Jun
26
What Borough Council giveth, it can taketh away.
After an unnamed vendor threatened to sue over his exclusion from the Farmer’s Market, the Council voted to take back control Tuesday. Producer-Farmers, who had been given control of the market in February, were angered by the decision.
Association members Lois Stringer and Whitney Duley said they were shocked and disappointed to receive notification of the vote Tuesday morning.
“I guess there’s nothing we can do,” Duley said. “I thought it had been going extremely well. We got some new people, and we got some really nice products in.”
I hope things resolve for the best. Personally, I insist on knowing the origin of the veggies I eat. I’d love to see everyone label their produce with the state and county of origin.
Better still, Borough Council could enforce their own producer-only ordinance and tell this litigious vendor to get lost.
Feb
6
According to an article in today’s Centre Daily Times, Bellefonte Borough Council has ceded control of the Bellefonte Farmers Market to the Bellefonte Farmers Market Association. The Association has been adamant that the market remain producer-only, and it would appear they now have to power to make it so.
One only hopes Councilman Beigle and Mayor Goldman are still willing to shop there.
Jan
21
Farmers Market Debate Reignites
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The debate over whether Bellefonte’s Farmers Market should be producer only reignited Monday night at the Borough Council meeting. The issue was tabled for now, but if you feel passionately one way or the other contact your Council member.
The Council is expected to pick up the issue again at its February 1, 2010 meeting.
Aug
10
Red Beet Update
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Yesterday we opened a can of the beets I canned in this entry back on July 5th. Unfortunately, the syrup was entirely too sweet. I also think it could use a bit more vinegar.
I bought a bushel of Detroit red beets at the Bellefonte Farmer’s Market on Saturday and I’m going to can them. I’m going to change the recipe a bit, going with these proportions instead:
Pickled Beets (syrup)
3 c. sugar
3 c. water
2½ c. vinegar
If you’re following along at home, I hope you didn’t use that other recipe — unless you like your beets extra sweet — and will find this new one to be a vast improvement.
Aug
1
In Search of Red Beets
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I stopped by the Bellefonte Farmer’s Market this morning. First we went out to brunch at the Café on the Park at around 10:30. I haven’t been there in months, and my mother had never been there, so we thought it would be nice to take her out.
I was looking for red beets at the farmer’s market. I did see one vendor with them priced four beets for a dollar. That seems a bit steep considering that I’m looking for at least a bushel. One of the other vendors may have had beets earlier, and since we arrived as everyone was closing up at close to noon, it is likely I missed them. I’m going to try again next weekend at Millheim since we’ll be over in Penn and Brush valleys for the annual Farm Tour.
Jun
3
Locally-Sourced BLTs
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I really need to start taking photos of these meals before we eat them.
Last night we made Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato (BLT) sandwiches for dinner. It was a very “local” meal. The bread was from a local baker who buys her grain from a local farmer and grinds it herself. (If I knew her name, I’d share it, but my mother buys the bread when the lady comes to her office and I’ve never met her myself.) The lettuce came from our CSA through Full Circle Farms. The bacon was from a 4-H hog bought by my wife’s boss at last year’s Grange Fair Junior Livestock Auction. The only non-local ingredient was the tomatoes, which were from a pack of vine-ripened, hydroponically grown tomatoes I picked up at one of our grocery stores.
We also made fried potatoes with some of the spuds we picked up at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market last Tuesday. Those came out surprisingly well. I sliced the potatoes, with skin on, into 1/4″ pieces and fried them in oil in a skillet on the stove.
Jun
2
Bellefonte Repeals Farmers Market Limits
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Bellefonte Borough Council voted 5-4 last night to repeal the ordinance that had limited vendors at the Farmers Market to only those who grew their products locally. The change takes effect for the 2010 Market.
I’m pretty sure this amounts to a distinction without a difference. As I understood it, the original reason for the limitation was to promote local agriculture. I don’t think we’ll see growers trucking produce in from California, Florida and Mexico all the way to Bellefonte. I don’t think we’ll even see growers show up from beyond Centre county. What we will see is a number of vendors who otherwise have been unable to sell their goods. If the net effect is a wider selection of locally-grown produce, and increased access to a market for area growers, then the change will be for the better. Again, I don’t think we’ll see much change next year, and any change we do see will be positive.
