Summer Reading for the Kids

Grow It, Cook It: Simple Gardening Projects and Delicious Recipes

What better way to get kids eating healthy then having them grow (and harvest) their own fresh veggies and fruits? This book covers planting, growing and bringing the fruits of your labor to the table. There are some crafts and projects included too. My kids have been thrilled watching our garden grow this year, and we can’t wait to try a few of these kid-friendly recipes.

Our Farm: Four Season with Five Kids on One Family’s Farm by Michael J. Rosen

What a unique way to learn about farm life! This book is packed with photos of one busy family’s life on the farm in Ohio and includes lots of stories from each family member’s point of view. The five Bennett kids (aged 17 to 4) and their parents take us through a year on the farm with their insights on baling hay, feeding cattle, raising chickens, playing on the farm and more. Although written for 9- to 12-olds, my 5- and 7-year old children enjoy the Bennett kids’ stories.

Market Day by Carol Foskett Cordsen

If your little ones are enjoying weekly visits to farmers’ market, they just might like this picture book about a farming family off to market day and what happens when they forget to feed their cow.

Farmers Market by Carmen Parks

This Level 2 Green Light Reader is a great choice for early readers who enjoy the farmers’ market.

Market Manager for Hire

Contracted position available for a Market Manager for the Western Wake Farmers’ Market (WWFM). Manager will play a key role in supporting the organization’s mission and goals. Market manager’s responsibilities include: interviewing farmer applicants and explain market procedures and requirements, developing relationships with vendors, enforcing market rules, planning special events, developing site plan, maintaining records and vendor fee collections, communications, set-up and tear-down each market day, and additional duties.

Qualifications: Undergraduate degree or working towards an undergraduate degree. Experience working in management and agriculture field desired. Owning a truck or large vehicle is preferred.

Skill Set: Leadership and delegation skills, ability to recruit and retain interested vendors and volunteers, flexibility to meet the requests of vendors, Board of Directors and coordinating volunteer help; ability to work Saturdays from 6:30 am-1:00 pm during market season (April-November) and attend regular Board and committee meetings, typically held on Monday evenings. Computer skills are essential, and knowledge of MS Word, Excel, web calendars and blogs, twitter, Facebook. Some additional skills required.

Contract & Salary: This contract will be from the time of hiring for 3 months with the potential to extend the contract. We estimate 15 hours per week to fulfill contract. $12.00 per hour for 15 hours per week. This is a contracted position and applicants must provide their own computer, some office supplies and cell phone.

For complete job description and requirements, contact:
Jennifer Gibbs
Operations Manager
Western Wake Farmers’ Market
PO Box 1113
Morrisville, NC 27511
Or
jgibbs@WesternWakeFarmersMarket.org

Cover letter and resume deadline: July 3, 2009

“Love Your Farmers’ Market” Contest: Vote Today!

Show your love for our new market by voting in a fun contest sponsored by Care2 and LocalHarvest to celebrate our country’s love for its farmers’ markets! To vote, choose Western Wake Farmers’ Market under Cary, NC. With a quick click, you can help our young market, a non-profit organization, win $5,000!

Invite your friends, family and co-workers to vote too. Top recruiters can win $50! If you're on Facebook or Twitter, help us put the word out to vote for the Western Wake Farmers’ Market!

Thanks for your support!

Good Reads on Good Eats

If you get some free time at the beach or on the porch this summer, you might want to add these books to your reading list.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. I loved this book start to finish, and it served as my introduction to why eating locally is important. But it did so in a way that was entertaining and interesting, rather than academic. This acclaimed fiction writer and her family devised a plan to eat locally for a year. They would either grow their food, or buy it from someone nearby who did. The book outlines this extraordinary year, what they planted and what they ate—even in those lean winter months. The book includes recipes from their teen-aged daughter and chronicles the chicken and egg business their third-grade daughter launched.

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. This one isn’t exactly a light summer read, but it sure is eye-opening about what we eat in this country and how the health problems of many Americans can be traced to the industrialization of food. Pollan discusses the “American paradox,”—the idea that that the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to be. After reading this book, I realized how far we have moved away from eating natural food toward eating food that has been manufactured and engineered.

Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets by Deborah Madison. In this gorgeous cookbook, the author takes us across the country on a journey to numerous farmers’ markets. While not all the recipes will work for us here in Western Wake County because some ingredients featured just aren’t local here, there’s plenty of great inspiration.

Market Featured on YouTube

Chef Todd Mohr visited the Western Wake Farmers’ Market last weekend and chatted with several of our great vendors. Check it out…our first YouTube feature!

Road Trip: Feasting on Local Foods

Three years ago, Food Network began airing a fun series called “Feasting on Asphalt.” Host Alton Brown and his crew rode across the United States on motorcycles in search of great roadside food made by regular people. He talked with restaurant owners and patrons along the way, and his crew made it a point to find local specialties in each area they drove through.

