Next best thing to the Farmer’s Market
T. S. Eliott was wrong. April is not the cruelest month. Somewhere in late January we run out of potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and squash at our house.
Sure, we can coast for a several weeks on our stash of frozen broccoli, green beans, corn, and cauliflower, and jars of canned apple sauce and tomato sauce. Yet, inevitably before May, we will find ourselves in the produce aisles of the local grocery stores and this is always disappointing.
But this year, things are looking up. Thanks to unheated high tunnel polybarns, cold frames, greenhouses, and refrigerator and freezer storage, several area farmers are offering produce, cheese, meats, and poultry direct for in town pickup.
In mid-January, Greg Runyon of Claybank Farm of Olney delivered produce to a central pickup site in Urbana for his die-hard farmers market customers. Among the offerings for pre-order were savoy cabbage, spinach, green onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, oyster mushrooms, and fresh herbs, including rosemary. If you are interested in ordering produce for the February pickup, call (618) 927-3872.
Last Saturday marked the first week of winter orders for Blue Moon Farm and Prairie Fruits, which featured spinach, carrots, kale, fingerling potatoes, cilantro, and turnips, as well as cheeses like chevre and sheep's milk mouton frais. If the weather cooperates, the farms hope to offer produce and cheese every two weeks. Use Blue Moon's email form to request to receive email about the upcoming order. In the email, you'll find a link to a survey order form on the SurveyMonkey website. Make sure your order is completed by noon the Thursday prior to pickup. Then, pickup your produce and cheese on Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon at the indoor eating area outside of Common Ground Food Coop in Lincoln Square Village (around the corner and up the hallway from Cardinal Fitness) in Urbana. The farmers ask that print your order to help expedite pickup.
Moore Family Farm is now in its sixth year of delivering meat, poultry, and eggs to Champaign-Urbana for winter/spring pickup. Pickups are the second Saturday of the month: February 13, March 13, and April 10 for 2010. Orders must be received no later than the Wednesday before pickup. As with Claybank, Blue Moon, and Prairie Fruits, the Moores bring only what has been pre-ordered. The farm is newly restocked on pork. Chicken and duck also are plentiful. However beef is limited and lamb brats are the only lamb available. You can also preorder pastured eggs for winter delivery. Call the farm at (815) 432-6238 to place your order. If you reach the answering machine, the Moores will call you to confirm your order and provide the central delivery location.
If you are up for traveling a few miles out of town, you can pre-order produce and flours for farm pickup at Tomahnous Farm near Mahomet. The farm currently has chard, vitamin green, mint, parsley, chives, thyme, sage, hardneck garlic, cippolini onions, and fingerling, red, and russet potatoes, as well as whole wheat all purpose and pastry flours. The offerings are updated regularly on the farm's website. To order call, (217) 586-5632.
Speaking of ordering, now also is the time to order a community supported agriculture share from local CSA programs. For those in and near C-U, both Tomahnous Farm and Prairieland CSA still have a few shares available. For those south of C-U, Claybank Farm also has shares available.
6 comments
Another source is Stan Schutte and Triple S Farm. Stan takes orders for pork, beef, chicken and eggs and delivers once a month to Urbana. His email to get on his order list is stan@triplesfarms.com
You can look for other local purveyors by zip code and commodity at www.illinoisfarmdirect.org
Stan does do a great job. However, I have some concerns about the practices of some of the farms on Farm Direct.
Is there a master list of all the local growers/producers? How would the outsider (me) determine, or rate said growers/producers?
If this has been covered in length before, I apologize. I’ve recently come back home, after being in Iowa, where I fell faithfully in love with locally grow produce and meats. I’m excited to transfer this to the CU area.
Thanks in advance for any help!
The listings from the former Fruited Plain coop include some of the best local producers based upon member opinions of quality and production practices when purchasing and visiting these farms. These listings will be moving to the Common Ground site at some point. For now they are here: http://www.fruitedplain.org/information/localfood/
The most comprehensive listing is at Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org). These listings are farmer provided/managed so they are the most accurate in terms of what farmers are currently producing and where they are distributing.
I’ll again mention www.illinoisfarmdirect.org (full disclosure: I helped put together the original version). It’s operated by the U of I. Anna’s concerns about a couple of local producers are not shared by many. I think it is unfortunate that the entire farmdirect list is disparaged because of her issues with one or two producers, which farmdirect has not seen fit to exclude. You are advised to see for yourself.
My preference for Local Harvest over Farm Direct is that it doesn’t rely on once a year data updates. Just as importantly, its search function gives results based upon where farmers farms are located, but also the locations from which they sell.
