Tag Archives: Julie Stinar

September 14, 2012

Recently Chef Aaron McCloud from Cedar restaurant in Washington D.C invited three farmers from the Penn Quarter FRESHFARM Market to dinner. But this wasn’t just any dinner. This was the first time these farmers from Garner’s Produce, Black Rock Orchard and Evensong Farm had ever had anyone cook their products for them. The farmers’ eyes lit up as Chef McCloud brought dish after wonderful dish – all featuring local farmers – to the table. Many of the ingredients had been bought at market that day, while others had been bought earlier in the season and preserved for later use. It was fantastic to listen to the conversation between chef and farmer about the products, the preparation and how the products were grown. In honor of that special night, we conducted a Q & A with both Chef McCloud and Emily Zaas of Black Rock Orchards, one of the farmers at dinner that night, to get their perspective on the special partnership between chef and farmer that is fueling the appetite for local foods.

Why do you source from local farmers?
Chef: There are several reasons:
1. They have great product. It’s always very in season because it’s what is in our backyard. I also love that I can walk right outside the restaurant every Thursday to the Penn Quarter FRESHFARM Market and it’s right there. It’s the best grocery store you can possibly find.

2. I love showcasing the farmer and educating our staff and customers to understand the product on the plate. It creates a different dynamic in the restaurant. I get all the cooks and front of the house to understand it’s coming from people and farms that are not far from us. You can see the difference it makes on a cook by looking at them when they are talking to a farmer. They treat the product with more respect and care when they realize the farmer is busting their butt to grow the product. It completely recreates a perception and appreciation for the ingredients we work we work with everyday.

3. Customers want it. The typical American guest and what they want out of dining experience has changed over the past 15 years. The Food Network and other food focused media have completely transformed our relationship with food. Our tastes have changed. We’re more interested in where our food comes from, how it was raised, if it’s organic, if the beef is grass feed or pasture raised, etc.

Why do you work with local chefs?
Emily: At Penn Quarter in particular, the chefs add to the vibrancy of the market. I welcome the activity they generate by shopping for area restaurants in person. Some of the chefs frequently shop for their families too. Like any group of regular customers, its nice to get to know them and it helps our business. Aaron, in particular, has made a personal effort to introduce himself and bring associates and even media members around to talk to us personally. He is generous about putting our name on his tweets and menu when he uses something from Black Rock Orchard. Just as customers like to know the producers they buy from, it’s nice for us to see that a chef takes a personal interest in our business.

What is your favorite part about getting products from local farmers?
Chef: There are two things I love:
1. The products – we source out the best local source we can.

2. The interaction with the farmers and getting to know them. I’ve worked with some farms that have started raising new animals or produce because of our relationship. Martin’s Angus Farm in the Plains, Virginia just started offering lamb after conversations we’d been having for years. I was always asking them when they were going to start selling it and it’s exciting to hear it’s finally happening. It’s so cool.

Why is it important to source from local farmers?
Chef: The products offered are often the best and because it’s important to support the local economy. As a chef I’m also a business person, as is the farmer, and it’s important to be active in the local community and local economy. DC is interesting because I can be at an incredible produce farm in 20 minutes. That’s pretty rare – you can’t do that in lots of other big cities. We have a pretty unique opportunity to support the local community and local farms, which I think is critical.

What do you wish people knew about farmers?
Chef: They are almost all, at least the good ones, extremely passionate about what they do. And extremely proud of what they do. It’s not easy work, but it’s really cool.

A lot of the farmers don’t ever really go to a restaurant, mostly because they are working a lot and don’t have time. The dinner we did for them the other night was to thank them for all they do. The look on their faces when they saw what I was doing with their product meant a lot to me. Especially for the smaller, boutique size farms it’s important that guests realize how important it is to the farmers.

What’s your favorite time of the year to get product from farmers?
Chef: That’s tough. Spring & fall probably. Everyone is so excited. There is a new energy in the air about what is coming up. In the spring, the farmers are talking about which products are in abundance like asparagus and spring herbs like sorrel which has really fresh, vibrant flavors. Strawberries are right around the corner. You feel the excitement in the air walking around a farm or a great farmers market.

What’s your favorite time of the year to work with chefs?
Emily: The chefs who we respect most buy from us all season and organize their menus around what we have available. Some of the chefs work with us to use fruit we have in abundance instead of trying to buy only the last of something or the first of something else.

What is your favorite ingredient to cook with?
Chef: That’s impossible to answer (laughing). It changes all the time. My favorite ingredient is change – the change of the seasons. Not just winter, spring, summer, fall. Some seasons are a week long. It’s really great and wonderful. Things are constantly evolving. It keeps me on my toes and keeps it interesting for everyone – farmers, guests, cooks, etc.

