Chance to taste heritage turkeys

Yes, it’s true; heritage turkey tastes different than a Butterball. And it’s kind of scary to think about how the friends and family will respond to such a huge change to the Thanksgiving meal if you can’t even vouch for the taste. Here’s a great opportunity to taste five different heritage breeds in preparation for Thanksgiving 2010. Shaw Family Farm is donating Narragansett, Bourbon Red, White Holland, Royal Palm, and Blue Slate turkeys for this event.

From my mailbox to you:

Not too late to get a local Northern Nevada turkey

Quickly....

Rise and Shine Farms still has a few turkeys that will be ready for Thanksgiving. Contact Mike soon to get one.

What does the Thanksgiving Butterball have to do with ravaged communities and environments?

Okay, I just have to say it because turkey has been on my mind the last couple of days.

I try to present everything I've learned over the last few years in a positive light simply because it's healthier to be for something (local food, restaurants, and farmers) than against something (misguided government policy, corporate greed, and public apathy). But it's my blog and today I choose to be pissed off about this.

Mother Earth recently wrote a blurb about a Rolling Stones report on Smithfield Farms, one of the biggest, nastiest, greediest corporations on the planet. And….they own Butterball. So if extolling the virtues of local farmers, tasty meats, and community doesn’t get people off their duffs and making the effort to contact a local turkey farmer, perhaps the gruesome reality of Smithfield World will.

Argh!

Yes...it's time to think about Thanksgiving 2009 in Northern Nevada

 If you want a locally raised turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner now's the time to order your turkey. I'm waiting to hear back from other growers to confirm they're taking orders but one farmer is taking orders right now.

Rise and Shine Farms is getting geared up for the season so contact them and get your order in now.

Local turkey

Yes! If you live in the Reno/Sparks area, or anywhere within a reasonable driving distance from Gardnerville, there may be local turkey in your future. Shannon, her father, sister, and brother-in-law raise turkeys in Gardnerville and have been for about six years. We learned last year that someone was raising turkeys in Nevada but we couldn’t track them down. Now we know!

These turkeys are organically raised Broad-Breasted Whites, the breed typically found on American Thanksgiving tables. It sounds like the family wanted to raise them range-free but it didn’t work out. Apparently living a range-free turkey life requires a certain level of bird-IQ and this breed doesn’t have it. After numerous tries at creating a set-up that would allow these turkeys to roam free they had to start keeping them enclosed. Even so, I don’t imagine these “enclosures” are anything like the gruesome conditions industrially raised turkeys endure. Shannon’s family raises turkeys for 140 families right now and has capacity for more…. hardly an industrial farm.

It’s about the time of year they start ordering poults to be ready for Thanksgiving. Shannon doesn’t usually require advance notice if a family is going to order one turkey. But if you’ll be putting together a bulk order with your family and friends or every one of the people you tell say they’ll be switching to local turkey this year, email her at shannon@graytv.com to make sure there will be plenty available in November. She orders enough to meet the average demand but my hope is this post will help her exceed the usual demand. Woo hoo!

Our local, heritage Thanksgiving - Great Basin Basket and Wind Dancer Ranch

Usually, after Thanksgiving dinner is over and my thoughts turn to turkey sandwiches on white bread, I'm kind of relieved. We love to cook and have family and friends over, but it's a lot of work and requires the timing skills of a high wire acrobat. Whew! This year our dinner was more like an adventure thanks to Great Basin Basket, heritage turkeys from Wind Dancer Ranch, and our friends and family.

Check out what we received in the Thanksgiving CSA basket; easily enough for the big dinner and a few more. Look at all this!

All of it was delicious, fresh, and grown or made by people who live in our community.

The Brant family had a Royal Palm turkey ...



All the other families had Spanish Blacks...

(We took this picture the day we picked up our turkeys.)


Our 2007 Thanksgiving shopping was more like visiting friends than a chore. We met new people, all of them nice, outgoing, and committed to their land, the food they grow, and the people in their community. We spent two hours touring Wind Dancer Ranch, a working farm that had been abandoned for 17 years and after three years of hard work looks like paradise. "Shopping" doesn't get any better than this!

Local food Thanksgiving

For a couple of months we’ve been planning a Thanksgiving meal made up of as many locally grown foods as possible. Thanks to the great folks who provide the CSA this endeavor just got a lot easier.


Let's start with the Thanksgiving centerpiece....turkey. We went looking for a non-industrial turkey after having read about mass production in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle . The great thing about Barbara Kingsolver's book is that even though she speaks to the inhumane side of the industrial food process, she also talks about the alternatives and people who are creating better food options. So we went looking for someone who raises heritage turkeys that were living a good turkey life. I started my search with the Slow Food preservation project called the Ark of Taste. This developed into email discussions with heritage turkey enthusiasts from all over the country who gave me tips on how to locate someone closer to home (I love the Internet!). We found Lisa Leonard at Wind Dancer Ranch. A group of us went in on a bulk purchase and Mark and I will be going to pick up the harvested birds right before The Day. Local food is generally considered to be anything produced within a certain range of where you live, and though Wind Dancer Ranch might not be considered local by the strictest standards the ranch is still within a reasonable distance. It's a day trip! And, this shopping trip will be way more fun than going to the grocery store because Lisa is eager to give us a tour of her ranch where she raises all kinds of heritage breeds. The Wind Dancer Ranch website is beautiful and informative...the attached image is just one of many that chronicle their life with heritage animals. You can still get one of these amazing birds in time for Thanksgiving; if you want the purchase to be cost effective get some of your friends and family in on a group purchase.

Next you'll need all the other dishes that make Thanksgiving and fall meals so special. This 2007 season is the second year for the spring/summer CSA program. The program coordinators and producers are amazing and they have accomplished great things in a really short period of time. As they manage the daily duties, like harvesting and packing, and the emergencies, such the loss of a pickup-spot volunteer, they continue to look for ways to meet the food needs of a diverse and complex demographic...us! With this in mind The Great Basin Basket CSA is offering fall programs this year; a fall basket and a Thanksgiving basket. I won't go into details here because the buzz has just surfaced and there are questions that only Pauline Hamilton at Great Basin Basket can answer. Email her today because you don't want to miss out.


This will be our first ever Thanksgiving planned with an emphasis on using the increasing number of locally produced foods. Those that aren't available through local producers we'll select sticking as close to possible to our food ethic without sacrificing too much. I'm not at all concerned about sacrificing taste, though, because if the turkey and fall CSA produce are anything like the other local foods we've eaten this year it will taste better than anything we've had before.