Sunday, April 4, 2010

Bailey's Buying Club - Ordering is now open for April 19, 2010

Click http://baileyslocalfoods.ca/ordering to log-in and order. Ordering closes on Tuesday, April 13 at 8:00PM. Please order early so you won't be disappointed!
Please be sure to read the wavier on our website when you log in. It reminds you that items placed your shopping cart are automatically saved (there is no 'checkout' button).

A few notes from Rachael:

Look for Gluten Free and Wheat Free items from Magnolia Catering and Circle of Life Bakery. Magnolia's Gluten Free Ginger Snaps were previously offered by Meals That Heal and now they are offering more of their selection. Circle of Life is a sister company to Grainharvest and Roland think you will like the Circle Of Life Products too!

We are now offering the new crop of Maple Syrup from Snyder Heritage Farms. Here is some information that they have given us about their farm and product:

Snyder Heritage Farms is a 5th generation farm producing Maple syrup for over a 100 years. The equipment we use is all stainless steel where possible and everything else is food grade plastic. We are always improving equipment when new technology is available. Our wood lots are managed to proper forest guidelines. We harvest a few trees every year when the ground is frozen to reduce damage to the woodlot.

In the sugarhouse we use wood from our forest to cook sap (no fuel oil is used) and a reverse osmosis machine is used to remove water before cooking, this saves energy by 50% or more. Kevin has completed courses with the Environmental Farm Plan, Food Safety and Traceability, and the On Farm Food Safety Program. We believe these courses are a important part of our farm so we can produce a high quality product.

Our Maple syrup is pure with nothing added, only the water has been removed. There are guidelines that we adhere to, set out by the Ontario Maple Syrup Association. These guidelines state the number of taps per tree (max of 2) for best forest management practices. We use Certified Organic antifoamers and cleaning methods.

Packaging available for our Maple syrup

  • Brown plastic #2 Jugs (HDPE) 250ml, 500ml, 1L,  2L, 4L, and 10L Bulk Jug.
  • Glass containers 250ml, 500ml 1L Mason Jar, and 4x1L Mason in a box (4L total)
  • 540ml can
All our Maple syrup is hot packed (180 degrees or hotter), labelled, graded and marked for traceability.

Anne and Kevin are the same farmers who sell us turkey and if you're wondering why you don't see dark syrup or 'cheap' plastic containers, here is Kevin's answer:

About the Dark syrup? We've have never made dark syrup, maybe because of our equipment and trees, it's always Amber or better. I won't use cheap plastic containers to save the extra cost because we go to all the work of producing a high quality product and I will only put it into a high quality container. Its our name on the product and we hold ourselves to a high standard.


Please let us know how you like their syrup!

Enjoy this wonderful weekend!
Rachael

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Hello Local Food Lovers,
I've just been so in love with our seasons the last few days. Isn't this amazing how our world and our lives are totally transformed by the coming of Spring? I've been outside ALLL day Friday and Saturday. The kids and I planted edible pod peas, shelling peas, romaine lettuce, spinach, radishes and green onions. I love this feeling of waiting for them to sprout. I know they are sitting there loving this warmth and the sun. Their tiny roots are curling down and any day their little heads will appear as dots of green in the dark soil. I'm feeling very pleased with myself that the spinach I planted in late August wintered over so well and grew several inches in the last two weeks. We had our first spinach salad of the season (from our garden) last night with grape tomatoes from Floralane, avocados (Mexico), and toasted pecans (Georgia). It was a hit! My two year old prefers picking the leaves straight from the garden to a salad. If I can't find him, I check the spinach bed and he's usually there munching away.

Now in Season
So what does April mean for local food in Waterloo? No asparagus yet but we will have grape tomatoes and cluster tomatoes from Floralane. To apologize for forgetting to deliver last month, Stewart is selling us the tomatoes at a reduced price. He dropped off some for my family last week and the seven boxes only lasted seven days because I hid them from my family. The cluster tomatoes were so pretty I put a cluster on my windowsill by the kitchen sink. As good as a bouquet.

