Pickl-It Versus Harsch: May The Best Vat Win

VERSUS

Pickl-It

A couple of months ago, I posted a Fermenting And Pickling Resource List. In response to my post, someone mentioned a device called Pickl-It (http://www.pickl-it.com/). I updated my resource list to include Pickl-It. Shortly thereafter, I was contacted by the makers of Pickl-It, who offered to send me a free sample. I accepted their offer. I have been using Pickl-It ever since.

Pickl-It includes a glass jar with a hinged lid and gasket, a hole in the lid, an airlock in the hole, and a glass disc as a weight. Pickl-It also includes a plug for the hole, for when you don't need the airlock.

Harsch

Harsch is a German company that makes a stoneware pickling crock, also called Gärtopf.

Harsch is a sturdy stoneware thing, glazed, with a heavy lid and a pair of ceramic weights.

Similarities

Both of these devices serve the same purpose: to create good conditions for lactofermenting vegetables (or other things). Both are sealed vessels with airlocks, so that gases can escape as needed, but nothing can get in. Both use weights to keep fermenting foods submerged.

Pickl-It's airlock is of the type one might use in brewing beer, and its weight is a glass disc. Harsch employs an open mote filled with water around the lip of the lid, and a pair of weights that fit snugly within the crock.

May The Best Vat Win

It is a bit of a David And Goliath story: the young, small upstart, Pickl-It, versus the old, established, giant Harsch.

And the outcome is the same as in that fabled battle: Pickl-It vanquishes its larger foe Harsch!

The Harsch's advantages: It is available in huge sizes, up to at least 50 liter (great if you need to make 75 pounds of sauerkraut!); it looks impressive; its weights fit perfectly; and it's completely low-tech (100% stone). A couple of times I have made 10+ pounds of sauerkraut, and the Harsch worked well. A 2-gallon cookie jar with a strategically-sized dinner plate and some weights worked well before I had the Harsch.

Pickl-It's advantages:

• Pickl-It's airlock works better. The problem with the Harsch airlock is that in hot weather, the mote evaporates after a few days, leaving you vulnerable to fruit flies and such. If you ever go away for a few days at a time during the summer, this is a real concern. Standing water probably isn't a great idea in warmer climates anyway. Harsch may be better suited to a cellar, when it's warm at least; this makes the "looks impressive" factor less relevant.
• Pickl-It is easy to clean—you can take it apart and put it in the dishwasher. Harsch is hard to clean, and also somewhat porous, so it seems to absorb salt, yeast and mold, etc.
• My Pickl-It is a more practical size (1.5-liter) than my Harsch (10-liter). I could have bought a smaller Harsch, or a larger Pickl-It—but nonetheless, Harsch isn't well-suited to the fridge, while Pickl-It is just fine (if you remove the airlock and plug the hole).
• Pickl-It is clear, so it allows me to see what's going on, which is often useful. Harsch is deep and dark.
• Pickl-It is way less expensive than Harsch.

I haven't done a side-by-side taste test, pickling the same stuff in both. But I can report that the cucumber pickles I made in Pickl-It were the best I've ever made. I haven't had any problems so far fermenting in Pickl-It, while I've had occasional problems with Harsch due to mold, yeast, and/or slime.

Uses For Pickl-It

I find Pickl-It great for pickling whole vegetables in brine (turnips, radishes, beets, cucumbers, zucchini, etc.), and I might try it for a corned beef or something like that. All of these things can be a little tricky in jars, whether open or sealed, so they benefit greatly from the airlock.

I've not had any problems making cabbage kraut, radish or turnip krauts, mixed krauts, chutneys and other strange fruit things, kimchi, or preserved lemons in sealed mason jars (burping them every once in a while). (But some people have had problems making these.)

Beyond that, you can use Pickl-It for fermenting dairy, grains, and so on. Kathleen, one of the inventors, has a blog full of awesome-sounding Pickl-It recipes (Lacto-fermented Garlic Scape, Mango Kefir Lassi, Fermented Turkish-Fig Coconut Oatmeal Granola, Japanese Miso Garlic, etc.).

My recommendation: If you like to ferment whole vegetables, or if you worry about having problems fermenting, or if you just want to have some fun fermenting, then it's definitely worth getting Pickl-It.

