John Deere's Furrow Magazine features Calolea Olive Oil

Calolea Olive Oil is available at The Grower's Market in Grass Valley.

Calolea Olive Oil gets

beautiful write up in John Deere’s “The Furrow” magazine.

January 2011 issue, this magazine has an international distribution list and will be read all over the world.  Locals can purchase Calolea at the Grass Valley Growers’ market starting April 30th at the North Star House every Saturday from 8-1PM

photo by Capriole

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Last year I heard a true story that keeps coming back to me as much of the country approaches the beginning of the local fresh produce season. In this story, one mother is considering joining a CSA. She has heard, rightly, that she’s likely to receive many vegetables that will be new to her family. So she calls a friend who has been a CSA member for some time, and asks how their family has dealt with the expansion of their vegetable repertoire. “Easy,” says the friend. “If we don’t know what it is, first we fry it in a little butter. If that doesn’t work, we try it with a little Ranch dressing.”

Now, I grew up watching a lot of television, including that great series of health education spots that ABC ran in between Saturday mornings cartoons. One was an animated song called “Don’t Drown Your Food,” in which Our Hero rescues a variety of foods from a surfeit of dressings. “Food’s so much better when it’s practically plain!” he sings, while pulling a baked potato from a vat of sour cream. Sound advice in the 1970s, and probably even more needed now. The chorus rang in my head when I heard the Ranch dressing story.

Still, I think this story points to a greater truth: we all need to start where we are. If it’s a choice between familiar but negligibly nutritious tater tots or kohlrabi dipped in Ranch, I say go for the kohlrabi. That might not be the desired end point, but it’s a place to begin. Whether we’re trying to eat more vegetables, less meat, better meat, or what have you, I think that a real shot at change starts with two things: being honest about where we are starting from, and acknowledging that most change happens incrementally. These first steps remove the false hope that change is going to happen magically, without effort. Thus freed, we can make a realistic plan for how to get from where we are to where we want to be. Maybe it starts with a schmear of salad dressing on the foreign vegetable, and later moves to ketchup, then salsa, and eventually a little swirl of olive oil makes everybody happy.

Spring is the time when many of us make plans for how we’re going to eat this summer, whether we’re signing up for a CSA, laying out a garden, or counting the days until the farmers market opens. We say go ahead and be adventurous this year! It will likely be a lot of fun if you start with small changes and build from there. If your family has had success changing its eating patterns for the better, we’d love to hear how you did it. You can post your ideas here.

To Spring and new beginnings!

Eat well, and take good care.

Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest ]]> http://thegrowersmarket.com/2011/03/24/local-harvest-news-letter-real-farmers-real-food-real-community/feed/ 0 http://thegrowersmarket.com/2011/03/23/more-farmer-news/ http://thegrowersmarket.com/2011/03/23/more-farmer-news/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:37:18 +0000 pyramid farms http://thegrowersmarket.com/?p=101

Alright it’s been raining nearly constantly, but that dosn’t stop your intrepid Farmers. Nor does it stop the plants they have in their greenhouses from growing. Right now at our Farm we are working in the greenhouse daily. We maintain just the right heat, water, and fertility. I fertilize my seedlings every week until they reach transplant size, they get watered with a custom mix of fish emulsion, potassium,phosphorus, and calcium. This keeps them growing rapidly and healthy. Next for this Farmer comes another round of planting!

Strawberries, Yum!

Lola’s Loom and bunch

Entertainment at the market, every week.

North Star House, Grass Valley