Calendars Galore!

All the 2008 calendars are in the Coop -- we've got something on every subject from cute puppies to the phases of the Moon to revolutionary politics, so stop by the display and pick up some hot dates : )

-- Elinoar

Amish Soup Chickens!

New Item: Stewing hens from Lancaster County Farm Collective! These tough old birds used to lay eggs at a farm outside Quarryville, in eastern Pennsylvania.

You wouldn't want to try to roast or broil one of these, but there's nothing better than an elderly hen for your soup pot -- older birds have more flavor per ounce than young ones. Try one in your favorite chicken soup recipe and find out what you've been missing all these years!

-- Bill, Meat & Poultry Guy

Fig and Date Almond Cakes



mmmmm . . .cakes

Freshly pressed by hand in Valencia, Spain. Excellent paired with cheese or sliced thin, added to salads.

Local Items of the Week

Tilsit from Harpersfield, NY
Ron and Corrine Brovetto have done it again with two new Tilsit style cheeses from their small dairy farm in upstate NY near the Catskill Mountians. I visited them last weekend and saw the "cave" that they age the cheeses in and tried some new raw-milk varieties they were working on. This week we got in Rosemary Tilsit and Cranberry Tilsit. Both are brilliant and compliment full, rich holiday flavors.

American Vintage Wine Biscuits
Delicious little biscuits perfect for cheese or eating all by themselves. Made right here in NYC - Long Island City to be exact - Right now we have Red Wine and Black Pepper and we'll try out some new flavors as the holidays progress.

Amy's Kids Meals

New in the freezer case is Amy's Ziti meal for kids. It is gluten and dairy free, contains some broccoli and a small dessert. -Click here for more info on this product-

Holiday Items just in . . .

Available now in the butter case for all your holiday and baking needs: Buerremont 83% pastry butter at the low, low price of $2.94/LB. Made in the cultured French style in New England. Get it while we have it. The sample table in the membership office thought it was great.

Cacao Noel Chocolate Semi-Sweet Bar A rich 52% cocoa liquor chocolate bar for baking, confections and eating! – 7oz for $1.46

Cacao Noel Chocolate Noelettes Delicately rolled dark and white chocolate batons. Great for decorating desserts, ice cream and beverages. 2oz packs for $1.74

Valrhona Chocolates – A wide assortment of bars, cocoa and gift boxes for the holidays. Priced to move!

Yuri

Thanksgiving Turkeys at the Coop

FRESH turkeys available beginning
Tuesday, November 13th

Plainville Farms Pasture-raised (New York)
16 to 24 lbs., $2.35 lb. (November 15)

Eberly Certified Organic (Pennsylvania):
8 to 24 lbs., $3.67 lb. (November 16)

FROZEN Wise Kosher Certified Organic (Pennsylvania):
12-24 lbs., $3.45 lb. (November 13)

Stonewood Farm Pasture-raised (Vermont):
16 to 20 lbs., $2.35 lb. (November 19)

Murray’s (Pennsylvania):
12 to 24 lbs., $2.42 lb. (November 13)

Bell & Evans (New Jersey):
8 to 26 lbs., $2.14 lb. (November 13)

Jaindl Farms (Pennsylvania):
10 to 16 lbs., $2.25 lb. (November 13)

All the above are delivered FRESH, except for Wise Kosher. All are locally raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free.

RISING GRAIN PRICES LED TO HOLIDAY SHORTAGES. BUY YOUR HOLIDAY TURKEY EARLY.
SMALL SIZES GO FAST.

Current Out-of-Stocks in the PSFC Freezer Section

Dear Co-Owners and Co-Workers,

This stuff is all out of stock from our distributors for various reasons:

Boca Burger Garden Vegetable
Frontera Roasted Vegetable Pizza
All of the Ling Ling Products
Natural Sea Crab Cakes
Omega Salmon Burgers
Perfect Addition Chicken Stock
P.J.'s Chicken Burrito and Breakfast Burrito
Putney Butternut Squash, Mushroom and Spinach
Quorn Gruyere Cutlet
Shelton Turkey Sausage
Tandoor Chef Naan and Chana Masala
All of the Bell and Evans ChickenApplegate Chicken Pot Pie

This stuff has been discontinued by our distributors for whatever reason:

Cedarlane Garden Enchilada, Vegetable Lasagna and Three Layer Enchilada Pie

Always a bit chilly,
The Freezer Guy

PSFC Globe-Traveling Produce Update for 10/12/07

Here's what's new from around the world and around the globe. And please don't yell at me about the food miles; these are some concessions for the sake of variety and adventurousness

Local cherry and grape tomatoes are winding down, so we have added Lady Moon grape tomatoes, and Del Cabo sugarplum tomatoes.

