New Produce Manager

A few days late posting this ...

May 19, 2009
Traverse City, Michigan

Cherry Capital Foods, the leading purveyor for northwestern lower Michigan's burgeoning local food economy, is excited to announce that Barb Tholin has joined the company as Produce Manager. Barb brings years of experience in produce and grocery buying and retailing, having served for 19 years in the roles of produce manager, meat buyer and store manager for Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op in Saint Paul, MN. She also holds a degree in agronomy and maintains a lifelong interest in farming of all kinds, with a special passion for family run, niche-market production.

“I'm thrilled to be back in the produce business,” says Barb. “I love working with farmers and producers, and providing quality products and information to customers. This region is a prime agricultural area and produces all kinds of great foods. Chefs and retailers are eager to buy local product from a reliable source. Cherry Capital Foods is poised in the best place to do that and I'm excited to be joining their team.”

Along with her work with CCF, Barb is also the editor and co-publisher, with husband Charlie Wunsch, of Edible Grande Traverse, the seasonal local food magazine that launched in spring 2008 to great acclaim from the region's food and farming community.

Cherry Capital Foods, as the pioneering distributor of local food products sold throughout northwest lower Michigan, is dedicated to providing the best distribution service for this area's important local food and farm economy. It’s core market is roughly a 100 mile radius around Traverse City, where the firm is headquartered.

Press contact: Evan Smith - 231-943-5010

Morels, ramps and scallops ... yum

Randy Chamberlain of "blu" in Glen Arbor

"My Up North" video clip
Foraging to plating up a nice little lunch here

Soon

Of course, we know where to source, if not doing our own foraging...

The Minimalist - The Flavor of Spring - NYTimes.com:

"In an ideal world, here’s what a spring dish might look like: you take morels from your foraging trip, cream and butter from your cow, and asparagus, shallots and herbs from your garden. You combine them in any way that makes sense to you, and then you thank the forest, the cow and your backyard for providing you with such amazing bounty."

Recipe - Asparagus With Morels and Tarragon - NYTimes.com:

On Morels

Borrowed from the Detroit News as a service to our friends
We'd love to just sell you morels, but we know that many like to collect their own

Morel mania: Now's the season for Michigan's prize mushrooms | detnews.com | The Detroit News:

Morel-hunting tips :

# Don't hunt on private property without permission.
# Carry a mesh bag to release and spread spores along the way; leave plastic bags and buckets home.
# Pinch or cut the morels you find -- don't pull them from the ground.
# Clean morels by shaking them or brushing with a soft mushroom brush. Some suggest soaking briefly in lightly salted water and then cooking immediately.
# Store morels (and other mushrooms) in paper in the refrigerator for better air circulation; avoid plastic -- it makes them moldy."

SAFETY

Real vs. false morels

The only sure way to distinguish between morels and false morels, which can be poisonous, is to have years of experience or be accompanied by an expert. MushroomExpert.Com offers this advice from Michael Kuo:

Rule No. 1
When in doubt, throw it out! If you're not 100 percent sure your mushroom is a morel, don't even consider eating it.

Rule No. 2
If it ain't hollow, don't swallow! Morels are hollow. Slice open a black or yellow morel, and you will find only air (and bugs, if you haven't cleaned it), from top to bottom. Slice open a false morel and you'll find mushroom flesh. Sometimes the flesh of a false morel is interspersed with air pockets, creating a "chambered" effect -- but there is flesh present. Consequently, false morels weigh more than morels.

Rule No. 3
If it's wavy, don't make it gravy! The caps of false morels are often wavy rather than pitted. The pits on morels are not, on very close inspection, symmetrical, but they are very regular when compared to the lobed, wavy, brain-like structure of the false morel cap.

Rule No 4
If it's reddish, you could be dead-ish! False morels frequently (though not always!) have reddish-brown shades. Some yellow morels develop red stains, especially as they age (the stain usually begins as a stripe on the stem and then spreads), and when morels are growing under pine. So, this rule might eliminate some good-eating morels. But it is more likely to eliminate false morels.

Food Safety

TV Coverage : MSU Horticultural Station workshop on GAP (Good Agricultural Practices)
CCF Staffers attended, and we intend to implement our own tracking from farm to client.

Safe farming practices : News : WPBN TV 7&4:

"In order to get certified many requirements have to be met. ' If growers don t have a food safety plan and they don t have a person that s in charge of it that s an automatic for disqualification. I think the other thing is restroom use hand washing facilities making sure that your growers are doing the things they say they re going to do to keep their hands clean ' Rothwell said.

' The importance of documentation. Many of the things we ve learned we all do but we haven t been writing them down. So we re going to encourage all of our farmers and growers to be sure that their documenting ' said Cherry Capital Foods Evan Smith."

Any day now

Asparagus
Meantime, some interesting things about our spring crop

The Curious Cook - The Curious Cook - Asparagus’ Breaking Point - NYTimes.com:

"Green asparagus spears, cut down just hours after they’ve hit daylight and turned color, are the most lively of all our vegetables, furiously turning the sugars absorbed from their roots into energy and new tissues.

The harvest doesn’t stop them. Even cut off from their roots, the asparagus spears keep growing at the tip. If they’re stored lying down, the tips rise away from the pull of gravity, and can bend 60 degrees or more from the stalk before they run out of energy."

What do you get?

"Natural" vs. truly Natural

Baker's chickens have no filler, no "plumping up"
You get chicken, not salt water

What's Really in Many 'Healthy' Foods - WSJ.com:

"A lot of Americans think they're eating a healthy diet these days. But it's easy to be fooled by our assumptions and the ways that food manufacturers play on them.

Take chicken. The average American eats about 90 pounds of it a year, more than twice as much as in the 1970s, part of the switch to lower-fat, lower-cholesterol meat proteins. But roughly one-third of the fresh chicken sold in the U.S. is 'plumped' with water, salt and sometimes a seaweed extract called carrageenan that helps it retain the added water. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says chicken processed this way can still be labeled 'all natural' or '100% natural' because those are all natural ingredients, even though they aren't naturally found in chicken."

This Little Piggy went to market

While not mentioned, Cherry Capital will be in the mix.

Wooly Pigs: Earthy Delights and Bakers Green Acres

Baker's are a prime chicken supplier for us.
We're looking forward to being able to provide truly great pork products.

Season starting

Afternoon flash

Asparagus $1.75/lb
Morel caps $20/lb ----- 1st come first serve.
rhubarb available starting friday.

Popped up over Weekend

Just a note (current popped up is top right of the page)

We're going to try leaving prior material up.
Check for current prices, not older ones as markets change