Taste of Belgium

EpiVentures has reviewed local artisan waffle producers Taste of Belgium, who have recently expanded to the North Market in Columbus.

Nectar Dinner Club

Nectar in Mt Lookout (1000 Delta Ave, 45208) has announced the next three in its fabulous Dinner Club series featuring local foods.  The first series features local artisanal food producers Blue Oven Bakery, Chocolats Latour, and Fab Ferments.  

Handcrafted Bread with Blue Oven Bakery
January 21st & 28th

Sara Schuck and Mark Frommeyer of Blue Oven Bakery produce memorable breads made with fresh, local, and organic ingredients baked in their custom built wood-fired oven. With close to twenty different intriguing flavors such as Cider Raisin Rye, Buckwheat Pear or the popular Bad Boy (a white sourdough with fennel, poppy, sesame and flax seeds) their bread sells out quickly at area farmers' markets.  Nectar Chef Julie Francis will use Blue Oven's handcrafted breads not simply as accompaniments but as the basis for creating the entire menu. 

Chocolate with Chocolats Latour
February 18th & 25th

Shalini Latour's love of chocolate was nurtured while living in Brussels as a teenager. She's been a pastry chef/chocolate artisan for over 15 years, formerly worked at the Bonbonerie, and is the author of The Icing on the Cake. Shalini now creates unique truffles, molded and hand dipped chocolates with classic and modern flavor combinations like Chai Spice, Lime Thyme, or Dark Chocolate Sage. Shalini uses fairtrade chocolate, local ingredients, and earth friendly packaging.  The Nectar menu will be inspired by Shalini's creative use of sweet and savory in Chocolats Latour's artisan chocolates.

Kimchi with Fabulous Ferments
March 18th & 25th

Kimchee is a spicy Korean sauerkraut served at all Korean meals and is a delicious condiment for rich, full flavored foods. Fabulous Ferments, created by Jennifer De Marco and Jordan Aversman, make a number of traditional fermented foods such as sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, kimchee, beet kvass, and kombucha. They use local, pesticide free produce and make the products in small batches by hand, preserving the unique health properties of raw, lacto-fermanted foods. Kimchee is spicy, cooling, and effervescent. It is delicious alone or as a condiment and can also be used as an ingredient in a wide variety of foods like egg and meat dishes, stews, dumplings,and vegetarian dishes.

Price per person: $55  All dinners are on Thursdays at 7pm.  Reservations required.  To reserve your space, call Nectar at 929-0525.

Boulder Belt 2010 CSA Program

Boulder Belt Eco-Farm in Eaton is now accepting applications for their 2010 Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. That's the share they provided the last week of May this year.  Look at all those asparagus!  For complete details, visit the website.

Blue Oven Bread At Park+Vine Sunday Dec 6th

Local farmers Mark and Sara Frommeyer of Willamsburg's Blue Oven Bakery will be selling their wood-fired specialty holiday breads at Park+Vine from 1 p.m. until it's gone Sunday, Dec. 6. For more information contact Park+Vine at 513-721-7275.

Fresh Beef And Soup Hens At Green Acres

GreenAcres (8255 Spooky Hollow Rd in Indian Hill) will have fresh soup hens available December 11th ($2.50/lb) and fresh beef available the week of December 14th.  To place an order or for more information, call Peggy at 513.891.4227 or email her.

Locally Raised Pheasants Available

Jaybird Farms of Mt. Orab is taking orders for fresh or frozen (depending on the date of delivery) ringneck pheasants in time for Christmas.  Hatched on the farm and pasture raised in a flight pen with antibiotic/hormone-free feed.  $8.50 per pound, birds are 2.5 - 3 pounds processed, deliveries available to Milford, Anderson, Loveland, and Montgomery. To order or for more information, call Vivian at 937-442-4800 or email her.

Kinkead Ridge Season Opening

Kinkead Ridge Winery is opening for the season starting May 23.  On May 23 and 25 from 10am - 6pm, visit the winery at 904 Hamburg St in Ripley to meet the winegrower and taste the 2008 new white releases:

• 2008 Viognier/Roussanne
• 2008 white Revelation (a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon blend)
• 2008 Riesling
• 2008 River Village Cellars Rock Springs Vineyard Traminette

The 2006 River Village Cellars Cabernet Franc (Silver Medal, Finger Lakes Int'l) will also be available for tastings.  Entry is free, but the state requires wineries to charge for tastings.

Fabulous Ferments

There's a new fermented-foods business in town: Fabulous Ferments, run by  Jenn DeMarco and Jordan Aversman. They're offering a variety of fermented raw foods from their basic sauerkraut (which contains only cabbage and sea salt...everything else is contributed by the natural fermentation process) to kimchi, cortido (a Latin-American sauerkraut), tsukemono (a Japanese sauerkraut) and a Ginger-Carrot ferment.  They're planning several pickle offerings (also fermented, not vinegared) soon.   Products are available at Findlay Market Farmers' Market, Northside Farmers' Market, West Chester Farmers' Market, and College Hill Farmers' Market. 

