• Come sample Smoked Chicken snacks and pick up smoked chicken holiday entertaining ideas at the School Table sponsored by the Friends of the Dane County Farmer's Market.  The School Table will offer tastings from 8:00 am to Noon during the Market. Don't forget about the Friends Cookbook Sale. Your donations are appreciated and can be dropped off at the Friends table.
• Pick up an item or two for the Friends/CAC Food Drive. CAC volunteers will be on hand to collect your donation. This is a super important event for helping out Dane County Food Banks, which are stretched to the limit, especially when it comes to fresh food. We have more info here.
• Taking place at the Monona Terrace this Saturday is the 12th Annual Fair Trade Holiday Festival. Presented by Community Action on Latin America, the festival runs from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm (Remember, the DCFM closes at Noon). It features arts, crafts, clothing, and more from Latin America, Africa, Wisconsin, Palestine, and beyond!
• Finally, bring a happy face with you to the market on Saturday. A crew from the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) in South Korea will be taping this Saturday for its program SBS Morning Wide. The Korean version of Good Morning America, the segment will be named after Wisconsin's reputation as "Milk Heaven."
  

 "Thanksgiving, November 1988, 11:30 at night we got a phone call. 'Your barn is on fire.'

"We had milked 120 cows, three times a day and we lost them," recalls Cindy Fricke, who with husband Leroy operates Cherokee Bison Farms, Ltd., near Colby, WI.

 Many couples faced with a loss of this magnitude would bow out of farming. Not so Cindy and Leroy.

 After the fire, "We took a year off to figure out what we wanted to do," she continues. "We wanted to stay on that farm. We wanted to stay in farming, but maybe not milking cows. His dad was getting older. Leroy has got bad knees," Cindy pauses, smiling as she continues, "I didn't particularly care for dairy cows. We didn't get along that well, dairy cows and me."

 The couple decided to see what other people were doing in agriculture. After a trip out west they, "decided on bison," says Leroy. "We bought our first calves in 1989."

 Cindy explains that those first calves were purchased, "from a veterinarian who had been raising bison for around 20 years. He said, 'You're greenhorns. You're used to dairy cattle. I don't like selling to people like you. But you seem like you might listen to me.'

 "He was a good mentor," Cindy continues. "He would not sell us animals that were horned because he figured we'd hurt ourselves."

 Leroy notes that American Bison is the correct name for these creatures. "A buffalo is actually a water buffalo," he explains. "But when they brought them over here they called them buffalo and it stuck."

 "So everything in your history books that calls them buffalo is wrong," laughs Cindy. (Editor's Note: Then it's "Bison Bill Cody?")

 Compared to diary cows, bison, "Are a lot less hands on," says Cindy. "But when they need the work done you need to be prepared. The reason for that is they are smart. I'm sorry but a dairy cow is a dumb as a box of rocks. A bison is just very intelligent."

 Leroy explains that unlike a dairy cow, bison are wild animals. They are not domesticated.

 While the animals themselves are wild, if you were to sample bison for the first time, "You might not even know it's bison," says Leroy, while Cindy adds, "You'd think it was a sweet, lean, chunk of beef." She tells a story of her father, who was very much a beef aficionado, loath to eat any other meat. Cindy made him a bison roast with all the fixings. "He said it was the best roast he'd ever eaten." It was only much later when she let him know it was actually bison.

 Besides the bison, which they have available in a multitude of different cuts, the Frickes bring bison summer sausage and snack sticks to the market. They also tap, process, and bring to market maple syrup, "because we need to do something in the spring," says Cindy, "since we get a little antsy."

 The couple each works on the farm most of the time while maintaining part-time jobs. Cindy's the township treasurer, which allows her to do most of the work at home while Leroy plows snow for the township.

 Leroy and Cindy been selling at the DCFM since 1991. They also sell directly off the farm, ship, and sell at a few small farmers markets. "Leroy was telling someone today that we had never even gone to a farmers' market, much less vended at one before we started here," says Cindy with a smile. "It's just the best market we have ever found."

For More Information:
Cherokee Bison Farms, Ltd.
Cindy and Leroy Fricke
715-223-3644
cherokee@pcpros.net
www.cherokeebisonfarms.com

• 1 hump (not rump) roast, around 6 pounds
  
• 1 pound baby carrots or larger carrots cut into smaller pieces, unpeeled
• 1 pound baby potatoes (a mix of different colors looks great and adds nutritional value)
• 1 cup bison (or beef) broth
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 1 pound parsnips
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp Italian blend dry herbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

1. Mix the herbs with the broth.
2. Sear roast on stove top.
3. Place roast in crock pot.
4. Place vegetables on top of bison.
5. Cover with broth.
6. Place lid on crock pot which is set on low (200-225 degrees).
7. Cook for five hours.