It’s back – or I should say, they’re back! This morning on our way back from Boston and a great breakfast at the Cambridge site of The Friendly Toast (the original is in Portsmouth NH in all its tattoo’ed glory) with Chris and Grace, we stopped at the Lippett Park Farmers Market. I ran right to the Narragansett Creamery table and got a tub of ricotta cheese – I can’t wait to break into it! I had hoped to get some yogurt as well – I want to start using those strawberries in the freezer for smoothies – but they had sold out. But low and behold – we stopped Farmstead to check out their remodeling job (it’s beautiful) – and they had some of the Creamery’s yogurt. Thanks goodness! If you are in the Wayland Square area, you should check out Farmstead and if possible, eat at La Laiterie at Farmstead. They have a cheese cave – really a temperature controlled cheese room that you can peer into from the retail space. There are so many cheeses sitting there,waiting to be tasted! I’d love to get locked in sometime for a few hours! While at Farmstead we got some cornichons for tonight’s dinner – maybe to go with the trotters? Whatever they are for, I’m glad to have them back! And to have some of Louella’s wonderful cheese and yogurt back in the house is truly a wonderful thing! And Josh was a happy boy as we stopped at one of our favorite bars, Track 84, after hitting the market and Farmstead. Josh had Stone Vertical Epic and Brooklyn Chocolate Stout - it was a dark beer kind of day. And I was a happy girl filling up on Diet Coke and peanuts. Granted some of the items we had today were not local but we did hit many of our favorite local businesses - it’s been a good day so far!
October 3, 2009
Stocking up on the oldies!
Posted by ri100mi under Uncategorized | Tags: beer, cheese, yogurt |Leave a Comment
August 22, 2009
…”THE HOLY GRAIN” HAS BEEN BESTOWED UPON US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…but first, let’s begin the story at the beginning. Grains have been the thorns in our sides during the 100 mile challenge. Due to New England’s climate and limited market for them, grain for human consumption isn’t readily found within our 100 mile radius…until now! Ingrid and I had been planning to head out to Williamstown, MA to see the Prendergast in Italy exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art. We managed to squeeze in a trip yesterday and our itinerary was to head to the exhibit, camp out at Mohawk State Forest on route 2 and then make our way to the Greenfield Farmer’s Market this morning. Since I knew that we were going to be out there, I started searching for farms that may possibly produce grains and most of them were up in VT or ME- out of our 100 mile range…except for a small producer at Upinngil Farm in Gill, MA. I had emailed them earlier in the week and they confirmed that they produced wheat that was sold as flour from their store…a quick glance at our handy 100 mile map confirmed that they were in our radius and we instantly added them to our itinerary…
Friday morning, we packed everything that we thought we would need for a day away from home. We packed all the food, except that we didn’t plan for one thing- rain! We were going to cook dinner that night on a small camp stove but it turned out that the weather would not be cooperating with us. While we were in the Prendergast exhibit, the sky opened up and a deluge ensued, leaving our camping plans in limbo. We got back to the car soaking wet and decided that we would take the short drive over to Mass MoCA over in North Adams to see the Sol LeWitt exhibit (and wait to see if the rain subsides). After dodging some more raindrops to get into the building, we were welcomed by three floors of enormous wall drawings designed by the late LeWitt. The 27,000 square foot building that houses the exhibit was designed exclusively for the installment which is running for the next 25 years! If you’re ever out there it is quite the sight to see! We spent a good two hours wandering around the exhibit while the rain thundered on the tin roof of the building. We realized that camping would probably be out of the picture, so we came up with an alternate plan of driving to Greenfield to see if we could get a room…and to find dinner because we wouldn’t be able to use the camp stove in the hotel room.