If you are going to do whole vegetables, a larger Pickl-It is the way to go.

Inside sources tell me that in addition to the existing 1.5-liter and 3-liter sizes, there are new 2-, 4-, and 5-liter sizes. 5 liters should be big enough for most non-commercial purposes (unless you're having a really big Oktoberfest party!). Other items joining the Pickl-It line in the near future include smaller airlocks and UV-blocking jar covers. Cool.

Buy Pickl-It here.

For More Information About Fermenting

Here is my Fermenting And Pickling Resource List.

Disclosure

As I said before, I received a free sample Pickl-It from the manufacturer, with no strings attached. I'm not getting any money for recommending it, or any other benefit, except the warm happy feeling I get from helping people ferment things!

Bikes Not Bombs Bike-A-Thon Huge Success!

Last Sunday, I rode in a 65-mile bike-a-thon, to support Bikes Not Bombs. It was a great success, both for me and for the organization.

THANK YOU to everyone who donated and supported me!

I raised $2,205, making me the fourth-biggest fundraiser.

There were over 458 registered riders who together raised over $125,000. That's huge for an organization whose annual budget is something like $1 million.

I tweeted some comments and pictures as I rode. You can see my tweets here (when twitter is working). Click on the image links to see the pictures.

Here's the route we took:

We started and finished at Bikes Not Bombs in Jamaica Plain, Boston. Marker 1 is where I got a puncture. Marker 3 is rest stop number one, near Walden Pond. Marker 5 is rest stop number two, at the Peace Abbey.

I started out riding strong. I stayed with the lead group until I punctured. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch up with them again.

The puncture was about as painless as it could have been. Someone stopped to help and keep me company...and then before I knew it, a support car stopped, offered me a floor pump, and took away my punctured tube. Not bad.

It was hot and humid, and a thunderstorm seemed imminent the whole time, but didn't come until a few hours later.

Some musings on the puncture:

The night before the event, I had replaced my training tires with some light-weight, smooth-running race tires. I reused an old tube on the front (this was the one that popped), and used a new one on the back. Changing the tires was a pain in the butt. After changing the tires, I rode a few miles to verify the installation.

I learned that when you change the tire, you should change the tube too. It's worth the $4 to not get a flat tire. And you shouldn't mess with your bike the night before the ride anyway. If I had changed the tires a week before, I would have discovered any tube problems on a training ride rather than on the bike-a-thon.

The end!

Small Farms Are More Efficient Per Acre Than Big Farms

People make all sorts of arguments against "local food". A common one is that larger farming operations are "more efficient". Since larger operations are usually farther away from population centers, the implication is that local food is a less efficient use of resources than "distant food".

Next time someone makes that argument, I'll point them to this excerpt from Eat Here by Brian Halweil (bigger excerpt available here):

Perhaps most surprising to people who have only casually followed the debate about small-farm values versus factory-farm “efficiency” is the fact that a large body of evidence shows that small farms are actually more productive than large ones, producing as much as 1,000 per cent more output per unit of area.* How does this jibe with the often-mentioned productivity advantages of large-scale mechanized operations? The answer is simply that those big-farm advantages are always calculated on the basis of how much of one crop the land will yield per acre. The greater productivity of a smaller, more complex farm, however, is calculated on the basis of how much food overall is produced per acre. The smaller farm can grow several crops utilizing different root depths, plant heights, or nutrients on the same piece of land simultaneously. It is this “polyculture” that offers the small farm’s productivity advantage.

*Peter Rosset, “The Multiple Functions and Benefits of Small Farm Agriculture,” Policy Brief No. 4 (Oakland, California: Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, September 1999), pp. 12, 13.

Making Kombucha (Including Grow Your Own SCOBY!)

With a little patience, you can make your own kombucha. It's easier than keeping a sourdough culture.

In order to make kombucha, you need a starter (also known as a mother or a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast), you need some black and/or green tea, and you need some sugar.

If you can get a starter from a friend or from craigslist, then follow these straightforward instructions to make your own batch of kombucha. Later, if you want to get fancy, you can try some of these other methods.

