News From the Farms

It strikes me the we haven’t really talked much recently about some of the farms which are central to our effort to share lovingly-farmed food with our neighborhood. We work so closely with many of these farms that sometimes we forget how amazing their work is.

I thought I’d post something to remind myself of what a few of these farms have been up to. And that this might possibly be of interest to you.

• Wingshadows Hacienda. Bruce and Lynne farm lots of vegetables and collect pastured chicken eggs from their numerous heritage breed chickens. Pastured chicken eggs are very rare in San Diego but they make a huge difference in things like our house made pasta or topping our burger. Starting in late November, we will be offering Wingshadows pastured quail, which will be the first local pastured poultry we know of to be available in San Diego (at least in the post-factory-agriculture era), and we are super excited.

  Note that pastured chickens are different than free-range or cage-free chickens. Although, undoubtedly, free-range organic chickens are way better than factory chickens.

• B&B Farms. Barney is still raising Berkshire hogs on his integrated farm in Grinnell, Iowa, where he also grows eight kinds of grain along with raising chickens, lambs, and cattle. Barney’s pigs are raised outdoors and they thrive without antibiotics (unlike indoor-raised, factory pork which is basically what you see everywhere). Berkshire is considered by many to be the best tasting breed of pork.

  The latest news from Barney’s farm is that, through the help of Kelly Biensen of Eden Natural, we expect to be able to get our first skin-on hogs from Barney. Which means proper country ham, and not to mention chicharrones!

• NZ Ranch. Jim Neville is raising the occasional pig for us at his family’s property in the Edna Valley, near San Luis Obispo. These are Hampshire and Blue Butt breed pigs, that live outdoors and are fed in the traditional farm style of pig feed supplemented with the scraps of the farm. They are delicious, and allow us to experience what pork would have traditionally tasted like on a California farm.

  We’ve got a new batch of pigs coming from Jim in November.

• Spanish Oak Ranches. Larry Fernandez raises Angus beef on pasture in Edna Valley (near San Luis Obispo) adjacent to where Jim at NZ Ranch raises pigs for us. All of the cattle live on and eat pasture. Some of his cattle are 100% grassfed, and others get some grain supplements when they are very young (this is in opposition to the feedlot model, in which cattle are fattened on grain in the months before slaughter). Larry is mainly engaged in a breeding program to develop the best genetics for cattle which will raise on Central Coast pasture. We get to buy a few beeves from his program, and I can assure anyone he is doing a great job.

  We just did a blind taste test of Larry’s beef against a popular label of grassfed beef imported from overseas. Larry’s was the unanimous winner, as its rich beefiness and complex flavor was way more appealing than the other beef.

• La Milpa Organica. I don’t really blog about Barry much, ’cause it seems like everyone in town knows him. I just want to say that his local celebrity is well-deserved, and his thoughtfulness and knowledge are surpassed only by the quality of his produce. Find him at your farmers market and check it out!

• Share