The Farmers Market Season Is Here!

That time of year has rolled around again. Farmers markets are right around the corner and we are getting excited. We had a meeting to decide about which ones we would be participating in this year. It is official that we will be in the Driggs, Jackson Hole on the Town Square and Jackson Hole People's Market. Here is some information about each of them. We hope to see you there!


Driggs

Annual Teton Valley Farmers Market, every Friday from 10pm to 2pm in front of the Driggs Community Center. Locally grown and produced foods. Farm fresh veggies and tomatoes grown right here in the Tetons. Vendors will offer locally baked breads and cookies, fresh cut flowers, organic mushrooms, jams and jellies, and many other delicious items. Come see all the tasty goodies made by your neighbors.

100 Main Street (in front of the community center)
Driggs, ID 83422

(June-September)
Fridays,10-2 pm June 24 - September.

Jackson Hole Farmers Market on the Town Square
The first market of the year is always on Saturday after July 4th. This year that will be July 9th. We invite you to visit our market each Saturday during the summer from 8:00(am) to 11:00(am).
The market is located on the Town Square each Saturday throughout the summer. It is great fun for the entire community! Bring your family, friend or dog down to the Square to get your weekly groceries, listen to some local music, learn about a local non-profit, pick up a recipe and taste some great food and, most importantly, come enjoy the benefits of eating locally. Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you this summer.
Every week the market will feature a non-profit organization. Using the honor system, the featured nonprofit will receives 10% of the total sales from each vendor. Last year the market earned more than $14,000 total for our local nonprofit organizations.


Jackson Hole People's Market

"The People's Market exists to build community
thru food, art, music and family, while celebrating
products produced locally. "

Every Wednesday 4 PM to 7 PM
June 22nd, 2011 - September 21st, 2011
Redeemer Lutheran Church
Located at the Corner of Gill and Willow Streets
Next to the Recreation Center

The People’s Market’s incorporates all aspects of the community by providing a venue to gather and enjoy what Teton County and the surrounding areas produce. The market will provide a venue for farmers, food producers, artists, musicians and brewers. Additionally the market will provide fresh nutritious produce and foods to low income customers through the Wyoming Food Stamps program. If we are what we eat, choosing foods from the Teton eco-system will produce an amazing, strong and beautiful community.

What People Are Saying About Us

Check out what Ryan Kendrick of Salt Lake City Eats wrote about us on their blog.

Lark’s Meadow Farms Tasting

One of my favorite things to do is meet new, local food producers who have great passion for what they do. I love hearing their stories about their journeys to where they are now.

Thanks to a meet and greet held at Caputo’s market, I was able to meet cheesemaker Kendall Russell, from Lark’s Meadow Farms. Lark’s Meadow, based out of Rexburg, Idaho, creates delicious farmstead cheeses, meaning that it owns the entire production, from the cow to final product. While many cheesemakers truck their milk in from other dairies, Lark’s Meadow is able to maintain complete control over their raw product: milk. And speaking of raw, Lark’s Meadow only produces raw milk cheeses, meaning no pasteurization of milk takes place. Instead of pasteurization, in order to ensure that the cheese is safe to eat, a minimum amount of aging must occur for the cheese to meet government safety standards. Many cheesemakers (and cheese aficionados) swear by unpasteurized cheeses, insisting that the taste is purer and truer to history.

Kendall certainly has an interesting history in the cheese business. His only formal training consisted of a two-week internship. Other than that, he has self-taught cheesemaking, which is a pretty formidable task (and costly—Kendall told us that he had to throw away about $40,000 in bad cheese as a result of early mistakes).

According to Kendall, the act of making cheese isn’t a very difficult process, but understanding the nuances that go into making cheese, such as understanding differences in how milk tastes, aging temperatures, and humidity really is more art than science. One small tweak in any of these variables can have a significant impact on the final product.

Leland Cheese

We tasted three cheeses at the event. The first cheese is called Leland. It is a half sheeps’ milk, half cow milk cheese. Their cows are Brown Swiss, which are known for producing high fat content milk. It definitely shows in this deliciously creamy, high moisture content cheese. This one would be perfect for a decadent grilled cheese sandwich.

The second cheese we tried is called Helen, named after one of Kendall’s mentors. This cheese is made with 100% cow milk. It has some strong grassy notes to it, and has a distinct yellow coloration. Kendall mentioned that milk that comes from cows who graze in a pasture has a slight yellow tinge to it, due to the beta carotene that the cows consume in the pasture. Many cheesemakers add coloring to try to duplicate this orange-yellow coloration in their cheeses.

Dulcinea

The third cheese is Lark’s very first production cheese recipe, and I have to say, they nailed this one. While the other two cheeses were delicious, the Dulcinea knocked my socks off. This cheese is a very low moisture cheese. This rich cheese was nicely salty and nutty, and it even reminded me a bit of the sharpness you get with Pecorino, except much more rounded and subtle. The other really neat thing about this cheese is that as you eat a piece of this cheese and work towards the rind, the flavor profile changes dramatically to a much nuttier flavor.

All of Lark’s cheese is hand-produced, which, as Kendall said, means that he takes a lot of Ibuprofin since it is so labor intensive. Hand-pressing cheese results in some of the whey being trapped in the cheese, whose lactose then ferments into esters. It is these esters which give their cheeses some fruity notes that you won’t find in many other cheeses, contributing to make Lark’s cheese some of the most unique cheese out there.

Lark’s Meadow Farms cheese are currently available at Caputo’s Market and Liberty Heights Fresh, and they will be carried at many Harmon’s stores in short time.

Passers By

While we receive reports from other parts of the country that they are already picking food from their plants, gardening season has just barely come to Rexburg. We were delighted this last week to finally see the flowering trees blooming and to feel that warm weather is truly here to stay.
I say that with hope and a will for it to be so, but Susie is already predicting one last snow flurry here in June sometime, so we will hide and watch.


Each year at this time we get a large influx of birds and the morning air is full of a cacophony of avian songs. One temporary visitor that migrates through on the way to Yellowstone Lake each year is the Franklin Gull. On some days, if you have the time, you can sit for hours and watch as group after group pass by overhead, squawking to each other and all heading in the same direction.

This year they seemed to think that our flooded field was a nice stopping off point and a whole group of them paused for a snack and refreshment before they continued their journey. Like most gulls, their voices are not as pleasant as other birds, but their appearance is sleek and their antics are entertaining as they pass by.

To learn some other interesting things about Franklin Gulls click on this link-

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/scbi/migratorybirds/featured_birds/default.cfm?bird=Franklin%27s_Gull