Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Seasons of Eggs, by Mandy Corry of Schacht Farm

Seasons of Eggs...

Spring- Rain and warmer weather signal the growth of tender grasses and legumes as well as the appearance of insects. The pasture grows quickly this time of year and the hens consume large amounts of grass which contains xanthophylls, a naturally occurring pigment that causes the yolk color to intensify during late spring. With the increased daylight hours the hens produce more eggs this time of year than at any other. For those who love eating based on the seasons- eat more eggs in the spring! Each spring a new batch of hens come to live at the farm. They are around five months old when they arrive and are just beginning to lay eggs. When a hen first begins to lay, the eggs are very small but within a few weeks the pendulum shifts and she lays extremely large eggs- many of them containing two yolks. During her first year of laying a hen will produce an average of 20 dozen eggs.

Summer- Grass growth is slower than in the spring but by rotating the hens to fresh pasture there is always plenty of grass to eat. Grasshoppers and other bugs are abundant and supply the hens with an excellent source of protein. The heat can be stressful for the hens causing them to lay fewer eggs. By midsummer the egg yolk color is not quite as rich as it was even a few months earlier.

Fall- During this time of year there are many interesting things for hens to eat- mature seed heads, the last of the bug population, produce remains as well as pumpkins. As the amount of daylight decreases this signals the hens to molt. They renew their plumage over a period of several months. During molt they lay fewer eggs or stop laying all together. After a hen molts she lays larger eggs, but fewer than before molting occurred. A second batch of hens joins our farm in the fall. Staggering these two batches, one in the spring and one in the fall, helps to keep our egg supply consistent for our customers.

Winter- As the hens put their energy toward staying warm instead of producing eggs, production drops. The shorter length of daylight also plays a part in the hens producing fewer eggs. We have a light that heats the their house in the early morning and also signals the beginning of the day. The hens spend hours scratching through the hay we feed them searching for the best parts, the tender alfalfa leaves. Yolk color is more pale this time of year than any other.

We invite you to enjoy the changing seasons with our flock!

Thank you to Mandy Corry of Schacht Farm for sharing this interesting and informative piece with us!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Young Chef Competition at The Chef's Academy

The Indianapolis Bailliage of the Chaine des Rôtisseurs will host its local Young Chef Competition at The Chef's Academy, 644 East Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204, on Sunday, February 20, 2011, at 8:00 a.m.

This competition is open to young cooks in Indiana who are under twenty-seven (27) years of age and who are employed full-time by a Chef or Maître deemed to be in good standing with the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs.

Each competitor will receive an identical mystery basket. After examining the mystery basket, competitors will have thirty (30) minutes to compose a three-course menu of their choice prepared for four (4) people, consisting of individual plates for Appetizer, Main Course, and Dessert. Only after the 30 minutes has elapsed are the competitors allowed to commence preparation at their designated kitchen station. They then have three (3) hours to prepare the items and must begin their presentation to the Jury within their designated 30 minute window (10 minutes for each course, consecutively, and strictly timed). Each of the three courses will be judged independently by the following criteria:

- Taste (maximum 15 points)
- Presentation (maximum 5 points) and
- Originality (maximum 10 points).

In addition, there will be a kitchen judge who evaluates each competitor on:

- Kitchen Techniques (maximum 35 points)
- Organizational Skills (maximum 15 points)
- Product Utilization (maximum 15 points)
- Professionalism (maximum 20 points)
- Sanitation (maximum 15 points) and
- Timing (In case of a delay in the presentation of a course, one point will be deducted from the competitor’s score for every minute late in an individual time slot).

The winner of the competition is the chef who accumulates the highest point total out of the maximum possible score of 460 (four tasting judges x 90 points each plus one kitchen judge x 100 points). In the event of a tie, the title will be given to the competitor with the highest score in taste; if still undecided, the highest score in presentation will be used.

Additional Information:

Chaîne des Rôtisseurs (http://www.facebook.com/l/0b770cq_fn-ZCpslBynHgKr7teA;www.chaine-des-rotisseurs.net/) is an international gastronomic association dedicated to bringing together both professional and non-professional members worldwide who appreciate and share a mutual interest in cuisine, wine and fine dining. Originally founded in 1248 in France, it was banned by the royal family during the French revolution, but it was resurrected in 1950 and currently has chapters in over 70 countries, including the United States. As part of the philanthropic outreach of the organization, a Young Sommelier and a Young Chef (Jeunes Commis) competition are held each year. In the United States, these competitions often begin at the local level at various locations throughout the country. The winners of the local Young Chef competitions have the opportunity to move on to the regional competition (March 18 and 19 in Cincinnati, OH), and the regional winners progress to the national finals (June 23-26 in San Antonio, TX). The national winner then competes in the international competition (September 9 in Istanbul, Turkey). This year's international winner was from South Africa (http://www.facebook.com/l/0b77053m76U8iKeOMuEOjTaJJIw;www.chaineus.org/). Additional details regarding the Young Chef competition can be found on the following Web site:http://www.facebook.com/l/0b7703m-6QUeJSINZp9mZbaTKmA;www.chaineus.org/Members/EducationandSupport/JeunesCommisYoungChefcompetition.aspx.

