Roberts veggie booty recall

FDA issued a recall of Robert's veggie booty because it "has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella."

PSFC Produce Update for June 27, 2007

New local organic items 6/25-6/27:
Kirby cucumbers
Freshly dug garlic stalks
Patty pan squash
Nappa cabbage
Garlic scapes have returned in abundance

New organic items:
Plum varieties- showtime, red raven, and santa rosa
Purple potatoes

Other news:
Minimally treated local white cherries
Campari tomatoes have returned
Excellent organic corn is back!

Wholesoy drinkables no more

Wholesoy drinkables have been discontinued by the manufacturer, citing poor sales. They actually were pretty popular at the Park Slope Food Coop. Wholesoy will continue to manufacture the soy yogurts.

PSFC Local Produce Update!!

New this week, local and organic:

All summer squashes are now local:
Zucchini
Yellow zucchini
Yellow squash
Patty pan
Roly poly
Magda (cousa)

Kirby cucumbers
Chicory
Escarole
Garlic scapes (the flower stem of the hardneck garic, which have already
sold out, but will return in abundance on 6/25)
Minimally treated red cherries (white coming 6/26)
Radicchio (Indigo and Verona varieties) First time ever at the Coop!

What Happened to the Watermelons?

We enjoyed an early and long harvest of Florida red and orange organic seedless watermelons. Although the season for the orange ones ended a few weeks ago, members are still raving about them and asking for more. The red ones were as good a Florida watermelon as one could hope for. After selling several tons per week, abruptly, there were none available. So what happened?

Toward the end of the Florida season and before the beginning of the Georgia harvest, we rejected many, many 750 pound bins that were delivered. We tasted watermelons each time. Some were over-ripe, or not ripe, or too pale, or fermented, or just "good enough". We decided that "good enough" was not good enough, and we couldn't be certain that the melon that you would have dragged home and then dragged to your picnic, would even be "good enough".

On Friday, 6/15, we received the first of the Georgia harvest, the sugar baby grown by Lady Moon Farm, which we assessed to be flavorful, pretty good, but very ripe. Five thousand pounds vanished by Sunday. We ordered more for 6/18, but rejected them, because they were now too ripe.

We tried a red seedless from California on 6/20 and rejected them because they were only a little sweet and refreshing, but not enough so. If you bought one, you would probably eat it, but you wouldn't be that happy about it.

On 6/21 we tried a different watermelon, this one from Calavo, the excellent avocado grower. They are sweet, refreshing, and juicy, with a good texture, but they are a trace short on flavor (only a trace), and they are very big. This watermelon is actually good enough for the Park Slope Food Coop. We do hope the quality of the Georgia crop improves, and look forward to the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania harvest in mid-July.

Local ground pork ON SALE -- $2.99 lb. (down from $4.90) while supply lasts.

Perfect for
Ma Po Tofu with Noodles
Meatballs
Stir-fries
Kefta on Skewers
Stuffed Eggplant
Thai Salad with Mint and Cilantro
Meat Pies

....Or anything for which you’d ordinarily use GROUND BEEF.

Grape Harvest

It is easy to forget about all the work that is required to bring food to the table. We take fresh grapes for granted and expect that they will available most of the year. The Washington Post today covered the workers harvesting grapes in Mexico in 100 degree heat.
-Click here to read the article

Allen says we primarily get our organic grapes from California, with the exception of a few weeks in spring when they come from Mexico. I don't know if and how harvesting conditions currently differ in California from conditions in Mexico. According to Joe Holtz, the Coop supported the United Farmworks' Union (UFW) boycott of grapes for more than 20 years by not selling California grapes at the Coop. The UFW charged the growers with unfair labor practices--basically not allowing them to unionize the workers who were then working under unsanitary and unsafe conditions. The boycott drew a lot of attention to the primarily migrant workers' plight, and some improvements were made. When the UFW shifted their focus from workers'rights to their claim that the grapes were poisoned by pesticides, the Coop began buying organic grapes.

Coop Facts: Allen says that right now we are selling about 1800 lbs of organic red grapes and 1400 lbs of organic green grapes per week. He says prices will drop in July and sales will increase. The NY state organic grape season is obviously limited to the fall. California organic grapes are available from late spring to just before Christmas, and occasionally we get organic grapes from South Africa. Allen then fills in with nonorganic grapes from Chile.

Have you noticed how grapes now always come packaged in a zip lock bag? The bags help protect the bunches of grapes and prevent loss from grapes that typically fall off the bunch with handling. (At the Coop, no one would ever want to buy those loose grapes even though they were usually perfectly good, and they were bagged up and given to the soup kitchen.) But the downside is you probably wind up buying more than you would have if they hadn't been bagged and maybe you have grapes spoiling in your refrigerator now. Don't let that happen. Eat them while you read the article and appreciate.

Veggie booty has moved!

