All Entries Tagged With: "local food"

Incredible Edible: Could it happen in Ferguson?

Here in Ferguson, we have an award-winning farmers market, several vibrant community gardens, and the oldest organic farm in Missouri. Could this revolutionary project from England be the next step for us? Story by Vincent Graff of the Daily Mail…

Carrots in The Car Park. Radishes on the Roundabout. The Deliciously Eccentric Story of the Town Growing ALL its Own Veg

Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too. Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds. If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrot plants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.

Today the beds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police station forecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are the cops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Nothing.

Well, that’s not quite correct. ‘I watch ’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott, with a huge grin. It’s the smile that explains everything.

For the vegetable-swipers are not thieves. The police station carrots — and thousands of vegetables in 70 large beds around the town — are there for the taking. Locals are encouraged to help themselves. A few tomatoes here, a handful of broccoli there. If they’re in season, they’re yours. Free.

So there are (or were) raspberries, apricots and apples on the canal towpath; blackcurrants, redcurrants and strawberries beside the doctor’s surgery; beans and peas outside the college; cherries in the supermarket car park; and mint, rosemary, thyme and fennel by the health centre.

The vegetable plots are the most visible sign of an amazing plan: to make Todmorden the first town in the country that is self-sufficient in food. ‘And we want to do it by 2018,’ says Mary Clear, 56, a grandmother of ten and co-founder of Incredible Edible, as the scheme is called. ‘It’s a very ambitious aim. But if you don’t aim high, you might as well stay in bed, mightn’t you?’

So what’s to stop me turning up with a huge carrier bag and grabbing all the rosemary in the town? ‘Nothing,’ says Mary.

What’s to stop me nabbing all the apples? ‘Nothing.’

All your raspberries? ‘Nothing.’

It just doesn’t happen like that, she says. ‘We trust people. We truly believe — we are witness to it — that people are decent.’

When she sees the Big Issue seller gathering fruit for his lunch, she feels only pleasure. What does it matter, argues Mary, if once in a while she turns up with her margarine tub to find that all the strawberries are gone? ‘This is a revolution,’ she says. ‘But we are gentle revolutionaries. Everything we do is underpinned by kindness.’

The idea came about after she and co-founder Pam Warhurst, the former owner of the town’s Bear Cafe, began fretting about the state of the world and wondered what they could do. They reasoned that all they could do is start locally, so they got a group of people, mostly women, together in the cafe.

‘Wars come about by men having drinks in bars, good things come about when women drink coffee together,’ says Mary. ‘Our thinking was: there’s so much blame in the world — blame local government, blame politicians, blame bankers, blame technology — we thought, let’s just do something positive instead.’

We’re standing by a car park in the town centre. Mary points to a housing estate up the hill. Her face lights up. ‘The children walk past here on the way to school. We’ve filled the flower beds with fennel and they’ve all been taught that if you bite fennel, it tastes like a liquorice gobstopper. When I see the children popping little bits of herb into their mouths, I just think it’s brilliant.’

She takes me over to the front garden of her own house, a few yards away. Three years ago, when Incredible Edible was launched, she did a very unusual thing: she lowered her front wall, in order to encourage passers-by to walk into her garden and help themselves to whatever vegetables took their fancy.

There were signs asking people to take something but it took six months for folk to ‘get it’, she says. They get it now. Obviously a few town-centre vegetable plants — even thousands of them — are not going to feed a community of 15,000 by themselves.

But the police station potatoes act as a recruiting sergeant — to encourage residents to grow their own food at home. Today, hundreds of townspeople who began by helping themselves to the communal veg are now well on the way to self-sufficiency. But out on the street, what gets planted where? There’s kindness even in that.

‘The ticket man at the railway station, who was very much loved, was unwell. Before he died, we asked him: “What’s your favourite vegetable, Reg?” It was broccoli. So we planted memorial beds with broccoli at the station. One stop up the line, at Hebden Bridge, they loved Reg, too — and they’ve also planted broccoli in his memory.’

Not that all the plots are — how does one put this delicately? — ‘official’. Take the herb bushes by the canal. Owners British Waterways had no idea locals had been sowing plants there until an official inspected the area ahead of a visit by the Prince of Wales last year (Charles is a huge Incredible Edible fan).

Estelle Brown, a 67-year-old former interior designer who tended the plot, received an email from British Waterways. ‘I was a bit worried to open it,’ she says. ‘But it said: “How do you build a raised bed? Because my boss wants one outside his office window.”’

Incredible Edible is also about much more than plots of veg. It’s about educating people about food, and stimulating the local economy. There are lessons in pickling and preserving fruits, courses on bread-making, and the local college is to offer a BTEC in horticulture. The thinking is that young people who have grown up among the street veg may make a career in food.

Crucially, the scheme is also about helping local businesses. The Bear, a wonderful shop and cafe with a magnificent original Victorian frontage, sources all its ingredients from farmers within a 30-mile radius. There’s a brilliant daily market. People here can eat well on local produce, and thousands now do.