Organic asparagus from Argentina

Rambutan from Guatemala. (Think gorgeous, hairy, expensive lychee). Eats like a lychee

Black Mission figs and North American blueberries are ending. Organic Fair Trade blueberries may start soon.

Organic hachiya persimmons are slowly starting. They are the kind that must be ripened until marshmallow soft.

Organic pomegranates

Organic pluots, the flavor fall and the flavor gem arrived this week. Many members decided that the flavor gem, a pluot that is a cross between an apricot and a black plum, was really a plum. It is not, it's a pluot. Looks like a plum, but it's a pluot. Really, it's a pluot.

PSFC Local Produce Update for 10/12, 2007

Here's what's new and local this week from local organic farms:

Cranberries

Kiwi berries-the no fuzz, no peel cousin of the traditional kiwi. Pop them in your mouth and eat them like grapes.

Loose spinach has returned from the Finger Lakes, and most of the bunched spinach is from the Catskills.

Brussels sprouts on stalks have begun. We have found some worms in the early harvest, so we might have a gap in availability.

White and orange cauliflower are now available from Hepworth Farms and Finger Lakes Organic Growers Cooperative. To the members who wonder how can cauliflower be orange, I say how can cauliflower be white?

Amy Hepworth has harvested the last of her sour gherkins, a tiny cucumber about the size of a grape tomato.

Lima beans and okra have returned for perhaps a last hurrah from Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop.

Limited supplies of various local sweet potatoes have arrived. Most of them are the beauregard variety. Jewel is the California word for beauregard.

Winter squash making their first appearance of the season:
Hubbard (red, blue or green)
Red kuri (AKA orange hokkaido)
Sweet dumpling and carnival (both in the acorn family)
Sweet mama (variety of buttercup, but it often doesn't have a cup!)
Black futsu (a perfect squash for all of your black futsu needs)


News from the minimally treated apple orchards of Amy Hepworth:

Cortland and Spartan are ending. Empire and Mutsu (New York state calls them crispins) arrived this week, and Jonagold and Stayman Winesap begin next week.

Fall Frozen Ground Beef Blowout!

We've got more locally-raised, grass-finished ground beef in the Coop freezer than we know what to do with, so we're putting it on sale! All frozen Hardwick, Natural Acres, Slope Farms, and McDonald Farm ground beef is priced to sell at $3.50 a pound...down from nearly five dollars, and more economical than most square supermarkets' ground chuck. So put meatballs on the menu and stock your home freezer with some of the best hamboiger in Brooklyn!

Please bring your reusable shopping bags

Today the Washington Post has a terrific chart on the environmental cost of paper and plastic shopping bags. -Click here to see the chart-

The chart details the costs of production of these bags. Very interesting--paper leaves a much bigger footprint than plastic, and you already know about the havoc plastic bags create in the environment. But please read the fascinating and colorful chart, and you'll never forget to bring your string bag, Chico bag or Trader Joe's bag with you when you shop.

I personally enjoy seeing the wide variety of bags members bring to the coop. Some members are still using bags we sold many years ago but are no longer being manufactured. When I see a great bag I frequently ask the shopper where they got it and often it is from a supermarket in Europe. So we have to catch up! At the Coop we are working on improving our shopping bag selection.

And thanks to the very many Coop members who do bring their own bags. I'm sure none of you are among the 70% of Americans who do not know that plastic bags are made of petroleum (re the Post).

PSFC Frozen Foods Update for 10/9/07

Howdy Coop Shoppers:

We have a few new items for sale in the frozen foods section of the Coop.

Look for:

Amy's Single Serve Cheese Pizzas

Alvarado St. Bakery California-Style Sprouted Bread. Made of: Sprouted Organic Whole Wheat Berries, Filtered Water, Wheat Gluten, Honey, 100% Pure Barley Malt, Organic Millet, Organic Oats, Sea Salt, Fresh Yeast, Soy Based Lecithin, Sprouted Organic Corn, Sprouted Lentils, Sprouted Organic Soy Beans, Cultured Wheat.