What is your favorite product to sell to a chef?
Emily: Apples. They are my favorite product that we grow. I married my husband because I like apples and he grew some of my favorite kinds.

What’s the most popular farmer sourced item/ingredient on your menu?
Chef: Our menu changes really frequently – a few times a week. The change is most popular. Guests are really excited about the change because it’s what’s in season, the American diner mindset has evolved towards that excitement about new products and learning about food. We have a lot of products you don’t see in restaurants all that often.

How have you seen your customers’ interest in locally sourced ingredients change?
Chef: The mindset has changed. As I mentioned earlier, guest are more interested in where their food comes from and who it comes from. It’s a really cool time to be in the food industry in the America.

Emily: Black Rock Orchard has always sold its fruit entirely at farmers markets where customers appreciated locally sourced produce before that term became popular. Now we sell the same local produce to a wider group of customers. I have been very pleased with the Penn Quarter market because I see a greater diversity of customers willing to pay for our produce even if the prices might be a little higher than the grocery store. Sometimes new customers don’t quite trust that our produce is good. It is satisfying to have customer who hesitated over purchasing a quart of peaches one week return the following week to say she loved them. If a new customer returns regularly, I feel that I am doing a good job. Different types of customers are beginning to appreciate the value of local produce.

Is there anything else you would like people to know?
Chef: The important difference between mass produced products (meat, cheese, dairy, eggs, produce, etc.) found at grocery store and at farmers markets. I really want to encourage people to support the farmers, understand how hard they work, especially the small farms. I want people to understand what these farmers are doing. I would like them to understand why what they buy at a farmers market is a little more expensive.

Look at chickens as an example. They have been over mass produced for generations now. It’s horrendous. It everyone went to a chicken farm on an Eastern Shore farm, they would never want chicken again. These chickens are raised with their breasts being way larger then they should be because McDonald’s wants only white breast meat. They live in crowded coops. They are jacked up on antibiotics. They are feed corn then shipped off to be processed.

Smaller farms are doing great stuff with chicken. They are raising heritage breeds. Their chickens are feeding out on pasture eating bugs, they way nature intended. They are not suppose to be stuck in a coop with corn shoved down their throat. It is more expensive to raise chickens this way. In the long run, it can be made more affordable if more people who purchase from these local farms. The more we can get it so that the farmers can make the production and have the support, the better off we’ll be. And, more of our population will appreciate what farmers are doing.

Photo credit: Amy Blaszyk

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July 10, 2012

Laying the Foundation for the Next Generation of Farmers

This month, FRESHFARM Markets celebrates an important milestone–our 15^th Anniversary! Our continuing effort, dedication and passion has resulted in numerous achievements, one of the proudest being the creation of the Jean Wallace Douglas Farmer Fund scholarship program for young and beginning farmers.

Over the past four years, FRESHFARM Markets has awarded more than 20 scholarships (valued at over $10,000) to local farmers through the fund. Presented each year to new and pioneering farmers in the Chesapeake Bay region, the scholarships provide farmers the opportunity to gain important technical training, invaluable professional networking opportunities and facilitate access to fellow farmers and artisans. In the world of sustainable agriculture this educational forum and peer-to-peer learning is a key to success.

The scholarship program honors Jean Wallace Douglas for her lifelong commitment to the welfare of American farmers. The fund has been generously supported by the BAND Foundation, the Twinkling Eyes Foundation and the FRESHFARM Markets annual Farmland Feast.

This year’s scholarship winners attended conferences including the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture’s Farming for the Future Conference, the mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention, and the Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture’s Future Harvest Conference.

Workshops on managing holistic home orchards, maintaining fertile soil, cultivating vegetable gardens, and managing a CSA and crop planning schedule are just a few examples of the educational spectrum available to the scholarship winners. In fact, it is likely that some of your favorite farmers applied knowledge gained in the conference sessions to get this week’s product to market!

One of this year’s winners is Steve Blades, from Blades Orchard in Preston, Maryland. His personal experience is insightful and illuminating: “I attended the mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention in Hershey Pennsylvania…The first part of the lecture series I geared my sessions toward vegetable and vine fruit seminars…I also sat in on a wonderful talk about Cole crops. Insect ID, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale and cauliflower, production and how it may fit into my growing plan…After that it was back to learn a little about cherry trees that we will begin putting in this spring in our first planting of them as well as apricots. As you can see my experience in Hershey was fast and furious but I would not be able to do what I do without these intensive conferences.”

