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The PBS station of of North Carolina I get has started showing Gourmet Magazine’s “Diary of a Foodie”. This week the show focused on a Slow Food group in Melbourne, Australia, and some of the local places where they get their food. While watching about heritage black pork, fresh rhubarb, artisanal wines, and so forth, it got me thinking about how blessed we are here.

For example, last weekend I made a batch of butter with cream from Milky Way Farm. I used the light cream I bought, but could have just as easily used the heavy cream skimmed off the milk. I put it in my stand mixer, let the whisk run for twenty minutes or so, and had about a pound and a half of the sweetest, most wonderful butter you can imagine.

I’ve been using it all week, but tonight I chopped and sauteed an order of mushrooms from Double B Farm (along with a Georgia onion I had on hand) in the butter, let that cook down for 10 minutes or so, added a couple cups of stock and let that simmer for another while, and then added about a half cup of milk from Diamond Hill Farm.

On the side was some lettuces and spinach from Mills Farm and McMullan Family Farm, topped with some crumbled feta cheese from Split Creek Farm, drizzled with some vinegar and olive oil (those two ingredients took the longest trip to get to our table).

That was our Sunday meal, on the whole inexpensive and most every ingredient supplied by people we knew personally. And the reason why we can eat this way, the way (I believe) food should be, is because of you supporting your local growers. From me and all of our growers, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Speaking of growers, we welcome back one of Locally Grown’s founding farms, Two Swallows Farm in Comer. They have been in stealth mode the past few years as Melissa Tufts has been pursuing her professional certification as a landscape architect, but she couldn’t resist the drive to propagate bedding plants and garden seedlings out of her greenhouse. You’ll see her offerings in the “Live Plants” section of the website. I’m also returning to market with the first of the heirloom French Breakfast radishes (I think I know where the last of the butter is going… see my radish description for details) as well as some baby turnip greens. We also have arugula, salad mix, more of that fantastic asparagus, mushrooms, and more besides.

By the way, there is a local Slow Food group here in Athens, started by some Locally Grown members, naturally. They’ve just gotten off the ground, but they do have an email list you can join.

We’ll see you on Thursday, from 4:30pm to 7pm at Gosford Wine!