If you can't get a starter, but you can buy some raw, plain kombucha at a store, you can probably grow your own starter, and proceed from there. See this excellent series of posts on kombuchafuel. I've meant to run this experiment myself, and I still may try it, but I'm glad that kombuchafuel has done it.

In fact, the kombuchafuel site may answer all of your questions about kombucha, even the ones you didn't know you had. Awesome website!

A few more thoughts:

• Save the empty bottles from whatever kombucha you buy. You can use them for bottling your own home-made kombucha.
• If you want to try using things other than black and/or green tea as a base, I'd recommend setting aside some of your original starter, in case things go awry.
• If you want reproducibility, take notes on amounts of tea, water, and sugar, ambient temperature, etc. Then when you make that "perfect batch", you'll have a better chance of repeating it.

Whole Foods Stops Selling Real Kombucha

Citing concerns over its alcohol content, Whole Foods has pulled leading brands of kombucha off the shelves in its stores. Kombucha is generally thought to have less than 0.5% alcohol-by-volume, but since it is a live, raw food that continues to ferment even once it's bottled, I can imagine its alcohol content varying from bottle to bottle. That said, I have never heard of anyone getting drunk from kombucha, and I have known teetotalers and recovering alcoholics who have consumed it without any problems. In my experience, kombucha's acidity is sufficient to prevent anyone from binging on it. For reference, weak American beer starts at 4.0%, so even assuming that kombucha can creep up to 0.75% ABV, say, you'd need to drink more than 5 bottles of it to get the amount of alcohol you get from one bottle of weak beer.

I visited my local Whole Foods to see for myself. There were a couple of brands of "kombucha" still in the cooler, but when I looked more closely, they turned out to be flavored teas with some kombucha added to them, and it was unclear whether or not they were raw. I asked an employee why my favorite brand was no longer on the shelves, and he said something about "labeling problems" that they were working on resolving. I told him that I was going to go to the food co-op around the corner to buy my kombucha.

A few months ago, in a similar move, Whole Foods pulled all raw milk from all its stores, citing safety concerns (see here). They called this move "temporary", but the raw milk never came back.

It's clear to me that Whole Foods no longer have the stomach (as it were) to be on the leading edge of the food movement. They are becoming more and more focused on liability, and less and less on real food.

(But to keep it in perspective, there are still much, much worse companies in the world. Monsanto? BP? ConAgra? Altria?)

For more information about the Whole Foods kombucha situation, see this posting on kombuchafuel.

Urban Homesteaders' League

For the past year or so, the Urban Homesteaders' League and its leader Lisa Gross have been hosting, co-hosting, and publicizing a variety of cool events in the Boston area—things like urban livestock workshops, food foraging, cheesemaking, skill-shares of various sorts, film screenings, and so on. They have a very active meetup group here. If you're interested in hearing about Boston-area sustainability events, their calendar is hard to beat.

From their website:

The Urban Homesteaders’ League (http://www.urbanhomesteadersleague.org/) is a community venture based in Cambridge, MA dedicated to inspiring and empowering individuals and communities to shift from a lifestyle of passive consumption to one of active participation, creation, and connection. We are committed to re-imagining the good life as one that is meaningful, pleasurable, environmentally sustainable, and socially just. We place the home at the center of that pursuit and see it as a site for personal and societal transformation.

Their latest undertaking is The Urban Homesteaders' League Market Stand—so that they can participate in a series of farmers' markets this summer. They're raising money for it through kickstarter here. You can keep up with the latest news about the Market Stand on the UHL blog page, here.

All of this is worth a look for anyone around Boston who's interested in sustainability—or anyone who is interested in building something similar in their own community!

Local Food And The Sweetest Strawberries

A chef friend of mine just emailed me the following note (I've redacted the names of the farms):

i have been thinking lately that the world is on this local kick (from which i benefit of course). however, within the farming community there are great variations in quality. for instance, XXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX produce by far the best stuff. they never water and fertilize and the result is smaller vegetables with way more flavor. i try and use these guys all the time. the strawberries are small and nutty with twice as much sugar. the larger local farms produce stuff that is similar to stuff from texas. isn't it time we start to think about quality and not just "local". XXXXXXX farms already has heirloom cherry tomatoes. that's just wrong.

It got me thinking...