Robert's snacks are now being sold above the ice cream freezer with the ever popular snack packs of Pirate Booty and Veggie Booty still being sold in stacks at the end of the ice cream case.

We had been getting wheat-free Chaos, but Roberts discontinued that product so now we are back to the regular Chaos. Actually how we sell Chaos is rather chaotic. We are still selling the small snack bags of Chaos at the back of Aisle 7A, while the larger bags are above the ice cream freezer. Tings and Super Veggie Tings are also there. Lack of selling space is always an issue at the Coop.

Aberdeen Hill Hocks

Those devilishly talented pig farmers at Aberdeen Hill have just delivered
another treat for us—fresh and smoked pork hocks.

These much-loved tidbits are cut from the shank (leg), full of connective
tissue, and some of the toughest meat on the hog. But added to a pot of
slow-cooking beans, collards, or sauerkraut, hocks become meltingly tender
and impart magnificent flavor.

New flavored Equal Exchange Coffees

Look for Equal Exchange French Vanilla and Hazelnut Creme, in Aisle 5B on the shelves below the packaged tea. We are only carrying this coffee ground in vacuum sealed packages. When we sold the flavored beans, members would grind it in our one coffee grinder, inevitably leaving behind aromatic traces that 99% of our members do not like. These are Fair Trade, but not organic, coffees.

Coffee grinding tips:
1) Select the type of grind before you add the beans. Very important.
2) Put the tabbed side of the bag at the back and make sure it raises the lever.
3) When it stops grinding, gently tap the machine so that all of your beans go through and all of the grounds are in your bag. This is also important. No one wants to buy someone else's choice and a lot of coffee is wasted and goes into the tray below.
4) And thanks for putting up with our pesky coffee grinder--it is overburdened by the volume we grind each day, especially by users who do not know how to properly use the machine. We've been told that a more heavy duty grinder than the one we already have does not exist.

Ciao Bella --New Lower Price

Ciao Bella, our local gelato/sorbet company, would prefer that we get their product from our national health food distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI). This would allow them to eliminate local delivery trucks, with all the Big City hassle, and boost the sales with the national distributor.

Consequently, we are being given a lower price from UNFI. I hope that they are able to keep up with our needs or else we may have to ask Ciao Bella to deliver again, at the higher price.

Price drop: from $3.54/pint to $3.04, a saving of 50 cents/pint!

Kosher Hot Dogs Now Available in the Freezer

Now Available in the Coop's Freezer Case:

Wise Kosher Frozen Chicken Hot Dogs
and
Wise Kosher Frozen Beef Hot Dogs

Try out these new dogs and let us know what you think!

BBQ Sauces

Bar-B-Bar BBQ sauces. New This week (actually we had them on Memorial day
weekend . . .)

New Orleans Smoky Blues - Molasses, Tomato & Mesquite Melange
Kansas City Special Select - Orange, Chili & Molasses
Caribbean Calypso - Mango, Chili & Ginger
Out of Afrika - Apricots, Garlic, Ginger & Chili
Bushman's Tucker - Apples, Honey, Onions & Garlic

This Week's Local Produce Arrivals

This has been a great week for local organic produce arrivals at the Park Slope Food Coop.
Here are the different produce items we've received this week from different local farms:

From Various Hudson Valley Farms, we got:

Mint
Baby Spinach
Baby Arugula
Japanese Turnips
Various Radishes
Broccoli Rabe
Bunched Arugula

From Hepworth Farms:

A stunning array of gorgeous heads of Baby Lettuce
Lamb's Quarters

From Grindstone Farm:

Asparagus

From Fingerlakes Organic Growers Cooperative:

Pineapple Mint
Spearmint
Peppermint
French Radishes
Garlic Scallions
Sage
Chives
Thyme

From Blue Heron Farm:

Watercress

From Various Lancaster, Pennsylvania Farms:

Red Leaf Lettuce
Green Leaf Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce
Kale
Collards
Lacinato Kale
Spinach
Dandelion
Mustard Greens

...

And coming in next week:

Organic Red and Green Grapes from Southern Calfornia

Comings and Goings

No Longer Available: Taj Kasmiri sauce
but Coming Soon a good selection of Poonjabi chutneys, sauces, etc.

No Longer Available:JustPikt grapefruit juice in the freezer
Welcome Back American Flatbread Pizzas in the freezer. American Flatbread pizzas are so popular they had trouble keeping up with demand.

And speaking of popularity--GTS kombucha is also having difficulty keeping up with demand. We sell 80 plus cases of it a week from the yogurt cooler, order it three or more times a week and still often our distributor isn't able to bring us all we order. If you want to purchase a case, that is ok, but please remember to take one bottle out of the case, scan it and multiply by 12. This keeps our inventory correct. Kombucha now ranks as the best seller of our worst tasting products. Hey, it is good for you!