Posted by Sherry Hull Peters-Heres a little bit of the article from the Edmonton Journal Yesterday and a couple of pics. EDMONTON - There’s a reason farm-to-fork meals taste so amazing. For one thing, the food is fresh. Knowing how farmers raise the beef, pigs and produce also contributes to confidence in the outcome. But something else made the recent Taste Alberta farm tour and picnic lunch such a delicious experience for the dozens of diners involved. Seeing, first-hand, how hard the farmers work to create the food we ate made our taste buds cheer in support. After watching Mandy Melnyk of Meadow Creek Farms chase her hormone-free pigs around the spacious, straw-filled pen on her farm near Thorhild, why, the bacon on the pickled potato salad seemed all the crisper. Listening to Graham Sparrow, who has a certified organic farm near Opal, describe how it takes three big farm workers to lift a single length of irrigation hose gave extra punch to the pickled radish. Melnyk and Sparrow own two of four farms on the tour, which stretched roughly between Gibbons and Thorhild and also included Kampjes Dairy and Cajun Angus. The tour, held on July 13, took most of the day to complete, but the payoff included a lunch at rural Coronado community hall created by top-notch Edmonton chefs Mike Scorgie (who owns Woodwork) and Chris Tom-Kee (whose kitchen experience includes Canteen and Unheard Of). In the welcome heat of a blue-skied Alberta afternoon, roughly 75 guests relaxed in lawn chairs and on picnic blankets, sampling a wide array of local products and sharing stories about the day’s adventure. Cheery volunteers from the 124 Grand Market, where Melnyk and Sparrow both sell their products on Thursday evenings, attended to guests of all ages. The event was a fundraiser for the market, and a similar day’s entertainment is in the works for harvest season. (Watch this space for details as they emerge.) Five things to know about Meadow Creek Farms: - Run by lifelong farming devotee Mandy Melnyk, Meadow Creek has been a CSA project since 2011 and has 110 members who pay $500 annually (less for seniors) to belong. - Melnyk hopes to achieve 250 members to be sustainable long-term. Members pick up certified organic vegetables (25 varieties, from green beans to spaghetti squash) and free-range meat (pork, turkey and chicken) at drop-off points in Edmonton. - Consumers can select products for individual orders from the farm’s online store; being a member gets you a discount on vegetables and a priority on meat, meaning that Melnyk gives her product to the subscribers before she sells it at markets. - The animals are raised without hormones or routine antibiotics. If an animal becomes sick, it is treated but not slaughtered until 90 days after it has had antibiotics. - Last word: “I never had a vision for the farm to get where it has got, but you evolve. You go with the flow. This year, we are selling garlic scapes and two years ago, I didn’t know what garlic scapes were. People ask, and we just learn.” lfaulder@edmontonjournal Bookmark my blog at edmontonjournal/eatmywords or follow me at twitter/eatmywordsblog
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 19:41:38 +0000
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