Connecticut, magazine

Edible Nutmeg

I picked up the Fall 2007 Edible Nutmeg magazine at New Morning. It’s a great idea and I found it to be mostly a good read but was somewhat disappointed in the lack of follow-through in some parts. For example:

  • In their Letter from the Publishers of the Fall 2007 issue, they pointed out that people were writing in to find out where to get pasture-raised hogs in Litchfield and a CT source of true free-range chickens. While they were looking to make a certain point with their editorial, they never mentioned where one might actually fined pastured chicken and pork in CT?
  • They prominently features an ad for the BuyCTGrown Web site, which looked promising, yet the site is still not ready.
  • The entries in the Edible Events and Fall Farmer’s Markets sections are about to expire. I am not sure exactly when this issue was publicly available, but I am fairly certain that it was past mid-October. I know of one nearby Farmer’s market open until mid-November and one farm stand that will remain open until Christmas and that’s it. Are there others? It would have been more useful to those in the market for local foods to continue these calendars into the date range of the next issue.
  • The article on wine discussed the difficulty of growing red wine grapes in the CT climate but pointed out that there are good Cab Francs here, yet they didn’t say which vineyards were offering them.

Still, it’s an interesting magazine and I look forward to future issues.

UPDATE: I sent an e-mail to Robert Lockhart, the publisher of Edible Nutmeg, and he personally (and quickly) responded to several of my points. I am absolutely fascinated with this!

equipment, putting by

Freezing Food

To save my precious applesauce, pureed pumpkins, pumpkin soup, and various other locally produced and personally processed items, I purchased a FoodSaver home vacuum-packaging system. It sucks out the air and seals the bag. I have beautiful blocks of frozen fare in my freezer!

nutrition, raw milk

Raw Milk

2 Comments

I finally tried raw milk. I read a few articles, like How Raw Milk Got a Bad Rap, The Raw Deal (Washington Post) and What is Real Milk? According to this last reference:

Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.

In my 100 mile radius, raw milk is legal in Connecticut, New York, Massachussets, and Vermont. It is not legal in New Jersey or Rhode Island.

I decided that the health benefits were significant enough if I mitigated the risks. All articles agree: know where your raw milk is comes from. I got mine at Holbrook Farms, a reseller I trust. They get raw milk from Deerfield Farm in Durham, CT.

I understand that Caraluzzi Market in Bethel, CT will begin carrying Deerfield’s raw milk in addition to raw milk from Grassy Hill Dairy in Woodbury, CT.

I’m not much of a milk drinker–you generally won’t find me pouring a tall glass of ice cold milk. I do however take milk in my coffee and on my cereal. Pasteurization occurs at 161 degrees F for 15-20 seconds. My coffee is 160 from the machine and drops instantly to 105 when I add the milk (from the refrigerator). I don’t know if I’m killing my raw milk in my coffee, but I am fairly certain that I’m not doing any worse than I would be with the pasteurized kind.

Planting, harvesting, and sharing information about local food