Category Archives: beaverton farmers market

market joy and classes

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Curious Farm booth at Beaverton Farmers Market

It poured most of the morning, and lots of folks stayed home from the Beaverton Farmers Market.  Those that came anyway were wearing rain gear in a rainbow of colors.  The fun jackets, the flowers, the colorful tents — all made the Market seem even more like a crazy quilt of joy and bounty. 

It wasn’t a warm summer rain at all, and I laughed at the kids wearing shorts, flip-flops and wool ski caps…  until I looked down at my shorts and sandals and realized that I probably was just jealous of their ski caps (making mental note to put one in my supply box).

But what I really want to share is that four formers students swung by today to tell me about their sauerkraut and kimchi-making adventures.  They all are on fire with how this process transforms the season’s bounty into deliciousness.  They told of friends’ stealing their sauerkraut, of making new friends through sharing their fermented vegetables, and of discovering a whole new way of enjoying their gardens this year. 

 photo taken by student Sarah from winter 2012 class (thank you, Sarah!)

From these conversations, *I* came away with some fabulous ideas for new products.  In fact, one former student’s recipe was just so simple and so perfect for Curious Farm customers — just as she shared — that I asked her if I could bring it to the Market and name it after her.  She said yes!  So look for Mary’s Special Sauerkraut by September.  You’re going to love it. (And, since I’m a former writer and veteran of the publishing industry, please know that somehow I will compensate Mary for her gorgeous recipe.)

There’s nothing I love more than teaching classes, but I’m in a pickle right now.  I’m worried about scheduling a class during the summer in the new Pickle Lab because the class may fall on a very warm day/eve.  There is no air-conditioning in the Pickle Lab.  Too many bodies, too many brassicas, too many alliums, and too much heat = uncomfortable.

I am considering the idea of waiting until September/October to do more classes.  However, I know that some customers have been waiting very patiently for pickling and kimchi classes, and it might be very frustrating to wait until autumn.  Thoughts? 

If you want to be put on the email list for notifications about upcoming classes, please email me.  If you so so so want to learn about kimchi-, pickle-, and sauerkraut-making soon (!) that you don’t care how warm the Pickle Lab might be (or what aromas of transformation you might encounter), please email me about that, too.  Okay?  This new commercial kitchen space is an unknown environment for me in summer months.

Thank you.  And thank you to everyone who came to the booth at the Beaverton Farmers Market today — students, regular customers, old friends, and new friends.  You brought such joy on a chilly morning!

 

garlic scapes

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garlicGarlic is so fun to grow.  In this climate, hardneck garlic produces scapes from mid-June until mid-July.  These are the curly, snake- or swan-like stems that come up from the middle of the garlic plant.  We want to remove them so that the garlic bulb can focus its energy on growing bigger.

Usually, I make rustic pesto with scapes from our garden, sautee them with the last of the season’s asparagus, or put them in kimchi.  The taste is clean, green, and pungent — a young pungent, not the mature pungent flavor that you taste in a garlic clove.  When cooked, the flavor softens a bit and becomes more vegetable-like.

This year, since we’ve planted more garlic than ever before, I decided to ferment the first scapes by themselves.  I hear that this is a wonderful way to have mild garlic flavor in the kitchen all year long.  Perhaps this experiment will turn out brilliantly.  If it does, I’ll let you know when jars of potent green scapes will be available at the Beaverton Farmers Market.

love! appreciation! patience!

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Curious Farm booth at Beaverton Farmers Market

Hi Curious Farm friends!

On June 2nd, we had the best day ever at the Beaverton Farmers Market.  We sold out of *all* of our sauerkrauts and most of our kimchi.  I brought considerable stock of five sauerkraut varieties (and I’m so pleased that you like the new Nettle variety because I think it’s special, too), and it was all gone before the end of the Market.  Thank you for appreciating all that goes into a jar of Curious Farm Sauerkraut.

Although I doubled production earlier this year in anticipation of a busy Market season, I see that I need to double production again.  Thankfully, now that the new Pickle Lab is finished, there is more room for me to work, and there is more room for sauerkraut to rest safely during its two-month fermentation period.

This means that sauerkraut availability will be limited until August.  Our booth at the BFM may sell out of sauerkraut each Saturday.  Please come to the Market early if you are looking for Curious Farm Sauerkrauts.  (Or purchase them from New Seasons at Cedar Hills, Orenco, Progress Ridge or Raleigh Hills *or* from Food Front on NW Thurman Street.)  The sauerkraut simply can’t be rushed.  The flavor you love comes from that two-month fermentation period.

Beginning this week, I will increase production of our kimchi and live-cultured vegetable pickles to satisfy some of your hunger for Curious Farm’s live-cultured goodness.  These fermented products often only take two – three weeks to become delicious, and these can tide us over in a lovely way until larger volumes of sauerkraut are available.