Dining out on the 100 mile diet is next to impossible, so we had to loosen the rules a bit and “take one for the team”- a hungry team at that! We ended up going to the People’s Pint in downtown Greenfield which makes their own beer and soda and also serves some locally raised products. The place was a little busy, but after a 10 minute wait we were seated and placed our order. We both shared a “ploughman’s plate” that consisted of a brie-like blue cheese, bread, cherry tomatoes and succotash. This didn’t last too long- everything was excellent and Ingrid was revelling in the moment because it involved bread. Next up was a burger and short ribs- both meats came from a farm in nearby Shelburne and most of the veggies were local as well. While the burger was good, it was the short ribs that blew us away. They were braised in molasses and then finished on the grill which created a caramelized shell on the succulent, soft inner meat. The ribs were served on a bed of baked beans with braised chard and an ear of corn. I can’t profess how good this dish was! Dessert caused a small conundrum as there were so many choices! Ingrid settled on the double chocolate cream cake and some local ice cream and I had the raspberry buttermilk layer cake. The pieces were rather huge, but we managed to finish everything- Ingrid being the confectionery expert thought hers was the better of the two. Not feeling too guilty that we cheated on the diet, we headed back to the hotel to watch the Red Sox get drubbed and fell asleep satiated. Oh- if you ever go to the People’s Pint it is cash and personal check only…no credit cards are accepted.
We woke up todayand headed over to the Saturday Farmer’s market in Greenfield- right in front of the town hall. One of the reasons why we wanted to hit this market was that there was a producer which makes cheese from milk that they produce right on their own farm. Chase Hill Farm from Warwick, MA (coincidence?) had a bunch of cheeses available, so we ended up getting some feta, cheddar, a parmesean-like hard cheese and a farmstead cheese. They also had veal that they raise for sale as well, so we stocked up with some ground veal and veal cutlets. The market was pretty standard- tomatoes, carrots, etc. but we found some leeks and pears that we haven’t seen here in RI. After we poked around, we headed up to Gill to hopefully get some grains.
We made it up to Upinngill (clever!) farm in about 15 minutes and we were totally excited that our wish had come true in the form of whole wheat flour and wheat berries. They started growing wheat on the request of a local baker and eventually starting making it available to the public as well. We ended up getting about 8 pounds of wheat flour and 5 pounds of wheat berries. The berries can be used in various ways and even ground into flour as well. The farm also sells milk products and a whole host of vegetables and fruit- we ended up walking away with a watermelon along with our coveted flour…well worth the side trip! The farm also does mail order, so we’ll have a supply for any future 100 mile endeavors!
-Josh
January 8, 2009
I had a realization this past weekend. Even though Josh and I did the 100 mile diet for two months – I still need to remind myself to buy local sometimes. It’s kind of like when I started using canvas bags for groceries and such – it took me a while to remember I had them in the car and to bring them into the stores. There are some groceries I don’t even think about – such as milk from Rhody Fresh and Josh always buys Rhody Eggs. But other items? I’m a little quick to go beyond those 100 miles – even when the local food is so delicious! We’re not trying to do 100% 100 miles right now not but we support our local food economy as much as possible.
This is what happened. I was shopping at Dave’s (a small, independent supermarket chain in RI) before Charlotte arrived. We were having some friends from CT for dinner on Saturday night so we could all catch up with Charlotte. While I was winding my way through the supermarket, I absentmindedly put potato chips (for snacks) and ice cream for dessert into the basket. Before I checked out, I looked down and thought that there wasn’t much local in the basket. I think because we did the challenge in the summer, I associate those foods with being available during the summer. However, I then remembered one of our favorite desserts – slightly sweetened ricotta cheese from Narragansett Creamery with fruit. I could get the ricotta at the Winter’s Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning and we had sliced strawberries and whole blackberries in the freezer. I promptly put away the ice cream – but I did keep the potato chips. We served the ricotta with the fruit and everyone really enjoyed it. We also had some of Louella’s (the cheese wizard of Narragansett Creamery) mozzerella for an appetizer and some of her blue cheese in the salad. Local – local – local – especially when it tastes soooooo good – soon I won’t need to remind myself!
