"Loxley woman starts greenhouse business in her 50s"- Fairhope Courier

Posted: Friday, July 19, 2013 1:03 pm | Updated: 1:38 pm, Fri Jul 19, 2013.

By Jill Clair Gentry / Food editor

Anita Craine has always been passionate about providing safe, nutritious food for her family. Long before the local and natural food movement, she spent her time searching for local farmers who would give her food she believed was more healthful for her family. She grew the foods she couldn't buy herself.

Anita grew up in a farming family, and her grandfather developed the first farmers markets in Alabama.

“I cut my teeth on dinnertime conversation about a living wage for farmers,” she says.

However, Anita spent most of her adult life as a teacher, wife and mother — she grew her own food at home, but never dreamed she'd one day be a farmer who supplied other families with food. But at 56, she's doing just that. In January, Anita and her son Micah opened Craine Creek Farms, a hydroponic greenhouse business. They provide lettuces and herbs to local restaurants, markets and grocery stores, and in the future, Anita says she will sell directly to customers at the farm.

“We want to grow safe food, and we want to grow delicious food,” she says. “So it really has to be all about the product, all about the lettuce.”

Anita spent three years reading, studying and making contacts with businesses who were interested in buying locally-grown lettuce. She and Micah, who recently graduated from the University of Alabama with a business and economics degree, traveled to South Carolina to train on a hydroponic farm before they even started building. This preparation has led to a successful first six months.

“The learning curve is sharp and long, but we are way ahead of where we thought we would be,” Anita says. “We took the time to go out and meet people and develop relationships. We felt like we knew most of the people we're selling to before we ever built and planted, and that has made a huge difference.”

Al.com: King Cakes are a sure (and tasty) sign of Carnival

By David Holloway | dholloway@al.com

on January 28, 2013 at 1:49 PM, updated January 28, 2013 at 2:45 PM

Click here to view the story on al.com.

MOBILE, Alabama -- Mardi Gras is steeped in mystery and intrigue, a celebration marked by odd customs that can seem odd to folks unfamiliar with our brand of revelry.

Standing on a corner, for instance, and having strangers hurl trinkets and foodstuff to you from passing floats is an unusual way to get ready for the solemnity of Lent. As my good friend Wendell Quimby likes to say “It ain’t for everybody” and we know this and we like this.

But one of the more endearing and unusual customs of Mardi Gras involves a delicious cake that is only available during Carnival.

The King Cake goes on sale, according to legend, around New Year’s Day and is offered throughout the Carnival season. But come Ash Wednesday, when the 40 day lead up to Easter begins, the cake pans are packed away until next year.

Though the King Cake dates back to the 1600s, it is a relative newcomer to the Coastal Alabama party. It is widely held by folks who know (me) that the King Cake was first introduced to Alabama’s Mardi Gras celebration about 1959.

The man who is credited with bringing this tasty cake to the party is the late Fred Pollman of the famous bakery that still bears his family name. Mr. Pollman had visited the Crescent City and he discovered the locals there were all about a brioche cake that was decorated with the colors of Mardi Gras – purple, green and gold.

He fiddled with the recipe and, made it a tad lighter and less dense and he rest is history. It is often sold with a variety of fillings, from cream cheese to jellied fruit; among purists, though, the plain version is also very popular.

Yeah, but what’s the deal with the baby?

A tiny, pink, plastic baby is often hidden within the cake and the finder is then bound by custom to bring a King Cake to the next social gathering of the season. Some commercial bakers now opt not to include the tiny baby inside the cake, choosing to include it with the cake so you can put it in if you like.

King Cakes are widely available from a number of outlets, both in person and online. But if for some reason you don’t have access to one you can make it yourself at home. Be advised, it is a detailed and lengthy process but the cake is delicious.

Take heart, gentle readers. The folks over at Windmill Market in Fairhope, Ala., are going to show you how it’s done. They are hosting a series of King Cake-cooking classes, the next of which is Thursday, Jan. 31.

“Our cooking classes are small and intimate groups where everyone gets a chance to get their hands dirty and get in the middle of the cooking,” said Maggie Lacey with Windmill Market. And if you don’t want to get your hands dirty, she said you can just sit back and watch while enjoying a glass of wine.

“We offer private classes at any time for groups of 8 or more at no additional charge,” she said, adding that if the class is a success they will immediately plan more.

For information on the classes you can call the market at 251.990.8883. 

Breaking Out of Guacamole to Become a Produce Star

By ANNE MARIE CHAKER, Wall Street Journal,  September 19, 2012

When the waitress at the Perkins restaurant said they were out of avocados, Nicole Breedlove walked out, got one from her car and sliced it up at the table herself.