For this competition, the Chef's Academy will provide their kitchen space and the following individual equipment:

- Gas stove with 4 burners and an oven, a stainless working table with an accessible sink for each competitor
- Refrigerator space (at least three shelves per competitor) - Freezer space (at least one shelf per competitor)
- Food processors (at least 1 for 2 competitors)
- Mixer with whisk and paddle (at least 1 for 4 competitors)
- Kitchen scale (at least 1 for 2 competitors)
- Small equipment for the kitchen and in sufficient quantity for each competitor: large cutting board and a meat/fish/poultry board (one for each competitor), strainers (different sizes), chinois, mixing bowls (different sizes), small bowls or containers, measuring pitchers, kitchen spoons, rolling pin, wooden spoons, large whisks, small whisks, baking sheets, sauté pans, non-stick pan, sauce pan (various sizes), sauce pot, pepper mill, plastic stretch film, aluminum foil, trash bin, hand sink, paper towels (one role per competitor), side towels, aprons, parchment, string and acetate (clear only)
- Plates: white, round, without additional markings or decoration and of the following sizes:
Appetizer: 10"-12"; Main Course: 12"; Dessert: 10"-12"; Optional: deep dish plate not larger than 12" - First aid kit and a plan for medical assistance, if needed, and
- Water for the kitchen judge, competitors and helpers, and a clock visible (not digital) to the competitors.



Competitors may bring their own knives, ring molds, cutters, vegetable peelers, blowtorch, skewer (only for cooking), small spoons, scoop, oven towels, piping bags with tips, spatulas.

Competitors may not bring cell phones, turning slicer, cooking utensils not found in the kitchen, mandoline (any type), recipes, pasta machines, individual use ice cream machine, dishes for displaying courses, transfer acetate, formulas or drawings not developed during the 30 minute menu writing period and any tool that the Conseiller Culinaire determines would give an individual an unfair advantage in the competition.

Awards Banquet

Competitors will be invited and encouraged to attend, as guests of the Indianapolis bailliage of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, the gala awards banquet where the competitors will be honored and the winner of the competition will be announced. This banquet will be held at Meridian Hills Country Club, 7099 Spring Mill Road, Indianapolis, IN 46260, at 5:30 p.m. Chef Joe Miller and his staff will be preparing a multi-course extravaganza with selected wine pairings that will highlight the evening.

Entry

If you are interested in participating in this competition, please send the following items to the Indianapolis Young Chef Competition Committee attreyholland@mac.com:

- current contact information
- updated resumé, including date of birth and
- a short (approximately 150 words) essay explaining both your interest in the competition and your long term goals in the culinary field.

These materials must be received no later than 6:00 p.m. on January 28, 2011. The committee will select not less than three (3) and not more than four (4) young chefs for the event. All applicants will be notified of their status no later than Tuesday, February 1, 2011.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Year of Slow Food

We hope you are feeling rejuvenated by the holiday break and inspired by the start of the New Year! We look forward to seeing you back at the IWFM this Saturday, January 8th!

We have very exciting news to kick off 2011! Josh Virtel, President of Slow Food USA, will be speaking at the Slow Food Indy annual meeting on January 16th! This is a very rare opportunity, and we strongly encourage you to do whatever you have to do to come and hear Josh speak about the incredible work being done nationally and internationally within the Slow Food community to change the system that will feed us, our children and our grandchildren. Location and time (lunchtime-ish) will be announced in next week’s e-newsletter.

Josh’s visit to Indy is largely due to some pretty great milestones in Indianapolis’ Slow Food and local food community in 2010, and it is aligned with the exciting momentum with which we’re rolling into 2011.

Here are our Top 10 Local Food Community Milestones for 2010:

1) Indianapolis Food, Farm & Family Coalition receives a coordinator and begins to bring people together in meaningful ways.

2) The Slow Food Garden @ White River State Park is created as a public emblem of our local food community.

3) The first Food Con brings in over 2000 at the Harrison Center for the Arts.

