My daughter turned 8 years old this week.  She has been very anxious about her birthday and about the whole process of growing.  I giggled a little when she said, “but, Mom…  it’s hard to become 8!”  Then I realized how right she is.  Growth is hard work.

Curious Farm began selling live-cultured pickles in fall of 2010.  In spring of 2011, we brought our live-cultured pickles, sauerkraut, sauces, and kimchi to the Beaverton Farmers Market.   Each week we offered 10 – 14 different products — changing the selection with the seasons.

Later in 2011, Food Front Co-op began carrying some of our products.  In spring 2012, New Seasons Market began stocking two of your favorite sauerkrauts in four westside stores.

Lots of growth.  Lots of learning.  Lots of growing pains!  And there’s been deliciousness, too.

In order to keep Curious Farm growing strong, I need to focus my energies on Curious Farm’s grocery store partners in 2013.  I am bringing Curious Farm’s product line down from 25 to 6 (5 favorite sauerkrauts, 1 favorite kimchi).  I am investing in new packaging for these products (colorful labels with nutrition facts boxes).  I hope to place these products in more stores during the year and to be in stores frequently, offering samples and teaching people about the world of live-cultured foods.

Curious Farm won’t be at the Beaverton Farmers Market this year.  I feel very sad about this because it has been a joy to be there and to meet all of you.  Curious Farm is mostly just me, though, so in order to grow (or stay steady and not go crazy  …truth!), I must manage production and sales differently.

Curious Farm will spring forward with renewed focus and energy  in early April.  You’ll see a new look to our products in stores — new packaging, new logo, more color.  Hopefully, you’ll see our products in *more* stores.  You also will see me at those grocery stores, sharing samples of sauerkraut and kimchi.  Stay tuned for news about our new look and for a list of the six products we will produce in 2013.

Curious Farm’s popular classes will continue in spring, too.    They’re fun and empowering for all.   I love teaching people how to make live-cultured goodness!

Thank you for your support and encouragement.  Growth is challenging.  Curious Farm is growing stronger. I look forward to sharing even more delicious sauerkraut, kimchi and more with you in 2013.

To your health!

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:

Here is looking west, toward the sinks.

Here is the separate handwashing sink:

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

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:

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:

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):

So…  cross your fingers on Wednesday morning!