Tip of the Week
Storing Summer Vegetables
Tomatoes, Eggplant, Peppers, Beans, and Summer Squash will have better
flavor and texture if they are stored at room temperature. If you are
going to use any of these vegetables from the market by Monday or
Tuesday, don't put them in the refrigerator. They may get a little dry,
but their flavors will not be compromised. Try it both ways and
compare. |
--Anne Berblinger, Gales Meadow Farm
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| Featured Produce
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Part
of the beauty of farmers' markets is that our produce changes with the
seasons. Stay current with weekly produce highlights here!
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Integra Purple Cabbage
(Persephone Farm)
Bulgarian Carrot Hot Peppers
(Hassing Farms)
Big Red Watermelon
(Deep Roots Farm)
Anaheim Peppers
(Blooming Goodies)
Roma Tomatoes
(Dante's Garden Pesto)
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The first Saturday in September marks the opening day of the Hollywood Farmers' Market's much-anticipated Oasis Project - a mobile market designed to address the fresh produce needs of the nearby Cully neighborhood. Vendors, staff and volunteers from the Hollywood Farmers' Market are teaming up with Hacienda CDC and making use of a generous Pacific Village Grant from New Seasons Market to get more fresh local produce into the hands of low-income Cully residents. There is even a dollar-to-dollar match up to five dollars available to EBT customers!
For more information or to get involved please send an email to the Oasis Project.
It is the last market for the season for both Sylvan Valley Acres and Dancing Light Ranch. Be sure to stop by for tomatoes and lavender this weekend!
See you at the market!
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August Farm Visits Day One
Part One: Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheese
By Sarah Broderick, HFM Market Manager
One of the many reasons I love being the Market Manager at the Hollywood
Farmers' Market is that every year I get to go on
farm visits. This August, I decided to get out of town for a few days and visit
a number of HFM vendors along the way. Over the course of three days, my friend
Madhu (the photographer) and I visited six locations in SW Washington and
Oregon.
We started out on a sunny Sunday morning after sleeping on a bed of hemlock
boughs at a friend's property in Kalama, Washington. With just a few kinks in
my neck and smelling like a campfire, I felt almost ready for the sheep farm. Two
cups of coffee later we were in a Zipcar Prius, headed towards I-5N.
La Ferme de Metras, home to Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheese, is located in Doty,
Washington, along Highway 6, just west of the old-growth forest laden Rainbow
Falls State Park and about 15 miles west of Chehal is. Willapa Hills Farmstead
Cheese is one of my favorite new vendors at the Hollywood Farmers' Market. The
cheese is made by Amy Turnbull and Stephen Hueffed who bought the farm in July
of 2005. They knew they wanted to raise their family on a farm and they knew
they wanted to make cheese. So when the opportunity presented itself, they took
it. With 150 acres spanning both sides of the Chehalis River, La Ferme de
Metras is a picture-perfect setting for a family farm.
After getting only slightly lost, we drove
down a long gravel driveway and in both directions saw herds of sheep in the
distance. We came upon a rather large and magnificent barn next to an
unassuming house. Kids toys were spread about the driveway and there appeared
to be an industrial-sized refrigerator being built in the garage. We were
definitely in the right place.
Amy Turnbull, one of the owners and
cheesemakers of Willapa Hills and mother of three, came out to meet us as we
pulled up. She explained that the cheesemaking needs have finally crept over to
the house and they are building a larger aging room as they outgrow the one in
the barn.
We started out with a trip to the milking
room, which is no longer being used for the year. Sheep milk production is
truly seasonal. Lambing season for La Ferme de Metras was in March and by
mid-August the ewes' milk production had dropped from 50 gallons a day down to
10 gallons. Sheep produce far less milk than their bovine counterparts, but the
fat content is higher which is why you'll find some of the creamiest and most
tender cheeses come from sheep milk. This year the folks at Willapa Hills
milked just under 100 ewes twice a day and hope to milk around 150 ewes in
2010.
Next we put on plastic booties to keep from
contaminating the cheese room and entered one of the cleanest rooms I'd been
in, ever. There were  rounds of fresh cheese, vats for boiling the milk, vats for holding the milk,
molds for the cheeses, and dozens of other contraptions that all have very
specific uses in the art of making sheep milk cheese. The cheese room is where
the magic happens and it was the place we had been waiting for. Or so we
thought until we saw the aging room.