4) Indy’ Kitchen, the first rent-by-the-hour commercial kitchen opens bringing the possibility of food entrepreneurship into reach for more people.

5) 100 City lots made available for urban gardening.

6) Taste of Indiana returns bringing enhanced “taste” to White River State Park.

7) Spirit & Place 2010 is on the theme of Food for Thought bringing speakers such as Will Allen, Dan Barber, Michael Pollan, Frances Moore-Lappe and others speakers in Indianapolis.

8) City Market sees a new era of food vendors open for business in the historic Market Hall: Circle City Sweets & Soups, Natural Born Juicers, Thomlin Tap Room, 3 Days in Paris, Valentine Hill Farm & more.

9) The Food Cart scene comes to Indy with Duos – Slow Food Fast, and West Coast Tacos.

10) The first food coop, Pogues Run Green Grocer opens its doors to a grateful community.

11) BONUS – Craftedspoon.com is formed, exquisitely creating poetic video stories of our local food community.

12) BONUS - Butler University’s Center for Urban Ecology and Earth Charter chapter starts the first Butler Campus Farm.

We know this list just scratches the surface, even adding two bonuses to our Top 10 List. We've been so impressed by other ongoing efforts and food entrepreneurship that have grown in important ways this year: Big City Farms, Pay What You Can Dinner @ Earth House, Backyard Grower’s Network in Greenwood, KIB creating a school garden coordinator position, New Day Meadery succeeding in Fountain Square, and Goose the Market expanding to the Smokin’ Goose in 2011. Plus, there are many exciting potentials on the horizon for this year, which we really hope we’ll all be discussing as we head into 2012.

Share your favorite personal or community food milestones with us on Facebook so we can all celebrate the year past and the year ahead together.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Full & By Farm - City Kids turned Farmers

Below is an e-newsletter from our good friends James & Sara. James and Sara are in their early thirties and grew up as city kids in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH respectively. In fact, James and I grew up across the street from each other! A few years ago, they decided to purchase land and start their own farm in Up-State NY. They ended up with 100 acres and endless stories that fortunately seem to match their limitless dedication to farming. I could go on and on about these city kids turned farmers. They have been such an inspiration, and source of life and farm lessons. I wanted to share this latest story from the Full & By Farm. Enjoy!

I woke just before dawn this morning to silence. It was a wonderful sensation after a day and a half of battering wind and rain. It was still dark but I could see from the beam of light coming in the window that the sky had cleared and the moon was gleaming. We faired much better than suspected, only 1.5 inches instead of the 3 that was predicted. Still it's soggy out there in the fields and barnyard.

We have two wonderful interns, Lindsey and Dave, staying with us this week and next from St. Lawrence University. They are taking part of a semester long program in the Adirondacks, studying community and how people interact with the environment. We are supposed to be "reintroducing" them to society after several months in a remote yurt
village near
Tupper Lake. They seem to be enjoying farm life and have already been a huge help with farm tasks in preparation for winter. Their first day on the job they teamed up with James to slaughter two pigs, and will be helping with the butchering today in preparation for pick-up.

It seems like it's been a while since I had any crazy animals tales to tell. This makes for poor story telling, but I like to think indicates better farming practices. I woke, however, as the light was just coming up Monday morning to James storming in the door from chores. It's never good when the sentence starts with "Sara we have a problem"
followed shortly by "the pigs are all gone". I hurtled from bed at this point and stumbled into some clothes.

In the several years that we have had pigs nothing like this has ever happened. In general pigs recognize fence lines remarkably well, even once you've removed a fence line they still don't want to cross it. They are able to remember exactly where the line was and can barely be lured with food to take the big step over that now empty space. We
both quickly imagined our 7 pigs somewhere on South Bouquet Mountain, or perhaps over to Brookfield by now. To our surprise as well as the horses James quickly spotted them in the horse pasture of all places, rather than the woods which pigs are native to.

They were more than happy to come straight to James, seeing through his bucket at the morning grain that was sure to be in there. They came right up and began to follow him as he walked. The main problem now being that we had two streams to cross to get them back to their rightful place. The group made it down the hill and through the brush
to the first opportune spot for a crossing. James managed to get one pig over with a lot of cajoling and a little pushing, thinking that the rest would surely follow. With a lot of fanfare and noise they all refused, turned and started to run in every direction. The single pig that had crossed was distraught over his abandonment, yet refused to cross back over. We decided quickly that this would never work and James should try to gather the pigs once again and head to the road. They could avoid the streams altogether and come up through the vegetable field and head back to the pasture that way. As James lead the now 6 pigs on this longer route I tracked the lone pig up and down the creak trying to keep tabs on him. As the herd made the big U and neared their pasture my pig heard their calls and abruptly went running north, they all met up joyously on the banks of the second creek. I pushed the resistant pig across a sandbar and they were happily reunited and on the trail uphill and back home.