The qualities of our food can be measured in various ways, many of which apply differently to different food types.

We have heard all about "local" vs. "distant", although we don't agree on what they mean. For greens, "local" might be a 50-mile radius, while for meat and dairy and seafood it might be wider. When you are talking about processed foods, like bread, charcuterie, and canned goods, you may want to consider not only the points of origin of the ingredients, but also the point of processing. Local vs. distant has economic implications, as well as implications with respect to the energy used for transportation. And it also affects the next measure:

"Young" vs. "old" matters greatly for some things, and not at all for others. For some things, "young" is crucial; for others, "old" is better (some cheeses, wines, meats, etc.).

Consider the chef's comments above. What he's talking about is, roughly, the spectrum from "wild" to "farmed". The small tasty strawberries, receiving no additional fertilizer or water, are much closer to being wild strawberries. So "wild" might be better for strawberries. On the other hand, for some kinds of fish and shellfish (tilapia, catfish, oysters, mussels), "farmed" can be great. (Click here for more about seafood.)

For things that are farmed, we have the spectrum from "natural inputs" to "unnatural inputs". I'm not going to try to define "natural" right now. "Organic" and "conventional" lie on this continuum.

We have the spectrum from "primeval" to "domesticated". Wild and heritage animals, heirloom vegetables, and so on, move towards one end of the spectrum; hybrid, genetically-modified, and cloned species move towards the other.  Note that careful breeding is sometimes necessary to maintain lines of heritage animals, so it's not fair to say that they aren't selectively bred. And cloned is not necessarily bad; almost all apples and many oranges are cloned.

There are other attributes to consider, like "plentiful" vs. "endangered". And harder-to-measure measures, like "nutrient-dense" vs. "nutrient-deficient".

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Sometimes we're hungry, we simply want something to eat, and all of this can be overwhelming.

But for those times when we are thinking about food, for professional reasons, philosophical reasons, or whatever, it can be useful to have frames of reference like these.

And if you want to grow the sweetest strawberries, you now know how.

Greenwashed Meat From "White Marble Farms" (When Is A Farm Not A Farm)

When I eat meat, I want to know where it's from: Meat Of Known Origin. Usually I wind up eating meat from a farmer or a farmers' market, or at an expensive restaurant that can tell me where they get their ingredients.

I'm always on the lookout for less-expensive restaurants serving Meat Of Known Origin.

The other day, I was walking by a place that had just opened near where I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It had been touted as a sustainable sandwich shop. The menu said that their pork was from White Marble Farms.

I asked the guy behind the counter if they got the meat directly from the farmers. He said, "No, but the meat is totally naturally-raised, and we get it from Sysco." "I see," I said.

This aroused my curiosity. For those of you who aren't familiar with Sysco:

Sysco Corporation is the largest foodservice distributor in North America. It distributes frozen foods, various canned and dry foods, fresh and frozen meats, seafood and poultry, imported specialties, and fresh produce. The company also supplies various non-food items, including disposable napkins, plates, and cups; tableware, cookware, restaurant and kitchen equipment, and cleaning supplies. It has its headquarters in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas. [Wikipedia]

Was Sysco selling sustainably-raised meat?

A quick search for "White Marble Farms" on the Internet revealed a San Francisco Chronicle article (which is worth a read). Here's a short quote:

White Marble Farms is a brand of Sysco, North America's largest food services distributor. The pork comes from Cargill Meat Solutions, America's second-largest meat processor. It is bred to ensure tender meat marbled with just enough flavor-boosting fat. But these pigs never see a pasture. They're raised indoors in confinement barns, just the way most commercial pork is produced, except in smaller numbers. Aside from genetics, they're conventional pigs wearing a lip gloss of sustainability.

And their tails are cut off at birth. And they're fed pig blood and fat. In other words, the usual sad story.

Sysco's marketing has fooled even sophisticated restaurant owners who are trying to do the right thing.

Just because something has "farm" in its name doesn't mean it's from a farm.

Know your farmer.

(This post appears as part of Real Food Wednesday.)

Raw Milk In Massachusetts: Analysis, June 7 2010

Last month saw a raw milk drink-in on the Boston Common, followed by a Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) hearing about raw milk buying clubs (but it wasn't, really). For a full recap, see here.

