Monthly Archives: January 2012

More random news from the interwebs

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Here’s what I’m reading while working on my next real posts:

  • The latest Edible Blue Ridge, featuring an article about our favorite fancy local-food restaurant, Brookville. Also exciting: a blurb about a new book called Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement Is Changing the Way We Eat, by UVA professor Tanya Denckla Cobb.
  • We’re Eating Less Meat. Why?, a NYT blog post by Mark Bittman, which examines the reasons that Americans are eating less meat, despite federal subsidies, lax environmental regulations, and lack of support for smaller farms in competition with the giant factory farms, all of which aid the meat industry.
  • Five Easy Ways to Eat Local: Tips on finding and incorporating into your diet more local foods, and a nice description of the health and flavor advantages of local, seasonal food.
  • The end of ethanol subsidies? Demand for the corn product will remain high as the government increases the required percentage of ethanol in gasoline.

Wowed by WV, Part 1b

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After wandering the cute, artsy downtown area of Berkeley Springs, WV, we headed to the local Food Lion to pick up some supplies. Food Lion is not known for local, organic food, so I headed straight to the egg shelf to how bad a Food Lion in WV would be. I was surprised to see Cool Thing #5:

Happier-than-average eggs! And organic eggs! Farmhouse Eggs and Eggland’s Best eggs come from hens who are free roaming indoors (it’s unclear how much room they get for their roaming), and fed vegetarian diets without hormones or antibiotics. Of course, local pastured eggs would be ideal, but nice job Food Lion.

Cool Thing #6 is a menu for a restaurant that was sadly closed while I was in town:

Panorama at the Peak is an environmentally-conscious restaurant a few miles from Berkeley Springs offering local, seasonal food with an amazing view. Most of their partner farms are within 65 miles, and most of the food they serve is organic. They are careful recyclers and composters, and closely monitor their power and water use. I hope when I go back the stuffed acorn squash is still on the menu!

 

Wowed by WV, Part 1

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I have always loved West Virginia, but I have never thought of WV as a local food destination, nor has any dish I’ve had there really excited me (other than the Treehugger burrito at Hellbender Burritos in Davis). So imagine my surprise upon visiting Berkeley Springs for the first time and eating some really good food and finding great support for local farmers! Unfortunately, the place I really wanted to try was closed while I was there, but I’ll share the menu anyway since they serve local food.

Cool Thing #1: CGM (Community Garden Market) Natural & Organic Foods

While browsing around the market, saw Cool Thing #2: an ad for a local farm directory.

You can get the Morgan County Farm Directory here to help you find local produce, meat, plants, and agricultural supplies in Morgan County. The page also lists a couple restaurants in the county that serve local food.

Next to that flyer was Cool Thing #3: an ad for the Berkeley Springs farmers market.

The market runs Thursdays and Sundays through much of the year; unfortunately that doesn’t include December, which is when I was there. Local farmers and business people sell produce, dairy products, eggs, plants, herbs, baked goods, sauces, jams, honey, and more.

Cool Thing #4 spotted while browsing the art galleries in town. Another flyer, cool because it’s raising awareness of local issues, but not cool for the content:

What is fracking, and why is it important to the citizens of Morgan County? Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the injection of highly-pressurized water into rock to create new cracks and channels to ease extraction of fossil fuels. Environmental concerns around fracking include air pollution, groundwater contamination, and earthquakes. The web site frackban.org seeks to ban fracking in Morgan County by educating residents and linking the local movement to other anti-fracking groups across the state.

To be continued…