Meanwhile, the local school was recently awarded a £500,000 Lottery grant to set up a fish farm in order to provide food for the locals and to teach useful skills to young people. Jenny Coleman, 62, who retired here from London, explains: ‘We need something for our young people to do. If you’re an 18-year-old, there’s got to be a good answer to the question: why would I want to stay in Todmorden?’

The day I visit, the town is battered by a bitterly-cold rain storm.  Yet the place radiates warmth. People speak to each other in the street, wave as neighbours drive past, smile. If the phrase hadn’t been hijacked, the words ‘we’re all in this together’ would spring to mind.

So what sort of place is Todmorden (known locally, without exception, as ‘Tod’)? If you’re assuming it’s largely peopled by middle-class grandmothers, think again. Nor is this place a mecca for the gin-and-Jag golf club set. Set in a Pennine valley — once, the road through the town served as the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire — it is a vibrant mix of age, class and ethnicity.

A third of households do not own a car; a fifth do not have central heating. You can snap up a terrace house for £50,000 — or spend close to £1 million on a handsome stone villa with seven bedrooms. And the scheme has brought this varied community closer together, according to Pam Warhurst.

Take one example. ‘The police have told us that, year on year, there has been a reduction in vandalism since we started,’ she says. ‘We weren’t expecting this.’ So why has it happened?

Pam says: ‘If you take a grass verge that was used as a litter bin and a dog toilet and turn it into a place full of herbs and fruit trees, people won’t vandalise it. I think we are hard-wired not to damage food.’ Pam reckons a project like Incredible Edible could thrive in all sorts of places. ‘If the population is very transient, it’s difficult. But if you’ve got schools, shops, back gardens and verges, you can do it.’

Similar schemes are being piloted in 21 other towns in the UK, and there’s been interest shown from as far afield as Spain, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada. And, this week, Mary Clear gave a talk to an all-party group of MPs at Westminster.

Todmorden was visited by a planner from New Zealand, working on the rebuilding of his country after February’s earthquake. Mary says: ‘He went back saying: “Why wouldn’t we rebuild the railway station with pick-your-own herbs? Why wouldn’t we rebuild the health centre with apple trees?”

‘What we’ve done is not clever. It just wasn’t being done.’

The final word goes to an outsider. Joe Strachan is a wealthy U.S. former sales director who decided to settle in Tod with his Scottish wife, after many years in California. He is 61 but looks 41. He became active with Incredible Edible six months ago, and couldn’t be happier digging, sowing and juicing fruit.

I find myself next to him, sheltering from the driving rain. Why, I ask, would someone forsake the sunshine of California for all this? His answer sums up what the people around here have achieved.

‘There’s a nobility to growing food and allowing people to share it. There’s a feeling we’re doing something significant rather than just moaning that the state can’t take care of us. ‘Maybe we all need to learn to take care of ourselves.’

For more info about this innovative program, visit the Incredible Edible website.

The Vine Market returns on November 19

There are many, many reasons to be proud of my Ferguson community, but perhaps nothing gets me more excited than our awesome farmers market. Like a lot of locals, I usually get market withdrawal this time of year, since the outdoor venue wrapped up a few weeks ago. But thanks to the good folks at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, we’ll all be able to enjoy fresh local food even during the winter!

For the second year, St. Stephen’s is hosting The Vine Market, an indoor farmers market where you can find a nice array of locally grown vegetables and locally produced meat, cheese and baked goods. It’s not quite as large as the outdoor market, and it only takes place every third Saturday through April, but hey, who’s complaining?!

The Vine Market kicks off this Saturday, November 19, and Ferguson’s own EarthDance Farms will be there with a fabulous selection of organic autumn veggies. Look for ‘Watermelon’ and ‘White Icicle’ radishes, ‘Bolero’ carrots, ‘Gonzalez’ cabbage, ‘Red Sails’ lettuce, ‘Tyee’ spinach, ‘Purple Top’ turnips, ‘Toscana Lacinato’ kale, and ‘Bright Lights’ swiss chard, as well as garlic, shallots, acorn squash, scallions, arugula, Asian salad greens, baby pak choi, dill & cilantro, and even green tomatoes.

Need some recipe ideas? Check out A Veggie Venture from my fellow St. Louis blogger Alanna Kellogg.

The Vine Market is open Saturday from 9 to 11:30am and takes place inside St. Stephen’s beautiful gathering hall at 33 N. Clay, 63135. You can enter through the center door by the parking lot.

Florissant celebrates 225th anniversary as a city

Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but the city of Florissant was actually founded in 1786, just ten years after the birth of the United States. Originally named “St. Ferdinand” in honor of Spain’s King Ferdinand III, the town was dubbed “Fleurissant” (or “blooming”) by its early French settlers and remained a largely French-speaking area throughout the 19th century.

Today, of course, Florissant is one of the largest municipalities in St. Louis and continues to be a strong anchor for the North County community. That’s why it’s such great news that the city is celebrating its 225th anniversary!

This Friday, November 18, the St. Ferdinand Shrine is hosting a public birthday party for Florissant, and all are invited. It also happens to be the feast day of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne (the French nun who founded Florissant’s first school), so the event will have a decidedly Catholic feel, but people of all faiths are welcome to attend.

