Upon being asked if I liked Dijon mustard, I shook my head yes and tried some little green plants that tasted amazingly just like Dijon mustard. The mustard flavor was quickly followed by a hot sensation (not spicy). What was it that I just tasted? I had just had some of Sweetwater Growers‘ mustard microgreens!
Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!
Weed Farms – Gridley, CA
Please welcome –
Mark Ayzenshtat
Mark is the Head of Data Products for Evernote. Mark is a former EIR at Greylock Partners. In that role, he co-founded TellApart, a predictive customer analytics company. TellApart helps e-commerce companies manage and harness the power of customer data to massively enhance their online marketing.
Previously, Mark was a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he started and led several high profile projects including the Android Market, the AdWords API, and natural language processing improvements within the core Search Quality team. Today, the AdWords API is the world’s largest commercial API and interacts with well over half of Google’s total revenue; it went on to win the Executive Management Group award. Android later won the Founders’ Award, Google’s most prestigious project honor.
Christopher Elam
Chris is executive director of Inform, which makes short videos that explore the environmental impact of everyday objects. He was co-creator and producer of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Robert Kenner’s (Food Inc.) new social action project, Fix Food. Before that he was director of the Meatless Monday campaign. Completing his graduate work at Oxford University, Chris became a writer/producer at MTV where he created and produced the new music show Alternative Nation. From there he worked as a copywriter at J Walter Thompson while at the same founding ArtKrush, the art magazine online, which he eventually sold to Flavorpill.
Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser is an entrepreneur and best-selling author. She is a co-founder of Food52 and has been named one of the 50 most influential women in food by Gourmet. While at the New York Times, Hesser wrote more than 750 stories and was the food editor at the Times Magazine. She has written the award-winning books Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Cook and the Gardener, and edited the essay collection Eat, Memory. Her last book, a Times bestseller and the winner of a James Beard award, is The Essential New York Times Cookbook. Hesser is a trustee of Awesome Food and an advisor for the restaurant app Fondu. (Photo credit: Sarah Shatz)
Stephanie Izard
Recently nominated for the “Best Chef: Great Lakes Area” Award by the James Beard Foundation and one of Food & Wine Best New Chefs of 2011, Stephanie Izard is the Executive Chef/Partner of the Chicago restaurant Girl & the Goat. Stephanie is currently busy planning for the opening of her next Chicago restaurant, Little Goat, which is scheduled to open Summer 2012.
A 2011 James Beard ‘Best New Restaurant’ nominee, Girl & the Goat has been praised by many high-profile publications. Stephanie is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, and has worked in some of the most respected kitchens in Chicago including La Tache, Spring, and Vong.
She previously owned the highly acclaimed restaurant Scylla, which she sold just prior to appearing on and winning Season four of Bravo’s “Top Chef.” Izard’s first book, Girl in the Kitchen, was released in the fall of 2011 (Chronicle). To learn more about Stephanie visit www.stephanieizard.com or follow her on Twitter @StephAndTheGoat.
Merrill Stubbs
Merrill Stubbs has worked for over a decade in the food industry, as a private chef, cooking instructor and writer/editor. She has written for the New York Times’ T Living, Edible Brooklyn, Body+Soul, and Culinate.com, among others, and she was the food editor at Herb Quarterly. She is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of FOOD52.com.
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Ari Weinzweig
Ari Weinzweig is CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which includes Zingerman’s Delicatessen, Bakehouse, Creamery, Catering, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Coffee Company, Roadhouse and the newest business—Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory. Zingerman’s produces and sells all sorts of full flavored, traditional foods in its home of Ann Arbor, Michigan to the tune of $38,000,000 a year in annual sales. Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the 2006 James Beard Foundation and has awarded a Bon Appetit Lifetime Achievement Award among many recognitions.
