Availability for October 8

Hello there! It’s already nearly 11pm as I sit down to write this, so once again I’m going to skip the photos and recipes and skip straight to the availability list. Well, after a few announcements…

Yesterday we held our third annual “Hunter’s Moon Feast” out at my place, and it was our best one yet, I think. A good number of people came out to spend the day with us, and even more came to watch the moon rise over the river. Several tents went up on the riverbank for what turned out to be an excellent night for camping. Thank you everyone for coming out and sharing your food with the rest of us. I hope even more of you can come out to join us next year!

The state has given us a deadline for leaving the old market building: we have at the very latest until early December, and might have to be out even sooner, in early November. I’ll be looking at various alternative sites that have been offered to us over the next few days. Truth is, though, that none of them so far are as ideal as our current location, which was originally built for exactly what we’re using it for. I’ll be searching quickly for something that will work with the least disruption for you, the growers, and the market workers. It’s a tall order, and I’ll keep you well informed.

One of the canonical examples of the dangers of the industrial food system is the good old hamburger. A single hamburger patty can have meat from dozens of animals from cows from around the world, all in the effort to shave a few cents of the cost of producing that patty. The New York Times today had an eye-opening article on the problems of manufacturing food this way that does as good a job of making the case for knowing your farmers than anything else I’ve seen. You can read it yourself here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html.

Finally, FOLK is holding their second annual Apple Festival next weekend. I missed it last year, and will have to again this year, but I’ve heard it’s a wonderful family-friendly event. I received this from one of the organizers: "FOLK’s second annual Fall Apple Festival… FOLK (Furthering Our Local Knowledge) is a local nonprofit organization dedicated to reviving traditional forms of understanding and doing things (www.folkathens.org, if you’d like to know more about us). Our apple festival will be held from 1 to 8 on October 17th this year, and we’re trying to bring out more farmers and local artists this year; last year we had 500-700 people, and we’re expecting it to be just as big, if not bigger (depending on weather) this year."

Thanks as always for all of your support of local food, local farmers, and Athens Locally Grown!