Hillsdale Farmers Market starts at 10:00 AM, and is located in the parking lot of Wilson High School. Our cheerful selves will be found in the middle of the market, even if it snows. The van has its winter shoes, plus 500 LB of roots, we are ready for the weekend. If there are high winds, the market may be cancelled, so check the Hillsdale website if it is windy.

This is the annual Holiday Market, so Shoehorn’s “no crafts” stricture is relaxed somewhat. Earnest young students will be roving about a’caroling as well. It should be festive with the anticipated snow flurries.

In mid November, the Oregon House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Communities met and heard presentations from Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and a panel representing the Farmers’ Market Community. The panel included Kelly Streit (Oregon Farmers’ Market Association), Anne Berblinger (Gales Meadow Farm), Sarah Broderick (Hollywood Farmers’ market), and Rebecca Landis (Albany and Corvallis Farmers’ Markets). Chrissie Zaerpoor and Anthony were permitted to offer statements after the presentation. Chrissie pointed out the substantial challenges facing small-scale meat producers in this state. Anthony’s statement follows the list of what we will bring to the market this week.

The committee seemed to understand that legislation is needed to establish state policies regarding direct sales between producer and consumers. Chair Brian Clem put together a working group that included Susan VanOrman from Hood River and Wayne Krieger from Gold Beach. This is a critical first step. Majority Leader Mary Nolan, who represents the district that includes the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market, is on the agriculture committee and was very supportive of the formation of a working group.

Thank you to those who contacted your representatives following the “Farewell Frikeh” essays. It made a difference. It will be a long process, though.

Here is what we will have this week, bearing in mind that we need to wait for the greens to thaw before we can harvest them, so it is guess work at this point.


Freshly Harvested:

Kale, Collards & Swiss Chard

Mustard Greens

Fennel

Last night we decided the weather will be too cold to for fennel, so we hauled in the last of the planting against the glow of the setting sun. There are some small bulbs which are very good cooked slowly in butter until they are tender.

Mixed Salad Greens

A mixture of chicory and endive.

Rutabagas & Turnips

The neeps include the flat Milan variety. It is sweet and delicate, good raw as well as cooked. We will also have the pear shaped Jersey navet. Also sweet and fine flavored.

Beets, Parsnips & Hamburg Parsley

Potatoes

Kerr’s Pink

Sweet Potatoes

Winter Squash


Dry Goods:

Preserves

Boysenberry, Loganberry, Raspberry, Blackcap, Red Currant, Black Currant, Green Gage, Italian Prune and Damson.

Dried peppers

Aci Sivri and Joe’s Long Cayenne.

Dry Beans

Tarbais, Borlotto, Bianchetto, Zolfino and Purgatorio.

Chickpeas: Last of them.

Corn

Roy’s Calais Flint and Amish Butter meal

Amish Butter Popcorn is not available until the January markets. If the kernels are not fully dry, they careen about the pan like so many whistling jacks. Great fun for a brief moment, but the movie should be the entertainment, not the popcorn.

Amish butter also makes a good white polenta. Interestingly, popcorn is not ground for meal in the US, and for no good reason. The Italians grow several landraces of popcorn, or everta types to botanists. The popcorn ear is conical and looks like pine cone, and the individual kernels resemble pine nuts, so these varieties are called pignolo or pignoletto. In Italy the kernels are ground for meal to use as a polenta or in cookies, just like other types of corn.

In Italian, the word “polenta” means porridge or mush. Polenta made from ground corn is, formally, polenta di mais, or polenta di gran Turco. — “Gran turco” means Turkish grain, an early term for the strange grain that appeared from the Americas. In the Holland and the Low Lands, it is Turksche tarwe. — Like most everyone else, we truncate the term. However, it is worth remembering there is also polenta di fava, polenta di farro (emmer) and polenta di castagna (chestnut), among others.

White corn meal is generally associated with cultures that eat fish. Along the northern lakes, the Seneca Nation cultivated a white flint. The white-cap flint of Rhode Island is used to make the Johnny cakes. Likewise, white corn meal is used in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. Skip over to Venice, and you will find they have a preference for white corn meal. Amish Butter mush is excellent with lamb as well.

See you all Sunday,

Carol and Anthony Boutard
Ayers Creek Farm