Who’s your farmer?

Swallow Crest Farm, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm is my farmer! Or at least one of them. This farm is on the road home, maybe 3/4 of a mile down the road from my house. I knew this was an organic farm but did not how how or where they were selling. I found out just this week that they operate as a CSA and thankfully they had shares still available. Distribution starts in mid-May and one of the first items should be rhubarb. I have a new recipe for roasted rhubarb jam to try and my little patch will not provide enough for that and a torte or 3 so looking forward to some surplus.

Like many rural areas, I have options of buying direct from farmers and ranchers. We have Kalispell Kreamery, Farm to Market Pork, a plethora of beef ranchers as well as sources for deer and elk meat. Our Farmer’s markets have a large variety of locally grown produce – somewhat amazing considering our short growing season.

I am slowly converting to buying local and seasonal food for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that fresh food tastes best! With our ability to ship around the world and add things to even “fresh” food to preserve color and shelf life, we’ve given up flavor…think tomatoes. In addition to flavor, I’ve rediscovered the excitement of waiting for the rhubarb to ripen, the first fresh ear of corn, the first vine ripened tomato. Anticipation is a huge part of the fun and I’m liking the change to waiting and not buying certain grocery produce picked long before it was ripe.

Swallow Crest Farm, Kalispell, Montana: one of my farmer’s.