I am, at this very moment, making socca.  Anyone know what I’m talking about?  I hadn’t heard of it until about a week ago when I decided to make my household much more gluten-free.  And I thought, while I’m at the major life changes, why not throw in vegetarianism 3 or 4 days a week.  I stumbled across this brilliant blog called My New Rootsand have already spent hours learning from this woman.  What I love most is that the author is a holistic nutritionist and many of her recipes include...

·      The Wonderful World of Dandelions http://bit.ly/GOtaLU

… dandelions aren’t weeds but dynamic accumulators, a type of species that is generally the first to colonize areas otherwise devoid of plants due to fire or other reasons, particularly in poor soil conditions.

·      Food Freedom: Feral Swine or Just Hairy Pigs? http://bit.ly/H0Z3ON

… CAFOs, factory farms are the real issue here. They want a total monopoly on the market for pork products and have found a way to get the government to...

Big Fancy Steak Salad

I have to give a big shout-out to the Pioneer Woman for this amazing recipe.  In anticipation of my in-law’s coming to visit, I ordered a 1.5 pound free range flank steak from Green Bean Delivery (my local organic grocery delivery service – you can check out how I discovered them here) but I had no idea what I was going to do with it.  After an indulgent weekend of bbq pulled pork and two meals out, I knew we needed something on the lighter side, but I wasn’t going to send...

I’ve discovered a secret – prepare yourselves. 

If you listen to Maroon 5 singing “Moves Like Jagger” while putting ingredients together in a crock-pot, you will start to believe that what you’re doing is not commonplace, not mundane – no, what you’re doing will suddenly feel alluring…sexy even. 

Trust me, eat wild, and do it the next time you put a hundred little boring things into a crock-pot.  Like I did with all of this –

(Exact amounts at the bottom of the post)

We had the good fortune of...

The farmers market is anything but boring.  I mean, look what happened in Nashville, Tennessee here.

Who knows when this could hit your local market?!?

The next time you're shopping for free range pork, or perusing the offerings of your neighborhood organic dairy farm, you could easily get caught up in just such a frenzy.  I know I would!

Anyways, enjoy this video.  I bet it was fun to plan and even more fun to pull off in front of unexpecting farmers market goers. 

What are your local markets doing...

·      Feeding The Homeless BANNED In Major Cities All Over America http://bit.ly/GLmeyv and more here http://bit.ly/H3EJvX

·      More on San Francisco Guerilla Grafters http://bit.ly/GQdvtR

·      NG: Grasslands More Diverse Than Rain Forests – In Small Areas http://bit.ly/GD22Qu

But rain forests still have the most plant species on a large scale.

·      Farm renewable energy boost http://bit.ly/GP5iV6

·      Five School Programs Feeding America’s Children (real food) http://bit.ly/zq9odz

·...

What a great way for a city to help promote their downtown farmers' market.  This video will make you smile.  All I have to say is GET DOWN MEMPHIS!

With over 60 vendors, the Memphis Farmers Market is a weekly open-air, non-profit market featuring locally sourced produce, fruits, and meats, in addition to locally produced arts and crafts.

The community is drawn to the venue with its live music, entertainment, children activities, and over 100 cooking and educational demonstrations.  Truly a...

The slow food movement has been brought about by serious health concerns like obesity and cancer that have increasing in prevalence in our nation by the overabundance of refined processed foods these past several years.

"You get more nutrients when you eat fresh food immediately rather than keeping it for a week or two weeks," explains Terry Carkner, the owner of Terry's Berries Farm.

OUT with the OLD, and IN with the WHOLE says this video.  See what you think, and watch this video on healthy,...

Based in Indianapolis, Indiana FarmersMarket.com is a software start-up company dedicated to helping grow the local food systems movement.  We've created software to simplify the task of running a farmers market by providing online tools to help manage daily administrative duties like calendaring market days, maintaining a vendor contact list, enabling group and individual messaging, and providing an online public profile page to showcase a market's information to its customers.

A Beta-tester of...

Anthony Bourdain.  Who doesn't love this guy?

Here he is visiting the San Francisco farmers market... and admittedly hoping to HATE it!  Turns out, he was pleasantly surprised.  As he should be!

Delicious samples of blue cheese and a giant plate of reasonably priced tamales won him over.  Good job Ferry Building Marketplace.  Score one for local food systems!

"that was good"

"thanks for the tip"

"really good"

"all this food is delicious"

...escapes his lips.

Watch this clip as Anthony strolls through...