Curious Farm is a very small family business.   Making live-cultured foods — with organic produce  and at this scale —  is labor-intensive and costly.  I do all of the vegetable processing, fermenting, and recipe development myself.  My husband D helps me with technical aspects and business decisions.  He also built the new Pickle Lab (all by himself) so that I can produce more for you.  I won’t be able to afford to hire a helper with the vegetables until next year.

In the meantime, remember that I teach classes and will be scheduling a new round of them soon.  You can learn to make delicious sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles, too!

Thank you for supporting Curious Farm.  Your enthusiasm for our products is exciting and affirming.  We are trying very hard to thrill your taste-buds and keep your systems humming with lively culture.  You bring us so much joy!

 

the new pickle lab

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We’re putting finishing touches on the new Curious Farm Pickle Lab.  The inspector comes on Wednesday.  We anticipate that we’ll need to make some changes, but we’ve been agonizing over this new space for six months so we hope her suggestions will be minor.

Last spring, my inspector told me that I had outgrown my Domestic Kitchen License, and she would give me until the Fall (after the Farmers Market ended) to figure out my next steps.  Would I rent commercial kitchen space or build something here?

Because the sauerkraut takes two months to ferment, it seemed cost-prohibitive to rent space.  Also, with E (7 years old) and the need to be flexible for and helpful to my mother and mother-in-law, I really need to work here at home so that I can run off at a moment’s notice.

My inspector came back in December and looked at our garage space.  Since it was already plumbed and had good wiring, she thought that we could rig it up into a designated Food Processing Facility with minimal cost.

And that is what D has been working on for months at night and on weekends — patching, painting, sealing the floor, building the new walk-in, reworking the plumbing, moving sinks and equipment around, building a table sturdy enough to handle the new cabbage shredder.

Frankly, he’s so effing tired of this space that he can’t wait to be done with it.  Me?   I’ve tried to keep up production all these months in increasingly limited space and chose to ignore the garage/pickle lab chaos in order to retain a shred of sanity.

So now I’m moving into the new Curious Farm Pickle Lab finally, and this is what it looks like looking east:

curious farm pickle lab looking east

Here is looking west, toward the sinks.

Curious Farm Pickle Lab looking west, toward sink area

Here is the separate handwashing sink:

handwashing sink

Here is the view west in the Pickle Lab — refrigerators, storage for cases of jars, equipment:

equipment and storage

The refrigerator on the left holds everything that’s heading to the Market the following weekend.  The refrigerator on the right holds our farm’s eggs and a few ingredients like green onions and leeks.  The cabinets hold equipment that I don’t use all of the time, and they hold the organic spices and herbs that I use in the pickles, sauerkraut and kimchi — like this:

curious farm spice cabinet

Although I can’t open it up and show you inside the walk in cold room (I’d let out too much cold air!), this is how it looks from the outside:

Curious Farm walk-in

And here’s another picture of the big work table that D made for me that is sturdy enough for the new manual cabbage shredder (in pieces in the foreground):

work table at Curious Farm Pickle Lab

So…  cross your fingers on Wednesday morning!

pickle watch 2012

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Already many people have swung by the booth to ask when the old-fashioned brined pickles will be ready this year.

August, I think.

Here is what the cucumbers look like today at Curious Farm:

cucumber plants 5/22 portland, oregon

I will buy cucumbers from other farms nearby who have safe growing practices, and they may have some available sooner than what grows here.

Because I ferment the cucumbers (old-fashioned, salt-brined pickles, no vinegar), the fruit must be grown outside (not in a greenhouse), and they must be fresh-picked, young, and dense/hard to turn into a proper Curious Farm pickle.

So we will wait until the cucumbers are just right here near Portland.  And when they are ripe and ready, it will be glorious and dilly!  And there will be pickles in late summer, fall, and even some brine to save for your New Year’s Eve cocktails.

Patience, my friends…  it will be wonderful.

back to Market on 6/2 with nettle sauerkraut!

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Curious Farm booth at Beaverton Farmers Market

Hi friends —  Just a note to say that Curious Farm will be absent from the Beaverton Farmers Market this Saturday, May 26th.

The new Pickle Lab is nearing completion, and we need to put some finishing touches to our new workspace before the inspector comes next week.

nettleI’ll be back at the Beaverton Farmers Market on Saturday, June 2nd, with a big smile on my face and some of our new Curious Farm Nettle Sauerkraut — which is packed with savory, satisfying flavor and minerally goodness.  Nettles are high in potassium, calcium, chromium, copper, magnesium, and iron.  Once cooked (or fermented), they lose their sting — but not their exceptional nutrition.  Come try some!