May
28
First CSA of the Season
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We picked up our first CSA of the season Tuesday evening at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market on the grounds of the PA Military Museum. As I’ve mentioned previously, we subscribe to the Full Circle Farms Community-Supported Agriculture program. We pay several hundred dollars in the early spring and receive a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables each week throughout the growing season. This first basketful included spinach, mixed seasonal greens, spring onions, rhubarb, and garlic greens. Sabine also had basil plants available and gave us two to plant in our garden.
We’re going to make a few things with this first batch. The rhubarb we will freeze until fresh local strawberries are available, probably in mid-June. I’m planning to make a spinach and garlic greens quiche for dinner tomorrow night. As for the rest, they’ll probably end up in salads this weekend.
A light rain was falling, but we went around to the few stalls that were still open at 5:45 anyway. I don’t know if there were so few vendors because of the rain, the earliness of the season, or because the market closes at 6:00. Most of the stalls just had baked goods or frozen meat, but we did find some nice potatoes. Overall, we were unimpressed and I think I still prefer the Millheim Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.
Aug
25
2008 Centre County Farm Tour
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[Note: This entry is delayed by roughly two weeks, but only because of a scheduling mishap. I'm still working out how to use WordPress for delayed posting. This entry (and the Mt. Nittany Winery review) were lost in the shuffle.]
We began our Farm Tour in Millheim at the Farmer’s Market for our weekly produce shopping. We had not intended to begin the tour so early — before ten o’clock in the morning — but the festivities were clearly underway. Parking was at a premium at the American Legion so we parked along the entrance road. Only a few of the usual vendors were there, with most of the stall space taken up by information tables on local farming and sustainable agriculture. There were also several guitarists playing folk songs. Overall, it was much more crowded than usual. I don’t deal well with large groups of noisy people, so we opted to buy a few items and head home. We had tickets for chicken dinners at the Pleasant Gap American Legion.
I don’t know if this is a Pennsylvania thing, and we didn’t see any of it in Michigan, but pretty much every fire department, church, and youth group will have at least one chicken barbecue fundraiser in the summer. If you wanted to, you could eat chicken every Saturday from May to October. The chicken is often hit or miss, but if the group doing the fundraiser knows what they are doing, it’ll be amazing. Unfortunately, everyone in the area knows which groups do the best chicken, so when those groups have their sale you have to get there early.
After a chicken dinner that couldn’t be beat, we headed off for the farm tour. We began by traveling back over Centre Hall Mountain to Full Circle Farms. We were met by Daisy the sheep, a farm pet who was showing Marie, an exchange student from France, around the farm. Located in Spring Mills, and owned and operated by Sabine and Thomas Carey, this organic farm also has its own Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm Share program. We hope to participate in this next year, and it was nice to see where they grow their food. We were able to see most of their operation, including free-range chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Among the turkeys were several of the somewhat rare Red Bourbon turkeys they raise. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the birds), these are all raised as breeding stock to be sold to other farms and are not available for sale to the general public. (The quest to taste a Red Bourdon continues!)
We then went back to our car and headed to Mount Nittany Vineyard & Winery, which was to be the last stop on our abbreviated tour and is detailed in the next entry.
Aug
11
Centre Hall Mountain Closed
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Pennsylvania’s State Route 144 over Centre Hall Mountain closed this morning and will remain so for the remainder of the week. It is unclear whether it will be reopened on Saturday in time for the Millheim Farmers’ Market, or if it won’t be reopened until Monday for Centre County Grange Fair traffic. It will be reclosed after the conclusion of the Grange Fair and will remain so for most of the month of September.
We’re going to need an alternate route to Millheim this weekend, and probably until the end of September. Fortunately, travelling from Bellefonte to Millheim via Madisonburg Mountain takes only slightly more time than travelling over Centre Hall Mountain does. You may need to make similar arrangements. The official detour involves 45 and 220, which may work better for you, but for me it makes a 30-minute trip into at least 45 minutes.
