"Local" Lore

After my "CCC" relaxed lunch on Friday, Saturday turned out to be an interesting day..   a couple of real “local” things.  I know “buy local” are the “in” buzz words right now, and there are many definitions of what that constitutes, but I think I did hit the mark…

The day began a little inauspiciously when I showed up at the ceremonies for the start of the “oyster reef” project down at St. Mary’s College near their (in)famous boat house.  The plan is to begin restoration of oyster reefs to help replenish the oysters in the area.  I showed up right on the dot of ten, and only then found out that ten was the “set up” time, not the time of the actual event. So I got a quick shot of the first piece to be deployed in St. Mary’s River, which will form the basis of an artificial reef.  I must admit I don’t know too much more about it.  Certainly more of these are needed to form any sort of meaningful housing for Oyster Spat….

 

Turned out the real event started at noon, as did the immensely popular Trinity Church Dinner so the thought of more cars vying for the few parking places down there made me decide to just head home.  Since I had new found free time, I decided to stop at our new(ish)

 

It was a good day and well attended by both suppliers and consumers.

 

Inside it was pretty well packed, with spaces divided between actual farm stands and various crafters, bakers, certainly “homemade” local stuff.  Not my cup of tea, but okay.  Our local Port of Leonardtown winery had a little stand, populated by the always gracious winemaker and wife.  There were many families, small kids everywhere, poking into this and that, neighbors chatting, and generally having a good time.  Many of our local farms had stands with greens, various vegetables, root crops, and good stuff.  It’s so pretty…

 

 

 

I was very pleased to see that a meat vendor was in attendance, in this case WAG farms (near Leonardtown).  There was a freezer cabinet with small packages of their various products (which I now wish I would have captured on…. ones and zeroes, but didn’t).  A white board listed the stuff available (note handwritten, no powerpoint here--"local")

 

Note that Scrapple is offered… can’t get any more local than that!!  I talked with the gentleman  a bit about grass feeding or grain, this and that, so I decided that I couldn’t leave without getting a sample (it’s my duty) so I chose a

 

Although goat burgers were available, I thought maybe for an initial purchase I would go with a little less adventurous choice.  So, I took it home, thawed it out, and prepared it for the grill

 

Note the nice marbling which he attributed to finishing off the feeding of the cattle with grain rather than strictly grass.  I salted it with Kosher salt for a couple of hours, applied some Penzy’s Chicago Steak Seasoning, (the Northwoods Fire is added just after cooking during the resting period.  I grilled it until the internal temp was about 130 or so – I have found with some cuts of firmer meat that the “press test” can yield inaccurate results – so while I generally go by the thumb test I also check with the thermometer.  There are a few (not so nice) stories about using just the pressure method which I won’t go into here.

Anyway, after letting it rest for a bit, we put it to the fork, and I am very happy to report that it had excellent "beefy" flavor and texture which we thoroughly enjoyed. Sorry ,LongHorny Roadhousy Outbacky, I will go back and expand my selections from a local producer.  In particular, one of the things I lament about supermarket meats is that their pork has evolved into a tasteless, fatless, protein substance with almost no flavor.  Hopefully some of the “local” varieties will prove better.  Reports to follow (maybe including goatburgers!)

As I have often said, the challenge of “buy local” is to give me a product that is better than I can get from chains or delvered by silver sided trucks from a far away food distributor.  They thrive on consistency, but generally at a consistently mediocre level.  Enough of that for now..

A quick note on…. airport food.

What did you say, Mr. Feeder?  Airport Food? Well, I get daily posts on my mobile devicefrom various sources  that cover restaurant changes, openings, and food trends, and while they are informative, I don’t like to just fire them at you..  However, I got one yesterday that did catch my eye which might be worth passing along..It was entitled: “Food Network Opens First Restaurant in  (sic) Fla. Airport”.  Goes on to say that a casual eatery called the Food Network Kitchen in Terminal 3 will “feature dishes created by the lifestyle network’ slate of celebrity chefs such as Paula Deen.”  OMG, get me to a ticket counter.  Want to try the airport version of cuisine from the high priestess of “y’all”, profanity, and plastic surgery.  Think I’ll go back to WAG.

Worth Keeping for Reference

Here’s a nice link for local farms that supply meats (and other products) for you to keep as a reference..  Look out for them.  We need them

 

 

DFD