Ari is the author of a number of articles and books, including “Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon” (Zingerman’s Press), “Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service” (Hyperion), “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating” (Houghton Mifflin), and “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business.” His most recent book is “Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, Part 2: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Being a Better Leader.” (Photo credit: Benjamin Weatherston)
Paul Willis
Paul Willis, founder and manager of Niman Ranch Pork Company, is also the owner and operator of the Willis Free Range Pig Farm in Thornton, Iowa, where he still lives on the farm where he grew up and raises pigs on open pasture with his wife Phyllis and daughter, Sarah. For years he sold his hogs in the conventional market, before he met Bill Niman in 1994, when Paul and Bill discovered their shared dedication to sustainable farming and strict animal husbandry standards, and the belief that the humane treatment of animals results in better tasting meat. Willis and Niman formed a ground-breaking partnership in 1998 establishing the Niman Ranch Pork Company.
Paul has since been the subject of numerous feature-length articles in nationally acclaimed publications as well as books and even television shows including his recent appearance on the Martha Stewart Show where he discussed the importance of farm animal welfare and Global Animal Partnership. He continues his work on environmental and social sustainability issues as a member of the committee convened by the National Academy of Sciences, serves as a board member for Global Animal Partnership among numerous others in addition to his work as cofounder of Food Democracy Now -a grassroots community dedicated to building a sustainable food system that protects our natural environment, sustains farmers and nourishes families.
For many food enthusiasts, the clinking approach of a glass jar, metal lid, and huge stock pot are about as terrifying as Jack Nicholson in The Shining. In my early dabbles with canning I would think, “All this time, this effort… oh gosh I hope I don’t poison someone….” Then after my first taste of my homemade apple butter, it dawned upon the that the only thing I’d be poisoning is… my waistline! One bite turned into a cascade of bites and an almost empty jar. So I understand, homemade canned food can be a little unsettling. But honestly, the only warning label homemade apple butter or any other canned food should come with is, “By the end of your meal, 100 fearful thoughts will have passed through your head BUT you will have eaten all of this and be fine.” So come on now, you can can and join the canvolution!
Today we’re welcoming guest blogger Andrew Gilmer, a part-time volunteer for Slow Food South Texas. He likes knowing where his food comes from and how it was raised. He started visiting farms in an attempt to become more educated and see with his own eyes how small local farms operate. After reading Michael Pollan’s “Power Steer” in the New York Times, Andrew decided he needed to be more proactive in food education and promoting local farmers who raise produce and animals using methods inline with Slow Food’s values.
This mother is closely guarding her piglets prior to start of the castration process.
This is one of the hardest days on the farm. – Kelley Escobedo on “Castration Day”
That’s right people, this post is all about hogs’ balls. There, I said it.
Good, you’re still reading, so let’s get on with it.
What exactly does “traditional” mean? Is it something passed down from your grandmother? Does it represent food preparation without the use of modern conventional cooking methods? What about something that has been around for at least a thousand years? Miso first came about in Japan in 800 AD, and is still going strong in Conway, Massachusetts thanks to Christian and Gaella Elwell who have been carrying on the tradition of miso at South River Miso for thirty-three years.
Check out our favorite photos from the past week – and then share your photos of a farm, food artisan or farmers market. You might be one of our favorites next week!
HausBar Farms – Austin, TX
Yoed Anis makes sake in Texas.
Born in Israel, but now a self-proclaimed Texan, Yoed began his enterprise in the fall of 2011, propelled by his love of brewing beer and an attraction to a natural connection between the historical tradition of rice-growing in Texas and the potential of brewing sake. Immigrants such as Yoed and Texas rice, the medium-grain variety used to make sake, both have long histories in the evolution of Texas foodways.
I’m convinced there are just two ways to approach farming: one, with an analytical mind, or two, going with your gut and building on experience. On a recent group tour of a worm farm, Bamastan Farming Co., the guests were spewing scientific questions like, “What’s the optimum soil pH for the worms to grow?” Owner Scott Lueck casually answered, “All I know is that I add a bucket full of lime, and I’ve learned from the 10 years I’ve been doin’ this that if you don’t add it, the worms will die.” The retired agriculture professor in the crowd just couldn’t help himself and announced, “The nitrification reaction that converts ammonia to nitrite also produces acid. So lime needs to be added to soil or else the pH will fall low enough, below 6, killing the worms.”
The Real Time Farms Blog 