"I was getting the salad for the avocado," says the 43-year-old Silver Spring, Md., mother, who was on a road trip with her family. "It's the substance of the meal."

The avocado is experiencing a sharp rise in sales in grocery stores and casual restaurants. Anne Marie Chaker on Lunch Break looks at how the industry got behind this rise and why consumers are responding and embracing the idea of "the healthy fat." 

Not long ago, avocados were beloved in Super Bowl guacamole but seldom encountered the rest of the year. Now, the fruits are having a mass-market breakthrough, as supermarket sales surge and restaurant chains spread them and slice them on sandwiches and salads.

In consumers' minds, the avocado has been transformed from exotic "fatty food" to everyday source of "heart-healthy" fats. "We fought the health message for years and years. A fat was a fat was a fat," says Mike Browne, marketing committee chairman for the Mexican Hass Avocado Importers Association, a Fallston, Md., marketing group. Now, he says, "the stars have aligned."

More Choice, and More Confusion, in Quest for Healthy Eating

Photo by Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Like many small and midsize farmers, Greg Brown has not pursued organic certification 

because he concluded that it was too costly relative to his profits.

By KIM SEVERSON

The New York Times, Published: September 8, 2012   

ATLANTA — Lisa Todd’s grocery cart reflects the ambivalence of many American shoppers.

Ms. Todd, 31, prowled the aisles of a busy Kroger store here last week. Her cart was a tumble of contradictions: organic cabbage and jar of Skippy peanut butter. A bag of kale and a four-pack of inexpensive white wine. Pineapples for juicing and processed deli meat.

The chicken, perhaps, summed it up best. A package of fryer parts from Tyson, the world’s largest poultry producer, sat next to a foam tray of organic chicken legs.

The conventional food was for her boyfriend, the more natural ingredients for her.

“We’re not 100 percent organic, obviously, but I try to be,” she said. “He doesn’t care, so I’m trying to maintain happiness in the relationship.”

Like many people who are seeking better-tasting, healthier food, Ms. Todd had heard about a recent study on organic food from Stanford University’s Center for Health Policy.

Based on data from 237 previously conducted studies, the Stanford report concluded that when it comes to certain nutrients, there is not much difference between organic and conventionally grown food.

But it also found that organic foods have 31 percent lower levels of pesticides, fewer food-borne pathogens and more phenols, a substance believed to help fight cancer.

For Ms. Todd and countless other shoppers, the study just added to the stress of figuring out what to eat. And it underscored the deep divisions at the nation’s dinner table, along with concerns among even food purists about the importance of federal organic standards.

Click to read more. 

Surge in US cities reaping benefits of farmers markets

Written by The Associated Press, Via Clarion-Ledger

FRESNO, CALIF. — As demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables has increased, so too has the number of urban farmers markets sprouting up across the nation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will announce Friday that the number of direct-sales markets has increased 9.6 percent in the past year, with California and New York leading the way.

"Farmers markets are a critical ingredient to our nation's food system," USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said. "These outlets provide benefits not only to the farmers looking for important income opportunities, but also to the communities looking for fresh, healthy foods."

After 18 years of steady increases, the number of farmers markets across the country now registered with the USDA is 7,864. In 1994, there were 1,744.

Organizations such as Slow Food, founded in 1989 to counter fast-food, junk-food lifestyles, first ignited consumer demand for fresh, local produce.

Today, some markets are so popular that there are wait lists for farmers to sell there, including one of the largest and most diverse of all, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Farmers from across the region travel there three days a week to sell fruits, vegetables and artisan breads and cheeses to thousands of shoppers, including top chefs from the food-centric city.

NY Times: Southern Farmers Vanquish the Clichés

Rebecca Bryant of Watershed Consulting just forwarded me this great article from the New York Times on Southern food that I had to share. Something to think about as we take stock of our relationship with food heading into a new year!

Click here to see the entire article on nytimes.com. They posted a number of photos to accompany the article. The text of the article is copied below.

Southern Farmers Vanquish the Clichés
By Julia Moskin
Published December 27, 2011

IT’S not hard to get Emile DeFelice riled up. Just mention Paula Deen, the so-called queen of Southern food, who cooks with canned fruit and Crisco. Or say something like “You don’t look like a Southern pig farmer.” He’ll practically hit the ceiling of his Prius.

Because there are a few things about Southern food that the man just can’t stand: its hayseed image, the insiders who feed that image and the ignorant outsiders who believe in it.

Home Sweet Home: The New American Localism

Home Sweet Home: The New American Localism

by Linton Weeks  - December 13, 2011 by NPR

You can talk about the global village, a mobile society and the World Wide Web all you want, but many in our country seem to be turning toward a New American Localism.

