Real People Eat Local

The Frederick County Office of Economic Development is setting up a fantastic opportunity to visit a host of local farms at your own pace, all in one day (or two): The self-guided "Family Festival at the Farm" Tour, in which 14 farms are participating, will take place June 7 and 8. For more info and maps,

go to http://www.discoverfrederickmd.com/funfarm/index.html.

Picky gardeners and herb aficionados won't want to miss DeBaggio's Herb Farm and Nursery in Chantilly, Virginia. DeBaggio's offers a wide selection of well-tended seedlings of perennial herbs, salad greens, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, as well as berry bushes from Virginia Berry Farm, flowers, organic seeds and gardening supplies. The variety of cultivars available is unparalleled in the area. 

 

Café Gutenberg in Richmond, right next to the 17^th Street Farmers Market, offers a great place to rest and enjoy local food, as Kristi recently experienced. Describing itself as a "restaurant, book-store, coffee bar, wine-beer lounge," the place may sound like it's having an identity crisis, but the sunny corner café with plenty of windows and a casual but elegant décor melds all those things into a pleasant whole.

A meeting of the Old World and the New, the distant and the local, the atmosphere conjures up an urban café in a residential European neighborhood, while much of the food comes from local farmers, and the restaurant actively cultivates relationships with Virginia growers and producers. Café Gutenberg offers foreign newspapers for customers to peruse and allows lollygaggers to linger over a cappuccino. At the same time, its chefs prepare the delicious menu offerings in-house, incorporating artisanal bread and cheese as well as meat and produce from around the area. For more info, stop by or go to www.cafegutenberg.com. 

At the winter meeting of the Maryland Organic Food and Farming Association, Renee was fascinated to hear about a partnership of a local synagogue and a Western Maryland farm to produce local, organically raised meats slaughtered and butchered in accordance with kosher laws. Devora Kimelman-Block now runs KOL Foods to market this meat in the greater DC area, and beyond. She also offers non-kosher cuts from the same thoughtfully raised animals. More information, including where the products are for sale, is at the website www.kolfoods.com.

Several organizations have released reports and/or new information sources lately that further the discussion on local and organic food. For your convenience, we're listing some here:

A new website for the exchange of agricultural products such as manure, compost, hay, fodder crops, fruits
and vegetables, organics, equipment, livestock, is now online. The website, www.agtrader.org, is being dubbed as a "Craig's List for agriculture" by its organizers at the Environmental Finance Center at the University of Maryland. The free site is meant to help small farmers connect with each other and make better use of agricultural resources across the Chesapeake Bay region.

Andrew Widman, a financial analyst and gardener who grows his own seedlings in suburban Maryland, tells why he is dedicated to local food, especially from his own backyard:

"I can do varieties I can't possibly get from the hardware store or other local merchants and garden centers. Most of the plants available at local retailers were developed for commercial growers, and they were bred to ship well rather than to taste good. There's also a quality issue. I know I applied minimal fertilizer and didn't use pesticides. My seedlings are not root bound. I like the idea that I've had complete control over the plants from start to finish.

"The better your seedling, the more likely it is to thrive. Then, I can leave [the fruits] on the vine until they're perfectly ripe.

"I also like to share it with the kids. Both my kids are involved. They get to see the life cycle of a plant. They understand that food comes from something that needs to be nurtured.

"There's also a hobby aspect. And the frugality is really appealing. You can grow hundreds of dollars of food on your own, for minimal investment, except for sweat and nurturing. I have two plots in the backyard that get near full sun where I grow mostly tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and basil, all from my own seedlings. It's a testament to the fact that you don't need a flat plot of land in the middle of an open expanse to grow vegetables."

 

We are very excited about Edible Chesapeake's new back page feature "Scene at Market." Now that seasonal markets are opening around the region, we want to see what makes your markets special! Send high resolution digital photos to info@ediblechesapeake.com. Be sure to capture something that shows a unique aspect of your market - unusual food items, folks having fun, a unique backdrop, like this shot by photo editor Aaron Springer of the Baltimore Farmers Market under the freeway. We need photos by June 1 for our summer issue!

Renee has not eaten a raw oyster in nearly 20 years, but when she attended CHOW! Hampton Roads last month, a fundraiser for a local nonprofit that brought 11 Hampton Roads area restaurants together to prepare dishes based on local foods, she had to leave her old prejudices behind. After all, this is the first time in decades that a harvest of once-coveted Lynnhaven oysters has been allowed following a massive effort to clean up the Lynnhaven River. Parts of the river had been closed since the 1930s and the last harvests had been in the mid-80s. The restaurants at CHOW! were celebrating the return of this prized shellfish by featuring it in their dishes.

 

While the oysters were great incorporated into a number of cooked dishes, Renee had to admit that the clean, briny taste of the raw one she downed (with only a tiny bit of horseradish and cocktail sauce) was delicious. In fact, she had another one, albeit they were the smallest ones of the bunch. Still, anyone who considers themselves an oyster aficionado would do well to seek out a few of these this summer.

 

The website www.lynnhavenrivernow.org has the history of the cleanup efforts as well as info on how local residents can help with continued cleanup and oyster seeding activities. Here's an article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch that gives a great perspective on the Lynnhavens and oyster fishing in the Bay: http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2007-12-28-0093.html.

 

The phone numbers for Fairfax County Farmers Markets (page 3) are 703-642-0128 (TTY 703-803-3354).

The phone number for St. George Watercolors (page 26) is 301-530-0142.