This past week, the farmers and some of the farm food got out and about.
Vermont Fresh Network held their annual forum and tasting dinner at Shelburne Farms. We were there with Ariel’s Restaurant and Fat Toad Farm showing off what Lee Duberman can do with goat meat and cheese. We were serving Trinidadian Curried Goat Roti with a spicy salsa and asian greens (all from our farm, except for the roti bread makings) and a basil-lemon cheesecake made with Fat Toad’s goat cheese. Both items received high marks from those in attendance., and there were lots of great options from Vermont chef/farmer partnerships. It was a fantastic evening of eating and meeting new folks interested in delicious local food.
Our pork chops are also in Lee Duberman’s hands this month as she has put them on her August menu at Ariel’s Restaurant. If you’d like to see what an amazing chef does with our pork, do check it out.
Alexa, Rose & Laura headed to Rochester, VT, to North Hollow Farm for a Raising Quality Pigs workshop. Like all of the pasture walks organized by the VT Grassfarmers Association and NOFA-VT, it offered some new perspectives and generated interesting conversations about livestock management styles and standards. We have made the choice to pasture all of our animals in a rotational grazing strategy, bringing them to clean, new pastures for browsing, digging, scratching, frolicking and enjoying. It is a time intensive management strategy, but one we believe meets our multi-faceted goals of raising healthy, happy animals; being good environmental stewards; and offering a product that is delicious and that we are proud of. At each step, there are so many decisions and sometimes conflicting goals and demands. It isn’t easy to meet one’s goals for efficiency, profit, humanity, sanity, a healthy world, and quality products, but we strive to find that balance.