Wholly Wholesome Pie Shells. These ready to bake pie shells are made with organic ingredients.

Morrison's Soups: Clam Chowder and Seafood Chowder. These are soups from Maine made with many Maine ingredients.

NEW PRODUCT — AMISH BUFFALO FROM LANCASTER COUNTY

Lancaster Farm-Fresh Coop of Quarryville, Pennsylvania, which has been supplying the Coop with homegrown spuds and other fresh produce for the past three years, is now bringing us lean ground bison and delicious bison dinner sausage. This free-range, grass-finished local buffalo will be replacing the Canadian ground buffalo now sold in the refrigerated meat case (we'll continue to carry the buffalo rib-eye steak).

The new bison is being sold from the frozen display case in Aisle Three; we're negotiating with the Pennsylvania farmers to get it to us fresh.

Grill, broil, or pan-fry the sausages and serve with mashed potatoes and onion gravy for a Yankee take on the traditional Brit meal of "bangers and mash."

ONION GRAVY
2 medium yellow onions, peeled & sliced from root to stem
1 tblsp butter
1 tsp paprika
1 tblsp flour
1 cup beef or chicken stock
Salt & freshly ground pepper

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat; add onions and slowly saute until limp and beginning to color, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle flour over wilted onions, stirring, and cook until the raw flour scent dissipates. Slowly stir in stock, making sure lumps of flour dissolve into a smooth sauce, and simmer until the texture thickens into gravy.

Serves 1-2.

Transition to Local Fall Vegetables

As the days grow shorter and cooler, the nights grow colder, and the sun's rays become less direct, the conditions for growing local vegetables get much worse and much better. The cold-intolerant vegetables such as cucumbers, summer squashes, and beans are rapidly winding down, and tomatoes will soon be at risk. Green leafy vegetables that wither and burn under the scorching summer sun can now begin to thrive. Collards, kales, mustards, lettuces, etc., are healthier, happier and greener and will be abundantly available from local sources. Root crops, some of which we haven't seen since the spring, have begun to arrive. Recent local organic arrivals include:

Bunched arugula
Mei Qing Choy
Loose and bunched spinach
Broccoli rabe
Turnips loose and Japanese bunched
Parsnips
Celeriac
Loose Carrots
Fennel
Mustards
Watercress
Blue and Fingerling potatoes
Acorn, Buttercup, Butternut, Carnival, Delicata, Kabocha, Spaghetti, Sweet Dumpling, and Sweet Mama Squash.
Pumpkins

September 25, 2007 PSFC Produce Update

Transition to Fall Fruits

Stone fruits are winding down now and the last reliable peach is gone. We still have local minimally treated nectarines for a brief time, and we'll have a plum or pluot or two for the next month. Melons will get scarce and expensive soon, so it's time to look forward to a transition to apples and pears and continue to enjoy the grapes.

Local minimally treated apples now include the Cortland, Golden Supreme, Honeycrisp, Jonamac, and Spartan, with Gala beginning next week. Our first local organic apple is the Macintosh (in 3# bags).

Local minimally treated pears include Bartlett or Bosc (in 3# bags), Devoe, Red Bartlett, and Seckel.

We have two local grapes with seeds, Niagara and Concord, from Fino Farms in Milton, NY. We have a very limited supply of organic Concord grapes from Finger Lakes Organic Growers in NY, and from Cevaj Farm in Northeastern PA. In addition to our mainstay organic seedless red and green grapes, we now have the Ribier, a black grape with seeds.

Beef Brisket Available

Rosh Hashanah begins on Wednesday, September 12, and we've been busily building up a stock of beef brisket for members' holiday needs.

Fresh brisket from local providers who bring us 100% grass-fed beef—Hardwick Farms, Slope Farms, and McDonald Farm—is available fresh in limited quantities, and there's plenty in the Aisle Three freezers. Prices range from $4.89 to $6.68 per lb. depending on the farmer.

Shop early enough to defrost!