Shelves and shelves of cheese at various
stages in the aging process sat before me as my mind began to swirl. It was
hard to wonder why Amy and Stephen had left Seattle to start this farm with
such treasures before my eyes. In addition to their 100% sheep milk blues, they
have a couple of cow/sheep milk blends and source the cow milk from a dairy
just down the road. At the Hollywood Farmers' Market, you will currently find
the Little Boy Blue, Two Faced Blue, and Ewe Moon Blue cheeses along with fresh
sheep milk cheese and yoghurt cheese available for your eating pleasure.
After longingly gazing at the aging room for
an embarrassing amount of time, we slowly left and headed out toward the
fields. We were going to visit the lambs! To protect the livestock, the farm
has Maremmas - Italian sheep dogs - that look like large,  overgrown sheep from
a distance. These beastly animals guard the sheep 24/7 and wag their
tails, too! The lambs had aged to the point where they no longer looked like
pictures from a storybook, but it was great to see them nonetheless. During lambing
season, each lamb is marked with a tag to differentiate the males from the
females. The males will get sold, processed, and, well, eaten. The female lambs
eventually join the herd of ewes and add to the milk production the following
year.
Our visit to Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheeses
ended with us asking about on-farm sales. We left with grins on our faces and a
nice wedge of Ewe Moon Blue in the cooler. Headed west to the coast for our
next destination we soon saw the water from Willapa Bay sparkling in the sun
and I asked Madhu if he thought he could reach the knife and loaf of crusty
bread I'd brought along with Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheese in mind. He suggested we pull over for safety reasons. Smart guy, that one.
For more information on Willapa Hills Farmstead Cheese please visit their website and check out another article about them here.
Next Week: Visiting Linda Brand Crab's
headquarters in Chinook, Washington.
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Featured Vendor: Sylvan Valley Acres
Carl and Linda Kroll began growing and selling Red (Cobra)
and Yellow (Lemon Boy) tomatoes on their family farm in Corbett,
Oregon. When their sons
'graduated' to their own lives, Sylvan Valley Acres became a mom and pop
farm by default. They focus on the uniqueness of their specialty crop
saying, "We do one thing only, and we do it well".
Sylvan Valley Acres are grown in a
greenhouse where they are protected from the elements. Shielding them from rain
keeps mildew and fungus from developing, while night heating  promotes
continuous healthy growth. No chemical pesticides are used on the tomatoes. Pests
are controlled by tiny wasps that are natural predators to whiteflies and
aphids.
A modified hydroponic system enables the plant roots to grow in a clean peat
moss and perlite mixture. The plants are fed water and dissolved nutrients
through a drip-irrigation system and are hand pollinated every other day for
uniform fruit production. Linda Kroll harvests the tomatoes from vines that
grow to 18 feet long by the end of the season.
Be sure to stop by the Sylvan Valley Acres booth and look for the tomatoes with
the green stickers. It could be you saying, "My wife says to get only tomatoes
with the green sticker."
Reprinted article, originally published May 19, 2007.
Update: This Saturday is Sylvan Valley Acres' last weekend at the Hollywood Farmers' Market. Stop by their booth before they sell out!
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Community Booths
Learn more about the organizations tabling at the market each week in our community booth column.
American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon
Because freedom can't protect itself.
The Oregon Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) is a non-partisan organization dedicated to the preservation and
enhancement of civil liberties and civil rights. The ACLU works on many
different issues and uses many different strategies in its work. Please
stop by their Community Booth this Saturday to find out more about
current issues and to become involved!
Northeast Community Center
Run, swim, play, stretch, lift, kick, dance, learn, laugh.
The Northeast Community Center (NECC) is a neighborhood nonprofit that
serves people of all ages in a building with a long history of active
use. Way more than a fitness center, the NECC is a place where people
of all ages exercise, swim, play, dance, paint, learn and share good
times. Check them out this week and see what they have to offer!
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The Hollywood Farmers' Market is open Saturdays, May through October from 8am - 1pm and November 7, 14, and 21 from 9am - 1pm. We are located on NE Hancock Street between 44th and 45th Avenues (one block South of Sandy Blvd).
For more information, check us out online at www.hollywoodfarmersmarket.org.
See you Saturday!
Hollywood Farmers' Market
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