It ain't easy

I've often wondered why any respectable culinary professional would buy food from "Big generic foodservice supplier x,y, or z". We have so many great local producers here in the Seattle area.
The answer I've realized, is simple....It's fast and easy.
We spend many hours hunting down the finest local goods from our small local farmers. During our Sunday market we take time from our stand to look around and see what looks good and affordable, and we brainstorm a sauce for the upcoming week. Then we go around and get 10 pounds of Zucchini from Bautista and line up 6 pounds of greens from Growing WA, some onions here, snap peas there. Then we order buns from 2 different bakeries, we buy cheddar cheese retail for our burgers because we insist that it be local and hormone-free....... In short, we seem to be lacking in efficiency, but we're working on it, and we're doing what we feel is the right thing. It feels really good to spread love around to lots of small people doing good work.
But then we see that lots of people don't care, they're happy to gobble nasty preserved, processed, factory farmed particle meat hot dogs from who knows where, and I wonder, "Is it worth it? or are we just deluding ourselves and making things harder than necessary?"

Let's talk business

Here we are, summer's finally here, the markets are rocking, we're loving feeding the same great customers each week at the markets. We're always tweaking things and testing new things and getting great ideas from our market peeps. We're also getting serious about our growth to a "farmy" place where we grow the food we cook/serve at the markets.
This fall, we are striving to purchase a property for farming and a commercial kitchen, and a teaching event retreat/camp. We're talking to all sorts of people and hoping to make the right connections to make it happen. Ideally we would like to be within 2 hours or Seattle or Portland. 2-5 acres, agricultural and small commercial zoning. A modest livable house, a decent shop to convert to a kitchen.

Summer Time....

Summer in the Northwest, how I love thee! Let me count the ways!

Solstice Time!

Here we are, the "sunniest" time of the year. We're loving the long Northwest twilight, and hoping the sun's strong energy lights the path for us. Each year this is a bittersweet time, permeated with light and hope. But we also know that from here on out, we're losing precious minutes of daylight again. Sigh. Saturday will be our 4th annual Fremont Solstice Parade as a family. Hopefully our last Solstice as city dwellers.

Father's Day Fun

Sunday, June 15 is Father's Day, and the super ensemble, VamoLa will be performing at the Lake Forest Park Farmer's Market! This is gonna be so awesome! I have seen VamoLa perform several times, most recently a kick-ass show at Folklife. They consist of an amazing drum line, and a few smoking hot ladies dancing sexy Samba in Carnival-style costumes. A day at the market, yummy local food, hot drum and dance. YEAH BABY! This is a dream come true!

More Gardens Please!

Here are the men-folk building a couple new beds. We asked our landlord if we could turn the front yard into a big garden.....he said he'd have to think about it, we haven't heard back. They're pretty specific about lawn mowing, edging, etc. So we're building a few raised beds in the front. We'll put our real pretty stuff like flowers and tomatoes out there. These should be inoffensive.
Sometimes it seems like people are becoming generally more aware and concerned about environmental issues. But then we encounter folks without the slightest awareness of waste or impact and feel like our baby steps are being undone constantly.
We'll just keep planting the Victory Garden and serving good food from good farms...

We love Lake Forest Park!

Mother's Day was the opener for LFP and it was fun! So far, this was our best market! I mean best overall experience. The people were very receptive, glad to see us, enjoyed our food. Not having to off-load our van and drag heavy equipment is a huge bonus! The health department finally came to inspect us; we nailed it, 100% Yeah baby!
No real direct competition for us here. We love our friends at Patty Pan, Growing WA, Anita's, but oh the joy of an unsaturated market!
We're thinking we will drop U-district and pick up Juanita Beach on Friday nights. Summer Sunsets on Lake Washington while serving good food to the people sounds great! Then, our Saturdays will be free for picking up private events, or having Family day at Carkeek park.