Marada’s Dispatches: Veggie Boxes Successful and available; Aroostook, Bethel, Conway, this is your order week!

Yesterday was the annual Maine Ag Trade Show – always a fun event as it is the intertidal network zone of organic and conventional farmers.  For example, you can get a pesticide applicators credit (which organic farmers need to get too, for organic applications) by learning about food distribution…

A highlight for me was a meeting of participants in the efforts to grow, produce, market, mill, and improve Maine’s grains.  I know a lot about Maine agriculture, but certainly not everything, and I was especially interested in what Tate McPherson had to say about the current brokering of Aroostook grain crops (mostly to Canada).  Some shifts in our food system (and grain, believe it or not, has a lot more to do with milk and meat than bread) are large projects – seeing a table of 18 participants eager to work on the issues was encouraging.

Some updates that you need to read, especially if you are wondering when you are supposed to order:

The veggie box was a great success – and is available again this week! The veggie box is tailored to offer small quanitites of 10 produce items for 1-2 people.  Email us for the contents list.The price is $25.  Inspiration for these boxes came from Chebeague Island Food Coop who not only buys boxes for themselves, but also for seniors on the Island!

If you are interested in ordering and you live in Washington or Aroostook County, or the Bethel/North Conway NH neck of the woods, then Thursday is the day you should be ordering for delivery the following Thursday (excepting Aroostook, which is the following Monday).

Thanks for your help in organizing so we all stay solvent in the New Year!

Looking forward to your orders tomorrow,

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: Veggie Boxes Next Week, Coop Workshop, Grower Planning, and more …

Busy week over here at Crown O’Maine…

….we are happy to offer a veggie box tailored to offer small quanitites of 10 produce items for 1-2 people.  Available for delivery next week, shoot an email for the list of contents.  The price is $25.  Inspiration for these boxes came from Chebeague Island Food Coop who not only buys boxes for themselves, but also for seniors on the Island!

Coming up: a day long conference in Unity looking at how to leverage co-ops in our food communities.  Check out more info at http://www.eatmainefoods.org/events/coop-conference.  Sign up because I hear it is filling fast, and because I think ceative collaboation increases the gains to all of us.  Not to mention Leah is a panelist and if you haven’t heard her take the podium on the work we do, you really haven’t seen everything our coop has to offer!  The trucks, the food, the deliveries are all concrete means to an end.  Food distribution is a hot topic nationally right now, and you can believe we think and talk about it day and night.

On this months ‘talk list’: grower planning.  While we welcome your suggestions at any time, there is one time of  the year where we plan them into reality and that is now.  A quick email might just result in the answer to your summer menu prayers!

As always, we remain thankful to work till all hours of the night for such a fine caliber of customers and quality of products,

Looking forward to your orders tomorrow,

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: New Year, New Cheese, and yes, new prices …

I am very excited to open the new year with a new basket molded ricotta from Lakin’s Gorges Cheese in Rockport.  This ricotta is clean tasting, unsalted, and made from the milk of the celebrated Tide Mill Farm Dairy…www.lakinsgorgescheese.com for more detail.  Read the sheet for sizing and pricing…

Other new products on the list include greek yogurt from the Tide Mill Creamery (distinctly different from the Balfour Greek Yogurt, and certainly worth experiencing both!), sausage and pork chops from Maine Grind Meats (aka Herring Brothers), and a very special squash called Uncle Dave’s Dakota Desert.  I seriously kept one of these on my desk here at COMOC through July last year.  Ask the staff.

We have limited amounts of winter radish medley featuring watermelon radish, black radish, green and white radish and red meat radish…these will make a beautiful plate with a cool dip (possibly using the above mentioned greek yogurt…).  We have spaghetti squash which never made it on the early season list but is holding up well.

Despite the lean potato crop up north this year, we have organic Russets and organic Red Norlands available.  I urge you to use the short organic crop this year as an opportunity to explore Kennebecs, Norwiss, and Carola grown conventionally here in Maine…up at Northern Girl we’ve been using Kennebecs for french fries and and carola for roasting – the deep fryer has never been the forte of this crowd, so it is definitely eye-opening and interesting learning to make a good fry!

