

This summer I've been in a bit of a funk. I'm a gardener and the endless weeks of 100+ degree days, the lack of rain coupled with hellacious swarms of Asian Tiger mosquitoes had me running for cover. At home my garden was largely left to make it's own way to fall, and it's got the dead and stunted plants to prove it. Within the comfort of my air-conditioned, and mosquito free house I sought out inspiration to fight the fight again next season.
Gardening, and most certainly agriculture, can turn your entire perspective of nature on it's head. I would need all ten fingers and ten toes to count up the various assorted diseases and pest that have just this summer taken to stealing, eating, weakening, or outright killing my plants in the name of their own survival. Covered in Deet, wide brim hat, and a touch of poison ivy, heading outside can seem more like warfare than convening with nature.

To the rescue cam Susan Hand Shetterly's new book Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town. This beautiful book speaks to a love of place that encourages us to love the natural world of our own space, our own yards, neighborhoods, towns, and remaining wild places. Learning to understand, care for and respect the wildlife that surrounds her Maine home has been the work of Shetterly for the last forty years. A perfect quote on the front cover by Terry Tempest Williams says " I read [this] not only with great delight, but with a yearning to stay put and live more fully."

In one passage that has stayed with me Shettery, after describing the loss of the great alewife migrations, speaks perhaps to a common appraisal that what wild spaces left to us are not truly wild, possibly not worthy of our admiration, attention or protection.

Quote: " 'Nobody owns anyone, except in memory,' John Updike wrote. I suppose that goes for owning wild migratory fish in a hometown stream as well. We can spend our lives regretful. We can watch three ospreys and want a dozen. We can hear the shattering screams of twenty gulls and know that true cacophony is a hundred of them, each one insisting on its own insatiable hunger. We can want fish we can walk over, but those are [another's] memories, not ours. I would like to see what he saw, but I don't dare miss what is here now."

I will admit that nearly every section of this book brought tears to my eyes if not for it's sadness than for it's beauty.

Next on my list Gary Naban. That's Gary Naban, period. Okay, I have only read two of his books. I have just started the third. Erin has read and loved the forth, and my friend Lucy who finally pushed these books into my hand swears (as many others do) that everything he rights is absolutely worth reading. His writings are also works on place and how where we come from effects who we are and what we should, or even can eat. His work always seems to be far ahead of the curve. For example, Naban wrote "Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods' for publication in 2001. That is, in the year 2000 Naban at only foods that could be harvested, foraged, or hunted from within 250 miles of his Arizona home! An interesting comparison to Barbara Kingsolvers' 'Animal Vegetable Miracle' which starts off describing how Kingsolver decided she must move her family from Arizona to West Virginia in order to live off the land. Granted, Naban also eats some road kill, and one of Kingsolvers stipulations was that she would not be feeding her kids from the roadside. She was referring to dandelions, but that's just the point. Naban's approach is to look towards those traditional and wild foods of the land, the prickly pear cactus, peppers, and wild animals and discover the benefits of such foods.

I just finished reading his 2004 book 'Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity.' This amazingly interesting book delves into the genetic difference that cause people to respond differently to various foods and drinks, not as individuals, but as a people who share specific genetic adaptations to the environment of their ancestors. Why some people become anemic when exposed to fava beans, why others are so effected by refined grains and alcohol, and why some of us love to eat hot peppers and bitter greens, while others can't even stand the thought.

His book 'Renewing America's Food Traditions, Saving and Savoring the Continents Most Endangered Foods' was published in 2008. A big book filled with photographs, and recipes it's a sort of coffee table book on endangered foods. The Fish pepper I did the LGBG video on is in there, as is the Fainting Goat, and the Blue Crab. Divided up by sections like "Crabcake Nation" and "Bison Nation," Naban looks at some of the best traditional foods, and how those foods helped define different regions of our country.
Check out his official site here for many more books, videos, and information on his lectures.

Morgan Spurlock @ IFBC

Alright, y'all. Here is a bit of the conversation we got to have with Morgan Spurlock about the benefits of eating together and about food traditions and about his mama.

2010 International Food Bloggers Conference

Next week, I get to visit Seattle for the annual International Food Blogger Conference hosted by Foodista and Zephyr Wine Adventures (Wine adventures- two of my favorite words!) I am super excited to go to Seattle (never been!) and nerd out with some like minded folks about food. From what I can gather from the awesome sponsor list, there will lots of good eatin'. Plus, I get to be in the same room with folks whose ideas and writing I really admire- Morgan Spurlock who made Supersize Me and 30 Days, the lovely bloggers Orangette, and Gluten Free Girl- not to mention the Editors of two gorgeous food magazines, Saveur and Bon Appetit. Part of the conference even takes place in the Theo chocolate factory. Heaven, I am telling you, probably looks a lot like this.

Considering the Food System

Those of us who work in the food system are feel very happy if we can engage other agencies and efforts in our projects, and we are truly lucky if we can consider everything from the sustainability of production and responsibility of potential waste. At the Farmers Market at St. Stephen's, we have been blessed to work with farmers, consumers, as well as our food pantry and other agencies that could use the food left over from the market.

Thanks to Richmond.com, who did a lovely piece on the gleaning program at the Farmers Market at St. Stephen's. Feel free to read the article, and please let us know if you have ideas for fully integrating all of the components of a responsible food system.