To do otherwise penalizes farmers who sell in urban areas or whose farms are close by, but across a county or state line. This is especially unfortunate because fixing this problem takes adding just a single column to the database driving the site and adding an additional search parameter to the existing one in the code. At farmers’ requests, LH has had this for at least five years because LH founder Guillermo Payet asked and listened to what farmers wanted. I have lost track of how many times I have mentioned this problem and its solution to those running other sites. I have a problem with that.
I also have a problem with anyone who sells animals for activities like fighting. Judging by the reaction at dinner last night when a newly relocated couple asked me whether there were any farms to avoid, I’m pretty sure I’m not in the minority on this one.
Most Recent Food Comments
Glad you asked Stuart. In the 1950s (well before they were approved for human use) poultry producers began using subtherapeutic doses of quinolone antibiotics, specifically fluroquinolone, to reduce the incidence of respiratory disease in overcrowded production conditions. In humans, quinolones are a last line of defense antibiotic…
Hah! Good one, Joel. But my question was a serious one. I only buy eggs from a couple of local organic farmers, so I never thought about antibiotic-free eggs. I’m assuming that Anna meant the hen was not fed antibiotics, but am not wholly sure. I’m…
That sounds like a setup to a joke at a CSA’s annual banquet. Q: “How can you tell an antibiotic-free egg?“ A: “It just can’t seem to get rid of that cough.“ /shows self out
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Kaiyo was decent for a sushi buffet, but it definitely isn’t as good as KO fusion. I thought it was better than any sushi I’ve ever had at a chinese buffet, but was not as good as my least favorite sushi item at KO fusion. However, I…
What is an antibiotic-free egg? And how can you tell?
Great article. I’ve always found that by making it in the blender, I can be my typical impatient self and pour tons of oil in at once. It’s very forgiving that way, though not fool proof.
I like Kaiyo A LOT, but at Sushi Kame (next to the art theatre) you can get an absolute shitload of good sushi, plus miso, and a bit of noodles in a vineagar cucumber salad for $21, and you know it was made just for you. I…
Nice article, Emily! When I get to the CU area, I’ll be sure to give this place a try.
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That’s well known that cash can make people free. But how to act when someone doesn’t have cash? The one way is to receive the personal loans or secured loan.
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I read Kucinich flipped today. He must have read this and been convinced.
Bread Company can do some fantastic vegan dinner dishes! Several of their pastas are vegan or could be made vegan and their pizzas can be ordered (and taste great) without the cheese. I also recommend their roasted potatoes and their roasted garlic head appetizer.
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Glad you asked Stuart. In the 1950s (well before they were approved for human use) poultry producers began using subtherapeutic doses of quinolone antibiotics, specifically fluroquinolone, to reduce the incidence of respiratory disease in overcrowded production conditions. In humans, quinolones are a last line of defense antibiotic…
Hah! Good one, Joel. But my question was a serious one. I only buy eggs from a couple of local organic farmers, so I never thought about antibiotic-free eggs. I’m assuming that Anna meant the hen was not fed antibiotics, but am not wholly sure. I’m…
That sounds like a setup to a joke at a CSA’s annual banquet. Q: “How can you tell an antibiotic-free egg?“ A: “It just can’t seem to get rid of that cough.“ /shows self out
First off did you read the wired magazine article I posted? You should. Second, WAS!? HAhahaaha. What, we aren’t being spied on right now. Its not legal anymore? Obama didn’t just re-authorize the patriot act? Semi-mythical deep packet inspection devices. Semi-mythical deep packet inspection devices. Semi mythical…
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I love eating Vietnamese food, and having growing up my entire life eating it, I was excited to go. I really wanted to like this place because of all of the hype I had heard——unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed. I got the pho (vietnamese soup) and thought…
Kaiyo was decent for a sushi buffet, but it definitely isn’t as good as KO fusion. I thought it was better than any sushi I’ve ever had at a chinese buffet, but was not as good as my least favorite sushi item at KO fusion. However, I…
What is an antibiotic-free egg? And how can you tell?
Great article. I’ve always found that by making it in the blender, I can be my typical impatient self and pour tons of oil in at once. It’s very forgiving that way, though not fool proof.
I will be at Danu this evening. And seeing as tomorrow - St. Pat’s - is my birthday, I will be celebrating with tons of green and fun!
Big Blue will actually be on 6-9, despite what is posted elsewhere. Then, hightail it over to Bentley’s!
Ahh - good point - I will plug them in the appropriate sections.
Yeeee! This sounds so fun! Any word on covers for any/all of these? Maybe SP could spring for punch cards and some discounts if we make it to all, eh?
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Bread Company can do some fantastic vegan dinner dishes! Several of their pastas are vegan or could be made vegan and their pizzas can be ordered (and taste great) without the cheese. I also recommend their roasted potatoes and their roasted garlic head appetizer.