Finally, as happens every year, we have done a pricing review against our costs and have made price changes.  Please review your customary items as many have changed for 2012.  Most items went up by less than 10 cents a pound or $2/case.  Some, particularly individual items went up dramatically.  A few items have been woefully underpriced for years and were brought into line.

We continue to offer bulk sizes and pricing to the best of our ability.  We would love to discuss better pricing on meats for volume orders.

Happy New Year, and we look forward to continuing our work together in the local food landscape!

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: Take a closer look at familiar food

This week’s tale is about reinvention, closer looks, and the answers to a few unsolved riddles of this growing season.

We have:  a recommendation from Aurora Mills regarding pastry whole wheat flour.  Typically the wheat we sell for pastry wheat has both a low protein and a low falling number.  Many of you have been waiting and waiting for mill renovations to be complete to get Aurora Mills’ grains back.   While the true pastry flour is not yet back in stock, Matt Williams of Aurora Mills recommends the Maxine bread flour we carry as an acceptable substitution.   It has plenty of protein for bread making, but due to its low falling number it shoud preform well for pie crusts and scones, as well.

Riddle two:  When is a rutabaga a turnip?  When it is a gilfeather turnip, that’s when.  This heirloom vegetable, long saddled with the misname of ‘turnip’ is actually a fine flavored rutabaga that keeps and cooks well – try it out!

Take a close look:  Leeks are on the sheet for the last week this week.  We have twenty bags available.  Please note that this week they have switched from certified organic to Maine Grown.

And on that note:  It is VERY important that you note which products are listed certified organic and which are listed Maine grown.  While many of our Maine Grown producers use organic practices, sustainable practices, Beyond Organic, Biodynamic, or Integrated Pest Management practices, none of these are the same as certified organic.  We try to keep a hawk’s eye out for our ‘organic only’ customers and notify you if you have mistakenly ordered a Maine grown item, but it isn’t always possible or practical for us to manage this.  We will not accept returns for items misordered in this way.

It would help us immensely for you to notify us if you will, in general, accept non-organic subs, or a sub of a specific brand for items you often order.

We look forward to your orders, particularly after a thorough reread of the sheet!

Marada

In Memoriam: Boo Hubbard

Boo and our brother Land, discussing the Celtics' prospects.

Our good friend Boo Hubbard passed away last Monday from her final round of cancer. She’d had several bouts of it, and beat it back with a stick and medical help. At 73, she passed away with her family at her side, remarkably peacefully for a woman of her temperament.

In our world, Boo came to help us in the office, calling many of you to remind you to order, suggesting wonderful items that would surely complement your other offerings, answering phones while we wrangled with pallets stuck on trucks, and filing when we were in the freezer packing orders.

It’s hard to describe her properly to those who haven’t met the tactile force of her personality, but Boo may have aged, but she wasn’t aged.  She would come to the Crown O’ Maine office and set to work calling her customers, stop at lunch to lean back in her chair as we’d raft up and jaw over the past week’s doings. She was a saving grace for Marada when I was out of the country and Marada had just had Ivyn and was trying to ride the bucking tiger that was Crown O’ Maine’s growth. She took time off when she first had cancer, and came and scrapped her way back through the recovery period of fatigue and memory gaps.

You may not have known on the phone, but when she first came back she used every ounce of her wits to juke and jive, to find methods to sidestep sudden holes in her memory, to keep the conversation in the air and focused. She talked and worked her way back to health, and all of us admire the effort, the grace, the agility, and the will it took to come out the other end.

I share these photos with you because while she wouldn’t so excited to see them on the internet, she didn’t sweat the small stuff. What I like about them is that they capture her pretty well. Boo stayed in motion–her tempo was high, even in illness. The vibrancy of her character meant that she didn’t worry about foolishness (which is a good thing around here).

Boo had the admirable quality of being able to sit down with anyone, in any conversation, and take it at face value, accepting the set-up and assumptions, then listening and hearing with an open mind. It’s not that she was unthinking; to the contrary, she also had a strong ability to form her thoughts and opinions, independent to the nth degree.

She and I had conversations about faith, and the gifts of trials. I told her that my trials had really shown me my own strength, that there are moments when no one can help you, and it’s then that the angel is shown, as Emerson put it. She told me she wasn’t afraid of dying.