Here’s the schedule of activities:

4-10pm      Fish fry with clam chowder, beer & soda, courtesy of the Duchesne Knights of Columbus

5-10pm      French wine tastings from Hendel’s and the Shrine Foundation

5-10pm      Birthday cake with coffee and cocoa in the school house

4-7pm and 8-10pm      Live music from Dan the Piano Man, also violin and cello in the museum

6pm      Walk of Fame plaque dedication for Father Pierre Jean DeSmet & St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

7pm      Mass in honor of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

Parking will be available on the Knights of Columbus grounds at Washington & St. Charles. The St. Ferdinand Shrine is located at #1 rue St. Francois, 63031. Admission to the anniversary celebration is free. 

FloTown gets a fabulous new cheesecake bakery

For most restaurants, selling out of every single item on the menu would be a catastrophe. But for Jeff and Kris Mullersman, who recently opened Delish Cheesecake Bakery & Cafe in Old Town Florissant, that is precisely the goal.

Early each morning, this innovative husband-and-wife team starts baking fresh cheesecakes, cupcakes, cookies and quiches – all from scratch. And if everything is gone by closing time, they consider it mission accomplished.

“We don’t want to make cheesecakes two weeks in advance and then have them just sitting there,” Kris says. “Our menu changes every day, and is always made fresh, so the early bird definitely gets the best selection.”

And what a selection it is! Delish offers three different sizes of cheesecakes (9-inch round, “baby” or by the slice) and you can choose from 30 mouth-watering flavors, including Creamy Lemon, Chocolate Explosion, Red Velvet Swirl and this autumn delight, Pumpkin Hazelnut…

Though neither of the Mullersmans have any formal culinary training, Kris, 39, is a gifted baker whose sweet creations have always been in demand. “I’m just a homemaker who loves to bake,” she says modestly. “But when I lived in Omaha, where I grew up, I used to make cheesecakes for local restaurants, and it seemed like I was always baking for somebody.”

North County native Jeff, 38, whose surname actually means “baker” in German, is the official quiche chef at Delish. He also whips up gourmet salads and 14-inch Bavarian pretzels every Friday, in between completing renovations on the cafe’s historic building.

Delish is located inside Florissant’s former Narrow Gauge Railroad Station, a quaint wooden structure from 1878 that used to serve as a destination for electric trolleys. The trolley line, which followed rue St. Ferdinand/Graham Road, stopped running in the 1930s, and in 1969, with demolition imminent, the station was moved to its current site in Tower Park. (As in water tower. Next to Fritz’s.)

In recent years, it was home to a candy shop and an Irish gift store, both of which went of out business, but that doesn’t concern the Mullersmans one bit. “We actually had a customer tell us this is a terrible location, since both of the previous businesses failed,” Jeff says. “But we think it was the nature of the businesses, not the location.”

“And we’re here to turn it around,” Kris adds matter-of-factly.

Indeed, the couple has already invested quite a bit in the building, sealing it from the weather, installing a commercial kitchen and adding hot water service. In the spring, they plan to add an outdoor seating area with 12 additional tables.

“We’re both in love with the history of the building, and we want to do everything we can to preserve it,” Jeff says. “And by opening our business here in Florissant, we’re able to invest our money back into the community we care about.”

He and Kris live just up the street from the cafe, not far from Sacred Heart, where their daughter goes to school. And the name of their business….well, that hits close to home too.

While Kris was growing up, her father would end every meal by graciously telling his wife, “That was delish, my love!” So when it came time to choose the cafe’s name, Kris knew instantly. “It was something I heard every day, and it just makes me happy when I think about it,” she says. (Those are her parents in the pic above.)

As for the menu at Delish, that also evolved pretty organically, with a strong emphasis on quality and simplicity. “We make everything from scratch and use nothing that’s frozen,” Jeff says. “So if we keep the menu fairly simple and use local and seasonal ingredients whenever possible, we know that we can maintain the level of quality that we want.”

At some point, soups and sandwiches may be added. But for now the focus is primarily on baked goods, with a few savory items (including vegetarian options) thrown in for lunch and dinner. The Mullersmans do wholesale their cheesecake to local restaurants, like Hendel’s. They also take special orders, which can usually be filled within 24 hours.

Their Delish Signature Cupcake, shown here with a Sweet & Salty Cookie, basically looks and tastes just like a Hostess Ding-Dong, except bigger and so much better! I should also mention that the cafe hosts live local music on Friday nights, offers free wi-fi, and serves St. Louis’ own Thomas Coffee, which is roasted here in town.

And not only are Jeff and Kris great cooks, they’re also good people. As a way to “pay it forward,” they give out “smile cards” to folks who’ve done something nice, which can be redeemed for a free slice of cheesecake! So when you visit Delish – and you most definitely should – don’t forget to be on your best behavior!

Delish Cheesecake Bakery & Cafe is located at 1060 rue St. Catherine, 63031, in Old Town Florissant. Hours are Tues & Wed 7-7, Thu & Fri 7-9, Sat 8-9 and Sun 8-4. To place a special order, call (314) 831-7400. Whole cheesecakes are $32.