These days, we are local folks and our focus is local. We are doing everything locally: food, finance, news, charity. And maybe for good reasons.

"One bedrock thing that is going on," says Brad Edmondson, founder of ePodunk and former editor of American Demographics magazine, is that "because of aging and the recession, people aren't moving around as much."

The U.S. Census Bureau backs him up with a news release — based on a recent report — titled "Mover Rate Reaches Record Low." The bureau found that only 11.6 percent of Americans changed their living spaces between 2010 and 2011. That is the lowest rate on record since the Current Population Survey of the United States began tracking geographical mobility in 1948. In 1985, for instance, the changed-residence rate was 20.2 percent.

"With homeowner mobility at an all-time low, more people are putting down roots and getting to know their neighbors," Edmondson says. "At the same time a lot of households have seen sharp declines in discretionary income. They are looking for ways to relax that don't cost as much, and they are substituting cooperation for cash."

The new version of the popular bumper sticker "Support Your Local Sheriff" could become "Support Your Local Everything."

Time Magazine Moneyland Article: Skip the SuperMarket for a Year

SMART SPENDING

Q&A: What We Learned Skipping Supermarkets and Restaurants For a Year

By BRAD TUTTLE | @bradrtuttle | September 15, 2011 |

Last October, Rachel Hoff and Tom Ferguson embarked on an experiment in hyper-locavore healthy eating. For the next 12 months, the couple from Vallejo, Calif., wouldn’t set foot in a grocery store or restaurant. Their family’s diet would consist entirely of non-processed foods gathered from farmers markets, a local sustainable food-buying club, and their own quarter-acre backyard. During the experiment’s final three months, Hoff and Ferguson didn’t buy any food at all—relying strictly on the bounty produced from animals and gardens on their property, and what they could get bartering with neighbors and nearby farmers.

The couple chronicled the year-long challenge in their blog, A Year Without Groceries, and they answer my questions below.

How has your experiment evolved throughout the year—in terms of how you prepare meals and cook, and also the rules you abide by?

Rachel: Our start date was technically October 1st but we had actually stopped buying groceries two weeks prior to that kind of like a test, I suppose. By the time October 1st hit it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as it should have been. I mean, we’d already done two weeks. That’s basically the same as a year, right? As the weeks flew by we started to get into the groove of things and we realized that it wasn’t really as big of a challenge as we thought it would be. Being complete gluttons for punishment we decided after six months that for the last three months we wouldn’t buy any food at all and rely entirely on what we raised, grew, and already had on our shelves.

I enjoyed cooking when we started this, and for the first half of the year I was really into it. I loved making food from scratch that we would normally buy pre-made like cured meats, pasta, mayonnaise, crackers, and cheese. It was that whole “Hey Ma! Look what I can do!” mentality. But it eventually wore off and turned into the equivalent of going to the dentist. I had to do it, but completely dreaded it. The only bonus is that with so much practice I was able to make most of those foods really quickly, thus reducing the amount of pain I had to endure.

In New Food Culture, a Young Generation of Farmers Emerges

New York Times Article we wanted to share...

By ISOLDE RAFTERY
Published: March 5, 2011
Image by Leah Nash for The New York Times

CORVALLIS, Ore. — For years, Tyler Jones, a livestock farmer here, avoided telling his grandfather how disillusioned he had become with industrial farming.

After all, his grandfather had worked closely with Earl L. Butz, the former federal secretary of agriculture who was known for saying, “Get big or get out.”

But several weeks before his grandfather died, Mr. Jones broached the subject. His grandfather surprised him. “You have to fix what Earl and I messed up,” Mr. Jones said his grandfather told him.

Now, Mr. Jones, 30, and his wife, Alicia, 27, are among an emerging group of people in their 20s and 30s who have chosen farming as a career. Many shun industrial, mechanized farming and list punk rock, Karl Marx and the food journalist Michael Pollan as their influences. The Joneses say they and their peers are succeeding because of Oregon’s farmer-foodie culture, which demands grass-fed and pasture-raised meats.

“People want to connect more than they can at their grocery store,” Ms. Jones said. “We had a couple who came down from Portland and asked if they could collect their own eggs. We said, ‘O.K., sure.’ They want to trust their producer, because there’s so little trust in food these days.”

Garry Stephenson, coordinator of the Small Farms Program at Oregon State University, said he had not seen so much interest among young people in decades. “It’s kind of exciting,” Mr. Stephenson said. “They’re young, they’re energetic and idealist, and they’re willing to make the sacrifices.”

Though the number of young farmers is increasing, the average age of farmers nationwide continues to creep toward 60, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture. That census, administered by the Department of Agriculture, found that farmers over 55 own more than half of the country’s farmland.