With summer vacations just around the corner, we might all want to think about eating local while "feasting on asphalt." Whether you’re taking a weekend road trip or heading across the country for your vacation, you can find markets and restaurants with fresh, healthy, local ingredients along the way and at your vacation spot.

With the Eat Well Guide, you can enter a starting and ending address for your trip, and the search engine will return a list of all the local options. These include everything from farmers’ markets to restaurants, butchers to bakers, co-ops to stores. You also may narrow your search to just restaurants, for instance, and you can print out a PDF of your results. (You do need to register with the site for the print-out, but it’s free.)

There are other online resources for finding local food too. Check out Local Harvest and enter a zip code or city/state to find local farms, restaurants, grocers and more.

You’ll not only eat well on the road, but you’ll be supporting farmers and the local economy wherever you are. Happy travels!

No dogs, please! ☺

Dogs are not permitted in the market vending area where food is being sampled and sold. Outside the actual market there are areas where dogs are permitted on leash. Thank you!

Declare Your Food Independence July 4th!

50 states. 50 governors. 50 first families celebrating July 4 with locally sourced food. That’s the vision of a group of individuals passionate about the healthful and economic benefits of local food. You can support “Food Independence Day” by signing a petition and emailing Governor Beverly Perdue with a personal request that she and her family eat a locally produced meal on July 4.

Local foods are patriotic, whether you’re buying them from producers in your area or growing some of your own. They’re good for our local farmers, our economies, our health and the environment. Plus, they taste great because they’re so fresh! Join in the effort to ask our country’s first families, and especially Gov. Perdue, to not only lead by example, but eat by example. Kitchen Gardeners International will circulate signed petitions to all the governors’ offices the final week of June and invite them to send their menus, their recipes and the names of their farmers, fish mongers and others providing local food for their meal.

Vendor Profile: Great Harvest Bread Co.

I love what I see—and smell—when I walk into Great Harvest Bread Co. in Cary: loaves and loaves of freshly baked, whole grain bread and smiling staff ready with a slice or a sweet to taste. Recently I visited owner Paige Williams to learn about the business she and her husband, Tom Williams, have nurtured since Great Harvest opened in January 2007. Great Harvest is one of 30-some vendors at the WWFM, and we will feature them in the coming months.

Professional Loafers on Duty

During my visit, I learned the how and why behind their passion for baking bread. Tom’s background in chemical engineering translates into meticulous attention to detail. He and his crew are the early risers in the bunch: their work begins between midnight and 3 AM! They start by grinding the wheat kernels into fresh whole wheat flour in the 1,400-pound, granite stone mill located right in the bakery. The flour then is combined with water, local honey, yeast and salt to form their Honey Whole Wheat bread—a mainstay at the shop. Other natural ingredients are added to make other breads. On any given day, eight to 15 varieties of breads and sweets are available.

At 3 AM, additional team members join in the next step: every loaf is hand-kneaded on the 10-foot-long wooden kneading table! After kneading, Tom knows just the right time to put the bread in the oven to obtain the right rise and texture to the bread. By 7:00 AM when Great Harvest opens, nutritious hand-crafted loaves are ready for sampling and purchase.

So why do Tom and Paige go to such lengths to bake bread this way? This is where Paige's passion begins. Baking breads with fresh-milled, whole grain wheat flour not only produces the best-tasting bread, but the most nutritious too. Great Harvest whole grain breads are full of protein, fiber and B and E vitamins – all beneficial to maintaining a healthy whole food diet.

Taking Part in the Community

Anyone who has met Paige, chief marketer for Great Harvest, knows she’s as warm and genuine as the breads her husband bakes. This enables her to foster a great sense of community in their bakery. She also takes her passion and knowledge to schools, health fairs, public libraries and now, to the Western Wake Farmers’ Market.

“The market is a great fit for us! All of our wheat comes from family-owned farms, and we buy our honey locally too,” Paige said. “We support local farms and that feels good to us, especially in these economic times.” So drop by the store or market, taste the hand-crafted breads and sweets, and pick up a flyer with details on the month’s menu and events. It’s all so good!

Learning at the Market: Butterflies

Butterfly expert and breeder Suzanne Tilton, aka the Butterfly Lady, returns to the market Saturday with her NC-native caterpillars and live monarch butterflies. She will talk with families about what kinds of flowers and plants attract butterflies, the lifecycle of butterflies and more. Don't miss the live butterfly release at 11:30!

Suzanne has been a school teacher for 25 years, the last five in Wake County. After a life-long interest in butterflies, Suzanne began butterfly gardening in 1994. By planting the right nectar and host plants for her area, she was able to bring these marvels of nature to her front window.

A photo story about her visit to the market in early June is posted at her web site.