Kinkead Ridge Cabernet Franc "Best Value"

Nancy Bentley of Kinkead Ridge reports that a small group from the Cincinnati chapter of the American Wine Society recently blind tasted eight Cabernet Francs from France, California, North Carolina, and Ohio and named Kinkead Ridge's 2001 "Best Value."

Work For Food program at Thistlehair Farm

Vicky Tewes of Thistlehair Farm has a really interesting program she's offering in addition to the traditional CSA she offers: a Work For Food program.

Under this program, a few hours' work translates into a week's CSA share. That's right -- work five hours a week at Thistlehair Farm and get an entire CSA share's worth of food, a box of whatever is growing on the farm that week, in exchange. Plus the satisfaction of helping grow your own food and whatever knowledge and expertise you can absorb working alongside an organic farmer.

This is a great idea for those who'd like to eat more locally but have more time than money, for those who are worried that fresh, local ingredients will cost more than the industrial outputs they normally buy at the supermarket, and for those who'd like to learn how to garden organically.

Contact Vicky for more information.

Ohio Proud Marketing Meeting at Bigg's

Growers and producers interested in selling to Bigg's as part of their "local products" program are invited to attend a marketing meeting set up by the Ohio Department of Agriculture's Ohio Proud program at the Mason Bigg's (9600 Mason Montgomery Rd, Mason, OH 45040) on Thursday March 26th from noon - 3pm. Registration fee is $10 (box lunch included.)  Pre-registration is required; deadline for receipt of checks is March 20th.  For more information contact Lori Panda or call Ohio Proud at 800.467.7683.

Lamb at GreenAcres Monday

GreenAcres will have fresh lamb on Monday; call or email Peggy at 513 891 4227 to place an order.

City Cellars Wine Dinner featuring Just Cured

Michael Brown of Just Cured will be the featured chef at City Cellars' (908 Race St, 45202) next Wine Dinner on Friday, February 27th from 7 - 10pm.

Michael's menu for the evening:

• Roasted beet and goat cheese salad
• Risotto with asparagus and asparagus puree
• Just Cured half smoked salmon cooked sous vide, wild mushroom and cabbage sauté, pinot noir butter sauce
• Milk chocolate pretzel tart

(A vegetarian substitute will be available for the salmon course; be sure to advise City Cellars when making your reservation.)

Price per person is $35; wine and beer can be purchased from City Cellars at retail prices. For more information or to make reservations, call 513.621.9463.

Slow Food Cincinnati's Sugaring Tour & Maple Syrup Tasting

Slow Food Cincinnati is offering a tour and tasting of Clough Valley Sweets' (5531 Clough Pike, 45244) maple sugaring operation the afternoon of February 28th. The tour will start at 3pm (exact and is free, but space is limited and you do need to reserve your spot.

Just Cured Available at Kroger, Dorothy Lane Market

Starting Friday December 19th, Just Cured smoked salmon and gravlax will be available in select Kroger stores in the Greater Cincinnati area. The initial stores to carry the salmon are:

Kenwood (Fresh Fare by Kroger)
Hyde Park
Anderson
Harper's Point
Blue Ash

Just Cured is also now available at the three Dorothy Lane Market locations in Dayton.

Boulder Belt's Farm Share Program

Boulder Belt has updated the page for their 2009 Farm Share program (which is similar to a CSA but has some important differences from most CSAs.) For more information, visit their site.

Last Open-Winery Date for Harmony Hill

Harmony Hill winery & vineyard will be open one last time this year on Saturday Dec 13th from noon until 5pm and will then close until May of 2009. Their wines are also available at Biggs locations in Anderson, Hyde Park, Eastgate and Mason

A Split Half of Beef

Our split half (that's one-fourth of a cow) from Hillsboro-area farmer Adam Hershberger of Highland Haven arrived yesterday, 108.5 pounds of beef at $2.15/pound, plus processing charges of $60 for a total of just over $293. That works out to $2.70 per pound and includes steaks, roasts, chops, ribs, ground beef, and all the other cuts. And it's a lot of meat -- I had two medium-sized coolers filled.

For those who are interested in eating locally but worry that it'll cost more, I have to believe that this much beef -- which I think will probably work out to around a year's worth for my family, as we tend to eat beef maybe once a week or so -- for this little money is an incredible deal. If you have a freezer and the financial ability to shop in bulk, I can't imagine you'd be spending more on this unless the only beef your family normally eats is ground beef.

I'm glad I asked for a share of a smaller cow -- I was fortunate that it all fit into my freezer! And fitting it all in pretty much destroyed my careful organization. Usually I keep beef (along with beef bones and beef stock) on the bottom shelf, pork on the second, poultry on the third, seafood, lamb, and butter on the fourth, fruits/veggies on the top shelf, and flour/grains/nuts in the door. With several dozen packages of beef arriving, I had no choice but to shove some of it in with other things. And of course I should really get any older beef out first, so that's going to mean taking things in and out for a while. I'm hoping by the time I get all the older beef out, I'll have figured out how to get all the new beef onto the 'beef shelf.' Being the AnRet that I am, I'll probably be out there this afternoon trying to organize it. I want to add a layer of wrapping to help it keep longer, anyway, so I might as well do everything at once.

