Hi there! I’m Peggy, guest blogging for Jenny. I blog over at Local Nourishment, where I’m learning the art of Slow and SOLE food. Jenny’s on a beach eating tropical fruit with a cool coconut water in her hand right about now, and has asked me to guest blog a post. We had two inches of snow in our Southeastern U.S. state this week, but Jenny’s trip to the warm sands has made me yearn for salad.
For many seasonal eaters, the word “salad” takes a rest from our vocabulary when …

Deeply passionate about local foods and sustainable agriculture, my husband and I put real blood, real sweat and real tears into our farmers market: waking up at the crack of dawn, putting in 14-hour days, conducting food preservation demonstrations, driving across Colorado to connect with small-time, sustainable growers and working tirelessly with local and state bureaucracies.   You can see, in the above image, just how much we’ve worked to develop and grow our market.
In short, it’s a lot of work. That’s why I was so dismayed, but not …

Sunday is market day and it starts very, very early.   My husband rises at about 5:30, makes breakfast and packs up his truck.   I wake a little later, get our child ready for the day and pack my car and we head down to town together.   From there, we unpack the vehicles and unload everything onto the street: signs, paperwork, goods for our popular free tent, tables, brochures and promotional materials, first aid kits, camera and other assorted odds and ends.   We mark the street, direct …

You may have noticed the lack of posts over the last week or so, but rest assured – while I may have neglected to send out new recipes or other goodies – it’s for good reason.   Any spare glimpse of a moment has been otherwise preoccupied with growing our little market.   The work begins early and ends late as we mark the street, meet the summer’s growers, bakers, ranchers and artists.

So, early on Sunday morning the street looked empty and quiet as the first few vendors began arriving …

We all know about the classic CSA:   a box of fresh vegetables and fruits from   a local farm delivered once a week to your home.   Paying in advance of the season in most cases or even on a monthly or weekly basis, a CSA participant is then entitled to a portion or share of t whatever the farm or ranch produces. This model proved effective as the money earned from selling CSA shares could help alleviate seasonal startup costs incurred by farmers and the risk of a …

Our premarket CSA began just this week – perfect timing for One Local Summer.   It seems now, more and more, all of our meals are local.   If not entirely local, they’re substantially local.   What a blessing it is to celebrate real food this way!   This week we enjoyed local milk, eggs, bacon, quinoa, lettuce,ham, arugula,   collards, spinach, herbs, cheese, butter, onions, shallots, honey, cream, steak, strawberries and loads of other delicious, remarkable foods.   There’s another box headed our direction tomorrow along with 10 pints …

In the heart of ski country, spring replaces late winter slowly–so slowly that when most gardeners around the country are celebrating the season with the first shoots of asparagus or tender salad turnips or sweet peas, we’re still struggling under several feet of hard-pack, glacial mounds of snow.   It is a barren and desolate landscape–lonely and cold.
Yet just over the mountains to Crested Butte’s west, there’s a vibrant organic farming community that, thanks in part to an elevation lower than our own coupled with warm summers, produces beautiful crops …

In begging forgiveness for the unexplained, neglectful month-long hiatus, I   have some pictures to show you:
So, while I’ve been away from the Nourished Kitchen (and so may well have lost all my beloved readers!), my husband and I were terribly busy.   We wrapped up this years market and laid plans for next years market with an eye to get better and better each season.   Additionally, we stocked our pantry, cupboards and freezer for winter.
Living in a 750-s.f. condo in a ski area presents no small challenge to …

The first thing you might notice at our farmers market–besides the allure of new-to-you free goodies from the Free Tent–is the flowers.   Vibrant with yellows, purples, reds and pinks they mark the entrance to the market and it’s difficult to resist the call of a $10 bouquet of lovely, organically grown, local flowers.

There’s loaves of bread too featuring a nice crackly crunchy crust and dotted with treasures like cranberries and walnuts or whole grains.   The loaves of pumpernickel and true sourdough impart   beautiful flavor and rich texture.

And …

The leaves are changing here in the high-country though we’ve been blessed with warm weather this week.   It’s such a colorful time of year.   The grasses are still green.   The flowers are still vibrant in all their many hues.   Purple-red wild raspberries dot the bushes and the willows are just beginning to turn gold.
We’ve enjoyed eating on the patio all summer long, and this week was no exception though we huddled in blankets to cut the chill of late summer.   This week we enjoyed a …