Anyone who knows her wouldn’t be surprised by that.

People hesitate to say certain things out of politeness, but one of the things I admire most about Boo is that her whole person was intact–her joys, her enthusiasms, her angers, and her bitterness. Don’t get me wrong, she was not a bitter person, but neither was she smoothed to blandness by time. Like any young person, she still had passions and retorts, and stubborn pride, and fierce loyalty. There was a woman who burned bright.

We loved her dearly, and will miss her fiercely. Love you, Boo.

Leah

Boo and Marada, mugging for the camera.

Marada’s Dispatches: A passing, two births, and a party

Editor’s Note:  Apologies for the late posting on this one; it was last week’s dispatch, but as you’ll read, there was a lot going on.  This week’s will be posted later today or tomorrow.

-Leah

Sometimes our work holds us to the eleventh hour for a reason.  Tonight I received word that our dear friend Boo Hubbard, the voice of Crown O’Maine, passed away on Monday evening at her son’s house in Boston.  Many of you received weekly reminder calls from her for over two years.  Boo successfully beat cancer twice, and the third time, though the doctors deemed it terminal, she approached at it in the finest of style, saying to her friends and family, “I want you all to have a Boo-fire”.  Last week we held a Boo Fire at her house in Hallowell, burning a pile of brush that had accumulated for several seasons.

Introducing her to me in the midst of Crown O’Maine’s first turmultuous move in 2009, Logan Johnston said, “That woman can sell sand to the Arabs.”  He should have said ‘Green beans to an organic gardener.” Several times she did.

We will miss her.  She was 73.

In balance, we welcome Sonnental Dairy’s thirdborn, Crystal, and Green Ledges Farm’s second child, Nyla both born in the last two weeks.  There have been several other children born to Crown O’Maine vendors this year: Tide Mill, One Drop Farm, and Grassland Farm all welcomed new babies as well.

In the spirit of adventure, celebration, and good food, we are opening the doors of the Northern Girl kitchen this weekend.  For those of you who have never trekked north of Bangor, now is your chance.  If you are interested in joining the party, 7PM Saturday, let me know and I’ll send you directions & lodging recommendations.  From Limestone, Maine, with Allagash Beer’s first brewing of Aroostook organic barley from a Crown O’Maine grower, we will toast Boo, Crystal, Nyla, and the rest of the wonderful cast of characters joining us in this movement.

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: Balsamic Strawberry Gelato, Grey Pearmain apples, frozen raspberries …

This week we bring you an expanded list of long-awaited items…organic rolled oats from Aurora Mills.   Heirloom apples from The Apple Farm, not to mention their delicious organic cider.  We have head lettuce and garlic scape puree (frozen).  Maine grown frozen raspberries are on the list in 1# bags.  We will continue to offer cranberries through Christmas.  Two squashes are on sale.  We are going to rotate the sale through each type of squash week by week, so buy when it is offered.  This week’s sale squash are organic butternut and Maine grown red kuri.

Maple’s gelato has Rum Raisin back on deck, not to mention a new flavor:  Balsamic Strawberry. The COMOC crew is anxious to try this ourselves, it has been described as, “A creamsicle for adults.”  Mmmm.

Finally, too, our favorite Chantenay carrots are harvested and packed.  This year we have a special treat of baby Chantenay’s as well.  These finger (or smaller) size carrots are the true baby carrots with the right sweet flavor and smooth texture.  The on-farm grading criteria?  If the carrot doesn’t warrant an adoring ’Aaaawwww..’ it doesn’t go in the baby bag.  You won’t be disappointed.

Some standards have returned to the list: organic delicata and organic carnival squash.  Organic spartan apples.  Organic red potatoes in 12X3# bags.

It’s a good week to read the list thoroughly.

Talk to you Thursday.

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: Olivia’s Tomatoes, Peeled Squash, Long Leeks, Bevre Cheese …

As we approach most food-lover’s favorite holiday, I’m tempted to wax poetic about all the things to be thankful for.

Hopefully, you can hazard a guess at how long that list is.

In addition I’m exploring another vein of Thanksgiving season thoughts – relief and resolve.  I think many farmers reach November with the same mix in mind. We feel relief that we made it through last season – and resolve to be better, smarter, more profitable next year, with improved techniques, systems, projects.

