Monday, February 2, 2009

February

Starting into Month 2:

We are still very much meat, cheese, eggs, and bread. We are continuing to go to the store for all of our produce minus apples. Oh, apples...applesauce, apple juice, raw apples, apples and honey, apple pie. It's a good thing Elijah is only one and doesn't really complain yet, and that Mike and I are fairly easy to please. I mostly just wanted to get on to let everyone know what there is out there to buy locally.

At Food For Thought today I found local bread that uses local flour. This comes from Spring Creek Ranch in Willowdale, KS. Norm Oeding is the farmer of the wheat used in the bread, and also the main guy to talk to for the Wichita Food Co-op. Very local, very good. Food For Thought also had some bulk White Winter Wheatberries. I got some and am soaking them overnight so that maybe we can have hot cereal in the morning! Maybe even cook some apples and honey to put in it :) They also had some eggs from Norm's farm. The lady that I talked to there got my hopes up saying that sometimes they have local hydroponic tomatoes and Spinach. Not the case today. Also, she thought there would be some local cheese, but there wasn't.

GreenAcres offered a few local cheeses, two brands of local bread (Delano bakery, and Solomon's). Elijah cheated and got some goat's milk and yogurt, and, we all cheated with some produce. At the checkout we talked to a lady that gets local raw goat's milk, but with my feeling not at all good, I didn't even think to ask her where! Duh!

I know Whole Foods carries local cheese, but have not been in this year to fully browse their selection.

Dillons has local honey and Mama Lupe's tortillas are made within a hundred miles of Wichita.

The whole prepackaged food option seems like cheating to me, because not all of the ingredients in those foods are local, but, nonetheless, it is better that nothing. We aren't hard core yet, so we still indulge. We would really like to get ourselves away from buying bread and into making our own, but Mike, the bread machine, and I have all proven to be terrible at making bread. I can't figure out what the problem is, but I am definately going to blame the yeast, and try another time with a new package of yeast. How sad that such wanting souls to be self-sufficient homesteaders can't even bake bread? One of God's many unfunny jokes.

I know that all of the grocery stores will carry local produce come Spring, so either look for signs or ask around. Also, the farmers' markets will be going on. For a schedule go to www.kansasgrownmarket.com or www.oldtownfarmersmarket.com. These are both farmers' markets, they are just run by different people. The Kansas Grown Market only allows Kansas vendors, and the Old Town Farmers' Market allows anyone who wants to come. Both better ways to support small farmers directly.

Other ways to tap into what is offered around here as far as buying local goes:

www.wichitafood.coop -- this is our local co-op. you can order online, and pay when you pick up. there is a rendez vous point downtown on the third tuesday of every month, i believe. we will be recieving our first order this month.

www.localharvest.com -- here you can find csa's to belong to and local farmers of all kinds.

www.eatwell.org -- this is a website my friend, caryn, showed me. it is a really good concept, but not a lot of Kansas participation yet.

As always, any questions, etc. we would love to hear from you.

Happy eating,
Dani Rae and The McCoy Boys

2 comments:

  1. Hi! I am so excited to have found this resource. You have got to post more though. :) I'm looking forward to checking back!

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  2. Hi. Thanks for the feedback! If there is anything specific you would like to know about let me know, and we will do our best to find out. Sincerely, Dani Rae

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