—Bill the Butcher

Local Produce Runs Wild in the PSFC Produce Aisle

The organic tomato season is now at its peak. The heirloom varieties are far too numerous to mention, but they include red, yellow and orange brandywine, garden peach, green zebra, moskvich, lemon, cherokee purple, costoluto genovese and many more. The cherry tomato mix includes many different varieties as well. The appreciation of all of the tomatoes is experienced by sight, taste, and aroma, but I also find the numbers interesting too. We are providing for sale this week:

1,800 pints of cherry tomatoes
3,00 pounds of red tomatoes
650 pounds of heirloom tomatoes
1,050 pounds of plum tomatoes
875 pounds of orange and yellow tomatoes

Most of these tomatoes come from Hepworth Farm in Milton, NY, and some of the heirlooms are coming from Finger Lakes Organic Growers Cooperative.

The local fruit season is transitioning from stone fruits to apples and pears. The first local apples of the year are the minimally treated Paula Red, Tydeman and Ginger Gold from Hepworth Farm. Also from Hepworth, we have the Clapp Pear and from Finger Lakes, the organic Harrow's Delight Pear.

Other new items from local organic family farms:

Ground cherries (aka husk tomato or cape gooseberry)—a close relative of the tomatillo, looks like a miniature tomatillo but is a sweet tart fruit. Peel the papery husk and eat fresh or use in salads, like a tomato, or add to a fruit salad. They can be dried or made into jelly.

New York State Garlicis finally here. We are hoping for a much greater supply this year. These are the hard neck variety. They are superior to the easier cheaper to grow soft neck, and are absolutely packed with essence of garlic flavor, rather than just garlicky heat. Weigh a bulb in your hand, and you will find it to be surprisingly heavy

Purslane—In the USA this vegetable is considered to be a weed, but it is considered to be a vegetable elsewhere as in Asia and Europe. If you look it up in Google, you will find that most of the references relate to its eradication, rather that its culinary use. Use the leaves raw in salads or cook gently much as you would use spinach, or add it near the end of the cooking of soups or stews. This vegetable is valued for its high content of omega-3 fatty acids and is also a good source of anti-oxidants.

Japanese Turnips with tops have returned. They are limited now and will be sporadically available into the fall.

PSFC Produce Update for August 24, 2007: A Hill of Beans

All of the following beans are from local family farms. In addition to green and yellow (wax) beans, we are currently carrying:

Dragon Tongue Beans (limited)—similar to a flat Romano bean, but yellow with purple streaks. May be eaten raw or cooked like a green bean.

Purple Beans—like green or yellow, but a deep purple color.

Lima Beans (very limited)—to be shelled and cooked. Actually lima beans must be cooked as they are unsafe to eat raw.

Tongue of Fire Beans—I have read that the pod is edible, but I couldn't eat it. I would shell the beans and cook them.

On Tuesday we will add:

Edamame or edible soy beans- most of the soy beans grown in the USA are used as the base for tofu, soy milk, etc. A very tiny percentage of the crop are actually a distinctly different variety, the edamame, or edible soy bean.
As a fresh vegetable, they are very limited, and have a very short growing season. Boil or steam in the shell. Then press the bean out with your fingers or suck them right out of the shell.

Cannelini Beans—We will have these for the first time ever this Tuesday. They need to be shelled and cooked.

Notes from the PSFC Freezer Case, August 22 Edition

Some wonderful new frozen food options are now available in the freezer aisle. Check out:

Moosewood Spicy Penne Puttanesca — pasta in a vegan tomato sauce with kalamata olives, capers and cayenne

Fairfield Farms Kitchen's Lemon Chicken Piccata with Wehani Rice —organic!

Fairfield Farms Kitchen is affiliated with Moosewood, and they use many Northeastern-grown ingredients in their dishes. -Click here for more info-

The Coop is now carrying three items from the Berkshire Bakery:

Four Cheese and Roasted Garlic Pizza
Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Pepper Pizza
Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

The Berkshire Bakery is a small bakery nestled in Western Massachusetts. Word on the shopping floor has it that these pizzas are pretty tasty.

For those of you looking for a non-Amy's burrito alternative in the frozen burrito section, check out PJ's Burritos. We've got two kinds: Chicken Burrito and Breakfast Burrito with Sausage. These burritos are made with organic ingredients.

We have another Morningstar Farms fake meat product available now as well: Griller Crumbles. Ground fake meat for all your ground fake meat needs.

Have you been hankering for a gluten free frozen bagel? Why not try: Glutino Plain Bagels.