Many folks who wanted to attend the hearing were denied access, because the hearing room was inadequate. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has called on Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to investigate what they see as a serious violation of the state's open meetings law. The OCA press release is here. Their letter to Attorney General Coakley is here.

Winton Pitcoff of the Northeast Organic Farming Association sent out an email yesterday detailing some conversations he had had with Soares. These details do not seem to be available on any web page [UPDATE: they're available here], so I excerpt Pitcoff's email at the bottom of this post.

Raw milk in Massachusetts is still very much in the news.

In the meantime, based on what I've seen and read, I may understand more of what has been going on in the statehouse.

I don't think that the MDAR or Commissioner Scott Soares has any beef (so to speak) with raw milk or with raw milk buying clubs. Until January, the MDAR has known about these clubs, and has ignored them. (It is silly to suggest that MDAR might not have known about them.) In my opinion, neglect was absolutely the appropriate policy: the clubs are far outside of the jurisdiction of the MDAR.

In January, faced with formal letters from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), the MDAR felt that it had to do something, in order to keep the peace within the state government. Cease-and-desist letters followed, along with a proposed hearing. The events around the hearing demonstrated to everyone that the MDAR could not adopt new regulations without unleashing a huge public outcry (and due to their mishandling of the situation, they got an outcry anyway).

In conclusion:

It's nice to think that MDAR is an ally of raw milk, in theory at least, and that there might be some level of raw milk access that they are willing to defend. But five months ago, we had many raw milk buying clubs; now, the largest and most visible of these clubs are gone. Access to raw milk has been restricted, and farm revenues diminished. This is a tide that must be reversed.

(Thoughts, comments, disagreements, arguments welcome.)

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Excerpt from NOFA's June 6 email:

No Additional Raw Milk Hearings
MDAR says buying clubs still illegal

In response to an inquiry from the NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) Commissioner Scott Soares said that the department will not hold additional hearings on raw milk regulations at this time, and the regulations as they are currently written will stand during what he said he expects to be a lengthy process leading up to any changes. Soares indicated that as a result of internal review and comments that have been collected regarding this issue thus far, adequate examination will exceed the current resources and capacity of the agency. "In the interest of providing sufficient attention to matters associated with raw milk," said Soares, "the agency will indefinitely postpone any further public work around regulatory changes that were proposed in April." (See here for details about that proposal).

In a June 3 phone call with NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network coordinator Winton Pitcoff, Soares said that discussions will continuewithin the Department about how to best maintain access to safe raw milk in MA, and NOFA/Mass staff and raw milk farmers will have opportunities to participate in those discussions. Any decisions to pursue regulatory changes would be publicly announced and hearings would be held.

"It remains illegal for businesses engaged in milk distribution to operate without a milk dealer license," said Commissioner Soares. Soares said that no buying club has yet applied for a milk dealer license, and that the Department would have to examine how to handle such a request. Soares added that the Department has not pursued further action against any buying clubs and that the Cease and Desist letters sent to clubs earlier this year were meant to alert those groups that they were operating illegally.

Soares said that as the Department continues its examination of the regulations, "everything is on the table. We will consider extended sales and what it would take to make those sales safe." He reiterated MDAR's commitment to on-farm raw milk sales, and said that there have been no discussions to eliminate or further restrict such sales.

Proposed changes to the regulations that do not pertain to buying clubs -- dilution levels of chlorine in water used to sanitize caps, flooring in milking parlors, etc. -- are still being reviewed "in the context of the comments provided" and to confirm alignment with the federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, said Soares.

The NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network has obtained copies of all of the email and written comments submitted to MDAR during the April/May comment period. Approximately 285 comments were submitted, with all but one of them indicating opposition to the proposed additional restrictions on raw milk sales. The lone letter in support of tighter regulations came from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (see NOFA's response to that letter here).

MDAR posted 'FAQ's About Buying Raw Milk in Massachusetts' on its website following the May 10 hearing.

