The snow is still piled outside my window, which means we have a few more weeks to hibernate in these hills. So while the woodstove cooks away, I thought I’d take a few moments to send you some helpful articles and share some of our grassfed cooking news.
Understanding Grassfed Stew Beef
When selecting your stew beef, keep in mind that there are essentially two
different types: lean fast-cooking, and juicy slow-cooking. Both
types are delicious, and both have a place in your kitchen. Read
the full article.
Choosing Meat Cuts for the Spring-Summer Market Season
Ok, it’s true. It’s only February, and many of us farmers
are knee-deep in braising and stew season (among other things). Our
customers are fixing pot roasts for Sunday dinner, or stirring up a bunch of
chili for their weeknight suppers. It is lovely to dwell in this
happy land of winter feasting, but as farmers, we need to be looking forward
to the spring and summer market season to make sure that we have an inventory
of meats that will satisfy upcoming customer demands. Read
the full article.
Farmer and the Grill Cookbook Price Breaks
Thanks to all of you who have sung the praises for my latest cookbook on grilling, barbecuing and spit-roasting grassfed meats. Our first year sales were much better than we anticipated, and we’ve gone into a second printing. As many of you know, the book will be distributed by Chelsea Green this spring, and will therefore be available through mainstream bookstores and online retailers. Still, I’d naturally prefer that you continue to purchase it from me directly. Toward that end, while the retail price has gone up, we are holding at the old price until we have run out of copies from the first printing. The lower prices also hold for the bulk discount schedule. So if you need a supply of books for your customers, now is a good time to purchase. Go to the Grassfed Cooking.com store to place your order.
All New Don’t Over-Do It Magnets
All of you who’ve read my books know that I advocate cooking grassfed and pastured meats to different temperatures than those recommended by the USDA. We saw many copies of my cookbooks grow care-worn on the pages that showed these cooking charts. To make your life easier, we had handy refrigerator magnets with these cooking charts printed up at a local factory last year. A number of farmers began purchasing them for their customers, and asked about having them personalized. Unfortunately, the cost for personalizing was quite high. So this year we’ve created new magnets that have a one-inch space on the bottom where farms can adhere a sticker with their contact information, conveniently helping customers know how to reach them. (The picture on the website still shows the old ones…I promise to update that soon!). Go to the Grassfed Cooking.com store to place your order.
Spring and Summer Event Schedule
My calendar is starting to fill up with workshops, classes and speaking engagements for the spring and summer seasons. I truly hope I’ll cross paths with a few of you during my travels!
As some of you know, our family will have an unusually active travel schedule as we journey around the U.S. and Canada in the coming months to research my new book on Enlightened Homemaking. If any of you are interested in scheduling a workshop or talk while I am in your part of the country, please get in touch with me. A few of you have already begun setting up events on the West Coast for when I’m out there this fall, and I’m looking forward to meeting up with you. Until then, here are some events for the next few months:
March 9th
Easter Dinner Workshop at Howard Hall Farm, in the Hudson River Valley. Learn
more at www.HowardHallFarm.com.
March 10th
Lecture, State University of New York at Albany, 7:30 pm. Contact Mary
Ellen Mallia, 518 956-8132. mmallia@uamail.albany.edu
March 27th
Lecture, Binghamton University. Contact Diane Campbell, dcampbell@binghamton.edu
March 28th
Lecture, Grasstravaganza, Binghamton, NY. Call 607-334-3231, ext. 4,
or visit http://www.cnyrcd.org.
April 12th
Lecture and grilling workshop, Full Circle Farm, Live Oak, FLA.
Contact Dennis Stoltzfoos thisisdennis@juno.com
May 1st
Lecture and possibly workshop, TBA, Malone, NY contact Bernadette Logozar bel7@cornell.edu
May 2nd
Lecture and possibly workshop, TBA, Northern NY, contact Bernadette Logozar bel7@cornell.edu
May 3rd
Lecture and possibly workshop, TBA, Thousand Island Region, contact Bernadette
Logozar bel7@cornell.edu
July 24th
Grilling workshop, Cutler Botanic Garden, Binghamton, NY. Contact Laura
Biasillo, lw257@cornell.edu.
Happy market season!
All best,
Shannon Hayes
Sap Bush Hollow Farm