Julie Stinar of Evensong Farm wrote that attending one of the conferences precipitated important changes on her farm: “Things started to get a bit out of hand…so that winter, thanks to a scholarship from the FRESHFARM Markets’ Farmer Fund, I went to the biggest farmer conference on the East coast called the Farming for the Future Conference…Here I learned the essentials about keeping hogs and started learning how to make great sausage and charcuterie.”

The fund allows farmers the opportunity for critical hands-on learning in the company of experts and peers–the ideal forum. The attendees agree that being welcomed into the community of shared interests and objectives is most inspiring and rewarding. Another 2012 winner, Attila Agoston, owner of Mountain View Farm in Purcellville, Virginia, expressed this widely held sentiment: “One of the things I enjoyed the most about the conference was the chance to make connections and have conversations with other farmers.”

The Jean Wallace Douglas Farmer Fund has been a resounding success, educating, connecting and inspiring young and beginning farmers and furthering all of the best and highest objectives subscribed to by FRESHFARM Markets.

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January 30, 2012

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE FARM IN THE WINTER

It’s a common misconception that farmers’ lives drastically change in the winter season as the temperature drops and snow covers the fields. Some may think this is a time for farmers to kick back and relax, with not much to do on the farm. However, that is far from the truth. Typically, the winter months require more work to grow food or care for livestock and more time devoted to planning out the upcoming growing and selling season. Since our farmers do it all, from growing or producing the product, to bringing it to market and selling it to customers, they tend to many different needs this time of year. To find out exactly what our farmers were up to this winter, I decided to ask them at our year-round Saturday market in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Most farmers said that work was about the same in the winter when they’re coming to our year round farmers market, but that things are different on the farm. Those farmers who pasture livestock said it is much more difficult in the winter because you have to make sure the animals have enough water and feed. So this means much more attention to detail and much more work lugging water and hay to the animals. Jeanne Dietz-Band of Many Rocks Farm notes that her breeding schedule is such that all her goats are born in the colder months in order to help them build immunity for the hot summer months.

Winter is a little different for vegetable farmers. Most of the produce that is being grown is mostly done in greenhouses, which are heated by wood or gas furnace. This time of year farmers are growing a variety of greens, such as kale, mixed salad greens, herbs and Swiss chard. They are also producing some root vegetables such as turnips, baby radishes, daikon radishes, carrots and sunchokes.

Vegetable farmers also prepare their fields for the winter months by planting cover crops such as rye, barley and hairy vetch. These cover crops improve the quality of the soil by breaking up compacted areas, providing fresh plant material for beneficial organisms such as earthworms and helping keep moisture in the fields. These cover crops also provide erosion control, improve soil fertility and contain weed growth. Before the planting season these crops can simply be tilled back into the soil. Farmers also plant their garlic in late fall/early winter since it can grow with a good snow or straw cover. The garlic is generally harvested in the spring.

At Quaker Valley Farm & Orchard the winter months are the time to prune their fruit trees, a daunting activity to say the least that typically takes the entire winter season. Annual pruning allows for a more productive fruit crop throughout the growing season. Trees that are not pruned become congested with old branches and yield less fruit.

The winter is also a time for farmers to attend farming conferences to learn about sustainable practices that can enhance their farming operations. Julie Stinar of Evensong Farm will be attending PASA (Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture) Farming for the Future conference as will Paul Mock of Mock’s Greenhouse and Fredi and Winn Schulteis of Quaker Valley Farm & Orchard. Jeanne Dietz-Band of Many Rocks Farm is planning to attend the Women in Agriculture conference hosted by the University of Delaware.

Other farmers use the winter as a time to be creative about bringing in additional revenue. Eli Cook of Spring Valley Farm & Orchard cuts and sells firewood from his land in West Virginia. Chicano Sol keeps its organic production up by selling to two restaurants and the Tuscarora Organic Cooperative. Some farmers do take the time to have a little fun and relax. Paul Mock jokingly notes he likes to sit down in the winter, an activity that doesn’t happen too often in the busier spring, summer and fall seasons. He also enjoys skiing and indoor tennis. Winn Schulteis of Quaker Valley likes to go snowmobiling (snow willing) and take a family vacation to Florida. Others have fun coming to market in the winter and seeing their happy customers.

Last but not least, the winter is the time farmers do all the accounting and paper work that was pushed aside in the summer and fall, as well as set their business goals for the upcoming season. Our farmers run every part of their business and the start of the New Year brings time to reset, refocus and plan out the coming season. As with any business, there is always work to do, even in the winter months.

Reg Godin, Program and Markets Manager

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