We learned a couple of important facts from this episode. One: pigs really don't like streams. Despite their obsession with a good wallow soak, running water seems to freak them out. And Two: pigs are herd animals. The power of the group blew my mind and it so much easier to control a group than a single animal. Take whatever lessons that you
choose from that.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Food Bliss Workshop

Inspirational Food Journalist and Food Literacy Author Wendell Fowler in partnership with Raw Food Chef and Health Motivator Audrey Barron are organizing a 6 week vegan / rawist cooking workshop in January and February 2011. For more info visit http://www.foodblissworkshops.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Feeding a Family on Local Food by Katy Carter

Feeding a Family on Local Food
Guest Post by Katy Carter

When I first read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I was altogether inspired by the story of one family's year of only eating food sourced on their land or within their neighborhood. It challenged my deepest notions of how we decide what to eat; that as a generation of grocery-store-fed Americans, we've come to expect that anything is possible -- and even rightful -- when it comes to what's for dinner.

But then, as I considered how to feed our family in a similar way, I was struck by the belatedly obvious realization that not only did we not live on a farm, but we didn't even have a decent garden. And that while we were becoming surrounded by farmers and artisans who were selling their wares, our budget did not allow for purchasing all of our food from those sources. In short, Kingsolver's husband says it well in her book when he poses the rhetorical question: "...how can someone like me participate in the spirit of growing things, when my apartment overlooks the freeway and other people's windows? Shall I raise a hog in my spare bedroom?"*

And while our family does have a little more grass than a freeway, our lot is small and our thumbs lacking in green. How can our family eat in a way that supports local foods? And do our best efforts matter?

In short, we decided that yes, our best efforts, even when relatively meager, do matter. Supporting local farmers and artisans is on an economy of scale that allows every purchase to matter. So we currently do what we are able (both financially and organizationally -- with 3 kids ages 7 and under, it's often difficult just to keep up with cooking, much less plan well enough to make much of it local). Some things that have helped us in our endeavor:

1) We joined a CSA.
We've done this for the two years since we moved to Indianapolis, and it's a sure-fire way to get our veggies local. There's no need to grab our greens at Marsh when they've already come in our CSA box. It also forces us to
actually eat our veggies -- we cooked them and ate them because we had already invested in them, and didn't want to waste. We looked up cooking instructions online when we didn't know how to cook a new vegetable.

2) We shop the farmer's market, every weekend, all year.
It was a great day when we discovered that the farmer's market isn't just vegetables. From local cheeses to pastured beef to wild-caught salmon -- there's always a market for local goods. Thanks to the IWFM there is an extended season, allowing for a farmer's market
year-round in Indianapolis. This is a luxury, in our very own city.

3) We buy in bulk from local farms.
The meats offered at the markets are amazing in quality, but can get pricey. You can get the best deal when buying in bulk -- the average price of a beef quarter is about $4.50/lb -- which is the lower-end market price for grassfed ground beef, and an absolute steal for roasts and steaks. Most farmers will offer a price break for bulk orders -- you can buy a bushel of apples, a wheel of cheddar, a gallon of honey -- all for less money than purchasing in small amounts. An investment in a deep freezer is helpful in this endeavor -- we bought one on Craigslist, and sometimes split bulk orders with other families.

To finance these bulk purchases, we put a portion of our food budget each month into a savings account. When we write a big check for freezer beef, we can reimburse ourselves from that fund so it doesn't throw off an entire month's budget.

4) We are working on expanding our garden.
Obviously, the cheapest way to eat local food is to grow/raise it yourself. We are not natural gardeners, but value the results enough that we're working on our skills. This year we grew herbs, tomatoes, arugula, and sweet potatoes. Next year we hope to double our garden size and add many more favorites. Our discussions of the future often include adding a few chickens to our family, but until then we'll stick with the pastured eggs from the farmer's market.

In my experience, the commitment to eating local has been like learning a new language. At first it comes very slowly and is completely foreign; but as you continue to build on your vocabulary, the basics become like a native language. We'll continue to try adding new local items as our language skills evolve, with the ultimate goal being that if we can source a food locally, we will, at every turn.

* Barbara Kingsolver, et al., Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Harper Perennial: New York, 2007) 180.

Katy Carter is a wife, mother of three, and self-taught home cook. She blogs about her (natural) food obsession — including successes, failures, and nonsensical ramblings — at http://katymcarter.com.