Today, I dropped the kids off at school, and went out to Farmer John's to pick apples with my friends Taryn and Jeana. The morning was warm, the apples were ripe, and we filled our baskets for applesauce-making and storing in the pantry. I cannot describe to you how wonderful an apple picked fresh off the tree tastes. It makes me never, ever want to eat a store-bought apple in the middle of winter ...
Support Local Farms
Canning Local Food With Relish!
If you're going to can, you may as well do it with relish! I kicked off my weekend with a trip on Friday out to Riverbend Farm to get peaches and corn. Every year I go and get their distressed, or "seconds" peaches for half price. Then I can feel better about getting a couple of big boxes full. The corn was for making corn relish, a favorite canned treat in my house, and since we didn't grow wild ...
Blueberry Bliss
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Purple Haze: A Dungeness Valley Lavender Farms Tour
On Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, the community of Sequim has made a name for itself as the lavender capitol of North America. With the rich, fertile soils of the Dungeness Valley, and a growing climate similar to that of the Provence region of France, many hardworking folks have done their part to save farmland from development by planting acres of this wonderful herb. In 1995, a group of ...
Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low. That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right. That is I think it's not too bad. Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard ...
Hooray, Hooray for CSA’s!
It's that time of year again that I look forward to in eager anticipation all Spring. When fruit and veggie prices start to go on the rise, and things get a little lean, our Groundworks Organics CSA comes in and saves the day! What, might you ask, is a CSA? This stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which means that folks buy a farm share early in the year from a local farm, and the farm ...
Something Fresh
Have you ever come across some new music that you thought was so cool, everyone should know about it? Well, I'd like everyone to know about "Something Fresh." Imagine a collection of recipes featuring fresh, local, in-season ingredients, accompanied by a CD of songs by contemporary folk musicians about each recipe. The songs are all kid-friendly and adult-fun, and tout the wonders ...
Support Your Local Food Co-op!
I discovered the wonders of food co-ops when I was attending college in Eastern Washington just across the Idaho border from Moscow. In the aisles of the Moscow Food Co-op, I found good food, community, and my ideals reflected. Not long after our moving away, they expanded and moved into a spacious, beautifully renovated grocery store building complete with an organic deli and bakery and an eating ...