April also brings us SALAD GREENS from farmers who overwintered greens like I did - on a larger scale. Paul says he'll also have green onions! For Bailey's Local Foods, April brings us a new supplier: Divinely Raw. Owned by Cynthia, Divinely Raw has a local kitchen where Cynthia and her 'angels' make a beautiful and creative array of raw foods. I was not familiar with raw foods before trying the samples last week. YUM! Many of the foods are made from "live" almonds or chick peas which means they are sprouted and then ground. Sprouting increases the nutrient content of the foods. Raw foods are so popular because eating raw is super healthy. Eating raw is also a great way to avoid eating gluten and many high-carbohydrate foods. The asian wraps and the Chocolate Macaroons were my favourites, I think. It was hard to choose. Matthew snarfed down the samosa before I could taste it - we should have them on the order form next month. Oh, the almond hummus was amazing too! My hummus never tastes that good! Rachael's family does not eat gluten so we are excited to make gluten-free GOOD food conveniently available for her family and others of you who are looking for healthy ways to eat. The amazing thing is that most of the raw foods I sampled don't taste "healthy" - they just taste good. Cynthia uses local foods whenever she can - and often organic foods. We'll update the ingredient page soon with the foods from Divinely Raw. If you have questions, email us.

BBQ Season?
Is it BBQ season already? We had a cookout over the backyard fire last night with sausages and hot dogs. Felt like summer. If you're excited to grill again, try some of the great grillables in our meat section. We had the smoked farmers' sausage which were excellent. We opened a jar of Erma's BBQ relish and a Chili Sauce from Country Flavour.

Local Bean Donation
Check out the PILE of beans we together donated to the Food Bank. Rachael and I matched your donations and then Team Leadership Waterloo Region - Class of 2009, including buying club member, Tracy Suerich, used the beans in a "canstruction" to raise awareness of the issues of food insecurity and encourage more donations. The beans were the "snow" around the Inukshuk. Click here to see a photo:canstruction: http://www.thefoodbank.ca/Canstruction2009Structures.shtml

Digging into Local Food with more than a fork

I was just reading Antony's blog (from Soiled Reputation) and encourage you to take a break from your to-do list and listen to his farmer/chef voice. I particularly like his blog titled "The Real Value of Local Vegetables." at http://soiledreputation.com/blog/ He said he wrote it in response to all the excuses people have made over the years for why not to buy local food. He also writes on "terroir" - the belief that the soil and climate of an area influences the flavour of the wine (and food) from that area. If you prefer something less philosophical, check out Foodlink's website. Have you wondered about the terms used for local food and what they mean? Foodlink now has a "Local Food 101" on their website (along with a very handsome chicken). See: http://www.foodlink.ca/index.php?p=local_food_101

News
  • Nutty Bakers are making us a new savoury pie that is vegetarian: Spicy Vegetable Curry. Plus, good news, they are making chicken stock from scratch now so no more tartrazine and other not-so-pretty ingredients (from the chicken bullion they used to use)!
  • You may have noticed that the all beef hot dogs from March's pickup say pork on them but that was a labelling mistake. They are all beef.
  • Cooking onions will only be on the spontaneous table this month (from Traditional Foods)
  • Martin's Apples will have Braeburn apples - but no more Ambrosia
  • Last chance to buy lamb for awhile (there will be a gap until the next batch is ready)

Join us in a new growing season here in our little spot on the planet. Man! This is a great planet to live on. I'm so thankful I'm here: on Earth, in Waterloo. I'm thankful to be a part of a group of people who want to see our "spot" flourish with farmers and food and healthy happy people. Let's ring Spring in! Shall it be with an inaugural salad? A roll in the dew? A planting of a few seeds? Inviting friends over for a picnic? Making dandelion gravy?
Happy Spring!
Nina
Bailey's Local Foods
www.baileyslocalfoods.ca

P.S. We can use your fruit baskets and jars from preserves again if you return them.

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