There are a lot of cuts included that I've never cooked before. I'm really looking forward to this as a challenge -- what do you even do with beef liver? Oh, wait a minute...liver and onions, right? I tried a bit of a friend's order once in a restaurant, years ago. Bleah. Tasted like mud. Oh, well, maybe I can find something else to do with it. Suggestions are welcome!

It's going to be an interesting education in proportions, too. My family eats a lot of ground beef and the very occasional steak or ribs or roast and not much else. I don't really even have much understanding of how much of any one cut is on a given cow.

It's Not Too Early to Think About a 2009 CSA

If you're thinking next year might be the year to join a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA), you should probably be investigating now. Several CSAs in our area have started taking reservations for next year's programs, and others are putting together their waiting lists already.

Here's information on everything I could find. If anyone knows of additions or changes, let me know and I'll update.

Balanced Harvest Farm
pick up: Carmel, Broad Ripple, and Meridian St. Farmers' Markets
June thru October (June thru September for spring/summer shares)
Full and half shares available.
Spring/summer shares (17 weeks) and full season shares (22 weeks) available.
Accepting applications now for the 2009 program.

Bluebird Hills Farm
pick up: farm in Springfield, OH, or pickup locations in Yellow Springs, Dayton, Clayton, Beavercreek, Bellbrook, Lebanon, Kettering, Centerville, Tipp City, West Chester
May/June thru October
2009 application will be available in January.

Boulder Belt Eco-Farm
pick up: at the farm in Eaton OH
April thru October (31 weeks)
Monthly shares available; pick and choose which months you want to participate
Accepting applications by early December via the farm's website; join the email list to receive notification when applications are being accepted.

Cedarmore Farm
pick up: at the farm in Hillsboro OH
May thru October
For more information: leave message at 937-588-2195.

Earth-Shares
pick up: at Grailville in Loveland OH
mid-May thru mid-November (26 weeks)
working and non-working shares available
Accepting renewals from 2008 members. Probably full for 2009, currently accepting names for waiting list.

Eaton Farm
pick up: at farm in Madison, IN or at Hyde Park Farmers' Market
May thru October
full and half shares available
Currently accepting reservations for 2009 program. Contact via email link at their LocalHarvest listing.

Elmwood Stock Farm
pick up: at farm in Georgetown, KY
mid-May thru mid-October (22 weeks)
Three share sizes available.
Currently accepting requests for the 2009 season.

Fox Run
pick up: at farm in Falmouth KY or pickups in Alexandria and Dry Ridge.
(20 weeks)
For more information: Email

Goodlife Farm
pick up: home delivery (as far south as Kenwood area)
June thru October
pick up at farm also available for reduced rate
For more information: 937-212-3720 for more questions, or email for an application form.

Gravel Knolls Farm
pick up: at farm in West Chester
June thru September (18 weeks)
2-person, 4-person, 6-person shares available
Accepting reservations now for the 2009 program.

Greensleeves Farm
pick up: at Findlay Market or Campbell County Farmer's Market
mid-May thru October
working and nonworking shares available
Accepting reservations now for the 2009 program.

Hazelfield Farm
pick up: at Hyde Park Farmers' Market
May thru October (22 weeks)
whole and half shares available
Currently accepting reservations for the 2009 season.

Hidden Ridge Family Farm
pick up: at farm in West Union OH or at dropoff points in West Union and Peebles OH
May thru October (24 weeks)
Five share sizes available
For more information: 937-544-0778

Martin Hill Farms
pick up: at Hyde Park and Northside Farmers' Markets
May thru November (30 weeks)
Currently accepting limited numbers of new members, but space is very limited and will likely fill soon. For more information, visit the website to see how the CSA operates, then Email.

Pennington Hollow Farm
pick up: Batesville and Brookville IN
June thru September
working shares available
For more information: Email

Pickin and A-grazin' Farm
pick up: at farm in Morrow OH
May thru October
Currently accepting reservations for the 2009 program.

Stoney Hedgerow Farm
pick up: at farm in Camden OH
May thru October (25 weeks)
working shares available (25 hours for the season)
Currently planning 2009 CSA. For more information: Email

Thistlehair Farm
(Thistlehair is currently deciding whether or not to offer a CSA next year; we'll update when they make a decision.)
pick up: at farm in Union KY
May thru October (20 weeks)
For more information: 859 384-3317

Turner Farm
pick up: at farm in Indian Hill
May thru October (22 weeks)
working shares (44 hours)
Full for 2009, but accepting names for waiting list. Leave a message at 513-561-7400 to add your name to the list.

Kinkead Ridge Takes Top Honors in 1st Ohio-Michigan Wine Clash

Kinkead Ridge's 2006 Revelation won "Best Red" in the first Ohio/Michigan Wine Clash, sponsored by Slow Food Columbus. Separate judging events were conducted simultaneously in Ann Arbor and Columbus to coincide with the Ohio State-Michigan football game. Over 60 wines were blind-tasted by judges, who were wine retailers, restaurant proprietors, accredited wine professionals, wine enthusiasts and writers, including Wine Girl.