Monday, July 16, 2007

Decorah Farmer's Market

These are last weeks items from our local farmer's market(excluding meat). Our farmer's market is nice because it is small and eventually you get to know the vendors you buy from. And we have pretty good variety considering its size. There are vendors who sell meat, eggs, cheese, honey, vegetables, baked goods, jams, and even jewelry. In this picture are green beans, radicchio, endive, spinach, broccoli and lettuce. The flowers are actually from a local Quaker family that does a flower subscription business(you sign up to get a delivery of flowers every week for the whole season-ours was a gift ).

I have one vendor that I buy all my produce from. His produce is organic, though not certified, and is always so good. He also has extremely low prices. I sometimes get frustrated at farmer's markets because they can be too expensive. They charge "boutique" prices for heirloom tomatoes and fancy lettuce mixes. I think that the food should be priced to eat not put on display. However, I do realize that organic and high quality food has a higher cost than conventional food bought in a supermarket and I am willing to pay a reasonable amount more.

Last night while talking with some friends we chatted about how much we would be willing to pay to eat high quality local food. We all seemed to be in agreement that we would be willing to pay significantly more than normal prices. Most of us are willing to make sacrifices(and many are) to try to eat healthy for ourselves and for the environment.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Winneshiek County Fair's Eat Local Cook-off

This week is our county fair and there was an Eat Local Cook-off on Wednesday. They needed judges and I thought it would be fun so I volunteered. There were 2 other judges and 10 dishes entered. This fun event involved trying to use as many local products(within 100 miles) as possible and in a creative way. The first place prize went to a Bangladeshi student from our local college. His dish was local lamb grilled with spices and served with a yogurt sauce and accompanied by potatoes and julienned squash. It was very tasty. The second place dish was kale and sausage Pie, which was very nice. The cook of this dish rendered her own lard for the crust and, I believe, ground the wheat. Third place went to a couple who entered 2 galettes, one sweet, one savory. The savory really was the winner in my book. It was a tomato, basil and cheese galette. I really had a good time being a judge for this. I look forward to attending again next year but maybe as a contestant.

We also had a great time attending the fair itself. If your an Iowan the food highlight of the fair is Pork Chop on a Stick. However, I had a very good piece of homemade cherry pie, which got my vote. Pork Chop on a Stick just hasn't won me over. For those of you who are not Iowans and are wondering, there really is no stick involved in Pork Chop on a Stick. It is called that because they cut them so that you can hold onto the bone as if it were a stick.