For Crown O’Maine staff, Thanksgiving is followed by our traditional one week shut-down from shipping.  Many of you might suspect me of running immediately off to Aroostook County, and while that may yet happen, it won’t be before Leah and I draft up the plans to implement our 2012 grower planning program.   We look at things like our brussels sprout supply, our blueberry availability, our rolled oat reality, and more, crafting improvements and collaborations.  For the next eight weeks we add grower conversations to our workload, deliberately designing a diverse, tasty, and available Maine food supply.

We are thankful to have over 1200 subscribers eager to hear about these food projects, try out their results, and support the means to the end through your weekly orders.

We are relieved to have a season to take stock and conjure up plans.

And we remain resolved to deliver it to you, once a week, including next week. So order up!

Marada

PS Please remember that if you normally have a Thursday delivery, you WILL be rescheduled, most likely to Tuesday.

Marada’s Dispatches: Thanksgiving Produce Boxes, Fresh Rosemary Plants, Cinderella Pumpkins

This week we have lots to offer, from living rosemary plants in 6″ pots (limited, order early) to cherry red radishes (topped) and heirloom Gilfeather Turnips.

What I’m most excited about are the Thanksgiving Produce Boxes that Chebeague Island buying club members are giving out to seniors and families in need of fresh produce in the next couple of weeks.  The boxes will include potatoes, carrots, cranberries, apples, onions, cabbage, beets, diced turnips and peeled butternut squash.  They cost $25 each and all the produce in them is neatly bagged to keep them fresh as can be.  They are not listed on the availability sheet, but if you’d like to order boxes and distribute them in your community, simply add ‘Thanksgiving Produce Boxes’ to your order!  You can order 1-100 and we will offer them this week and next.

Lots of folks are asking about our TG schedule.  Please remember that we do not deliver the week after Thanksgiving.  There will be no deliveries in Washington County either the week of or the week following Thanksgiving.  All Thursday customers will be rescheduled, most on Tuesday.  We will not deliver to Farmington, Mexico, or Bethel.  For those of you in our outlying areas, this is your week to order…

Marada

Marada’s Dispatches: Local Gala apples, Organic Yukon Potatoes, and Flipbook reviewed …

Well.  Now I know how to get some feedback out of you folks.  A simple layout switch requiring a 5-10 word reply.  Hmmm.  And I thought we were a deep thinking bunch.

To flip or not to flip the availability sheet generated varied results.  So, to make the best of the varied feedback, we are maintaining our multi-pronged approach.  (I’m not letting layout be an excuse for small orders!)  If you ‘CLICK HERE FOR THE LIST’ you will get the online html version (same one as the top of this page).  If you click >CATALOG VERSION< guess what!?  You’ll get the flipbook catalog.

I know this type of stuff it geeky, but if you read the next two sentences, almost 80% of laptop objections to the catalog can be overcome.

On the flipbook catalog:

There is a full screen feature.  On the tool bar on the bottom right are four arrows pointing outwards from eachother.  Click it.  This will make the catalog MUCH bigger, especially on laptops.

There is a download feature.   Look for the arrow pointing into an inbox.  Click it.  This will turn the flipbook into the regular type sheet!

And for everyone’s eyes as Maine’s daylight starts to wane, I’ve increased the font size on all availability sheets to 16 point and changed the font to Times New Roman.

How’s that for customer service?  There are two things you ought to know about the new sheet in any format.  Because the font is bigger it is 36 pages long.  I know.  I’m sorry for those who always print it.  Hopefully now that it can be read on a screen we won’t have to print so many copies.  Thing two:  I have not made a Table of Contents yet (it took all morning just to get the formatting better!) but it is on the agenda for next week.  Bear with me.

All I ask in return for this incredible response to customer demands are HUGE orders for next week!

Marada

 

Editor’s Note:

As with most of Marada’s dispatches, this goes out to our email list and is primarily a means of communicating with our customers and comrades. You’ll see this dispatch is focused on the nuts and bolts of some formatting and technology change, so disregard the links, which won’t be live due to the ever-changing content of our availability sheet. If you’re intrigued to see it, and to see the plethora of seasonal offerings, give us a call or email us to be added to the list.

Thanks,

Leah