The NOFA/Massachusetts Raw Milk Network remains committed to ensuring access to raw milk for consumers and will continue to work with state agencies and officials toward expanding that access. There is demonstrated demand for raw milk from consumers and farmers have proven they can produce raw milk safely. Massachusetts' 27 licensed raw milk dairies sell more than 80,000 gallons of milk a year to customers around the state and steward more than 3,500 acres of Massachusetts farmland. Sales of raw milk are an invaluable tool for preserving dairy farms, at a time when the dairy industry is in crisis and farms are closing at an alarming rate. Allowing expanded access to raw milk through such avenues as home delivery and farmers market sales will help further strengthen these farms.

Bikes Not Bombs Bike-A-Thon Postponed

Due to the threat of inclement weather, including some tornado alerts (we get lots of interesting weather in Boston, but I've never heard of a tornado), my bike-a-thon has been postponed! The new event date is Sunday, June 20.

A BIG thank-you to all who have donated so far!

I'm a little disappointed that the event had to be rescheduled, since I was psyched for the ride. But I'll be even more psyched in two weeks.

From Bikes Not Bombs' home page:

Bikes Not Bombs promotes bicycle technology as a concrete alternative to war and environmental destruction.

If that sounds to you like a good cause, please check out my previous post, or my pledge page.

Support My Bike-A-Thon!

This coming Sunday, I'll be riding 65 miles to benefit a non-profit called Bikes Not Bombs. I've done this ride twice before, in 2008 and 2009. In 2008 it was 95 degrees out!

Click here to visit my fundraising page.

Here's a picture of me on that very hot day in 2008. Note silly, but appropriate, bike jersey:

 
Bikes Not Bombs is a great organization. From their website:

Bikes Not Bombs promotes bicycle technology as a concrete alternative to war and environmental destruction.

They collect and refurbish used bikes in the US, they involve and empower lower-income Boston residents throughout the process, they sell some of the bikes here, and they use the money they raise to ship off large numbers of bikes to poorer countries where these bikes can truly change people's lives.

As I mentioned, the event is this coming Sunday, so if you're thinking of pledging some money, now is the time!

Click here to visit my fundraising page.

As I said last year, I can relate this to food if pressed:

• One of the things they do is support the conversion of bicycles into human-driven milling machines, grinders, and blenders for grains, cacao, etc.
• More bikes = fewer cars = less pollution, plus less arable land used for ethanol and biodiesel and more used for growing food
• More bikes = easier to transport water = people can grow food (although transporting water is not necessarily sustainable, sigh...)

Here are some further reasons why you should pledge money to support my ride:

• Bicycles have a huge amount of leverage in poor countries. A bicycle for a child can mean the difference between school and no school. It can allow a health worker to serve many more villages. It can help someone transport water and goods.
• Bikes Not Bombs is a small organization, and even a small donation will have a big effect on their work. Your money will make a difference when you give it to BnB. Their total revenues for 2008 were only about $1 million.

Boston Farmers' Market Season Has Begun

Farmers' market season has begun here in Boston!

To find local markets, check the boston localvores. This site has a great interactive Google map, so you can zoom in on the locations you're interested in, and click to get opening times.

There are some other sites that can provide you with further details about markets, such as vendor names, products, and WIC/Senior Coupons. None of these sites is perfect. The Northeast Harvest site has partial, but not complete, vendor and product lists. The Federation of Massachusetts Farmers Markets site has a little more information but is difficult to use. The MDAR site has the WIC/Senior Coupon information, but has not yet been updated for 2010.

Having said that, allow me to draw your attention to two markets in particular:

The City Hall Plaza Farmers' Market is open Mondays and Wednesdays, 11AM-6PM, from now through November 24. (After November 7, it closes at 5PM.) Here's a map. Here's a vendor list. Here's a product list (note: to get the complete product list, you must scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the "Change Page" links).

The Boston Public Market at Dewey Square is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30AM-6:30PM, from now through November 23. Map. Vendors. Products.

(Note that both of these markets include vendors selling Meat Of Known Origin.)

Why do I mention these markets in particular?

I mention these markets because they are managed by an organization I'm involved with, the Boston Public Market Association. Our goal is to create an indoor, year-round public market selling food from local farmers and producers. By helping to make our summer farmers' markets successful, you are furthering our ultimate goal of providing year-round, full-time availability of local food to the Boston area.

To learn more, please visit our web site, and email us to join our mailing list.