Bremerton will have a Sunday farmers market on the boardwalk
near the fairy
ferry terminal starting July 24.
The Bremerton Farmers Market association
announced the extra market Thursday.
Unlike the second market two years ago created after a market
leadership disagreement, this new market is born of an attempt
to liven up the city on Sundays and will be run by the same
organization that runs the Thursday market at Evergreen Park.
Bremerton farmers market organizers were approached by city
council members after Bremerton and Port Orchard
agreed to run foot ferries on Sundays, said market manager
Julia Zander.
Bremerton’s Thursday market has been growing with more vendors
making more than last year and greater attendance (particularly on
sunny days), Zander said.
Market leaders also have been working with the port and business
associations. Bremerton councilman Roy Runyon offered to pay half
the market’s insurance fee out of his own pocket, she said. The
market association is working on securing funding for the second
half.
“We think there’s a lot of momentum,” she said. “People are
really excited about this.”
The market plans to run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will be the
only formal farmers market on Sundays in Kitsap County. The
market’s last day will be Sept. 25.
Poulsbo market goers will be able to buy local goods through
December.
The Poulsbo Farmers Market association announced last week that
they would remain open through Dec. 17, and likely will open
earlier next year, said market manager Brian Simmons.
The market this year already had opened earlier than in years
past on April 9.
“We’ve been talking about it for quite a while now,” Simmons
said.
The market also has been
in talks with the city and the Port of Poulsbo to gain support
for a covered, permanent location for a year-round farmers market
in Poulsbo.
Thus far, no decisions have been made on that front.
“We can’t pay retail rent … we need a special situation,”
Simmons said.
Which can be a tough sell in this economy. But Simmons said some
ideas being floated include a structure that could be used as
shopper-friendly covered parking when the market isn’t open.
For now, the market is focused on being open for 10 months out
of the year, Simmons said.
This autumn, the market will remain at the spot at Seventh
Avenue and Iverson Street.
Market organizers are discussing ways to modify the site to make
shopping easier on cold and rainy days, perhaps by clustering tents
or offering a heated tent to offer shoppers relief.
The late market is likely to be smaller, Simmons said, and it
may open later as daylight hours wane.
With an early heads-up, participating farmers may have time to
sow cool-weather crops such as spinach, kales and chard, onions
potatoes and winter squashes.
Since fall is slaughter season, the market also hopes to draw
meat vendors.
And crafters and people who make preserved goods also will have
a chance to sell wares as the holiday shopping season kicks into
gear.
The restaurant action, it seems, is on Bainbridge Island.
Recently chef and food writer Greg Atkinson announced that he would
open a restaurant on the island. Kitsap Sun’s reporter Rachel
Pritchett
talked with him about it for a story on Monday. By Wednesday,
news had surfaced that Hitchcock, whose locally focused fine dining
fare has been lauded by area food critics, may expand into the
space next door,
according to Bainbridge Conversation’s Tristan Baurick.
At Poulsbo’s farmers market on Saturday, Chef Tomas Nevarez,
owner of the in-home chef instruction company Simmer Down will
demonstrate creating a meal with locally harvested foods.
At Bainbridge Farmers Market, fstopcafé will offer a coffee
roasting demonstration and tea tastings and a talk on tea.
Other Northwest News
Seattle Beerfest
started Friday. The annual, often crowded, convention for beer
geeks at Seattle Center promises 130 brews on tap. It opens at noon
Saturday and Sunday. Cost is $25
I missed this last week, but apparently of note is that
Seattle’s food scene is better than Portland’s,
according to Sunset Magazine, which pitted top cities against
each other. Hmmm, I envision a Portlandia episode in the
making.
And now, I’m cutting this short so I can get to …
Fourth of July
Northwest weather guru
Cliff Mass predicts that the holiday will get off to a cloudy
start, but will sun up by the afternoon with temperatures in the
mid-70s. That means, of course, prime grilling
weather. Every food magazine out there has grilling guides
and suggestions.
Personally, I’m not a fan of making all the food red, white and
blue (that’s what decorations are for), but there are some more
subtle colored-food touches such as red, white and blue potatoes as
suggested by Bainbridge Farmers Market, or maybe a little
blueberry, raspberry cobbler.
Coincidentally, as the Sea Life blog’s Jeff Adams
reminded readers, this weekend also is open to crabbing season
and “crabs are as Northwest’erican as espresso and apple pie,” he
said. You can grill crab, though some suggest that (after cleaning
it, of course) that you lightly wrap it in foil. Crab can be easy
to overcook, so be gentle.
From the Food Life recipe archives (which I realize is a bit
anemic), I can suggest
Peruvian kebabs with roasted yellow pepper sauce, perhaps
accompanied by
grilled corn on the cob and for dessert,
grilled nectarines with berry sauce, though blueberries may
make a more seasonally friendly accompaniment than
blackberries.
Also of note from the fine food publications out there, Saveur
magazine this year offered a
grilling guide that included a half dozen barbecue sauce
recipes from Dr. Pepper sauce to Carolina gold, briskets and hush
puppy or pickled sides (holy wow, why aren’t I eating right now?!).
Southern Living boasts the
“ultimate” grilling guide. And for those who want fewer
calories, Cooking Light also has a Fourth
of July recipe compilation.
As always, fell free to share any other suggestions you have for
celebratory eating on the Fourth! Hope you all eat (and/or drink)
well and stay safe!
Something I apparently missed in last week’s food news roundup
is the first of several educational farm walks hosted by WSU Kitsap
Extension.
Here’s the press release:
Beginning June 27th at 6:00pm at School Bell Farm in Port
Orchard, WSU Kitsap Small Farms Team hosts HOT SUMMER NIGHTS, a
series of education farm walks to showcase the bounty of
sustainable, small acreage farms.
Monday, June 27th – Small Acreage Livestock at School Bell Farm,
9795 SE Horizon Lane Port Orchard, WA 98367
All farm walks run from 6:00 – 8:00pm and are open to
individuals and children over 12 years of age. The cost is $15 per
family and pre-registration is requested. You can register online
at kitsap.wsu.edu or at the
gate! For more information on HOT SUMMER NIGHTS please contact
Diane Fish at 360-337-7026 or by email at dfish@wsu.edu.
Design plan for the the Youth
Wellness Campus in East Bremerton. Click to see the wellness campus
master plan.
I wrote
an article for Kitsap Sun Sunday on Kitsap Food Co-op’s
announcement of it’s future location at the old East High School
campus in Bremerton, and here I wanted to offer a few more details
about the project and the post-announcement conversation I had with
board president Laura Moynihan.
One of the most frequent questions board members have heard in
the past couple years is where the co-op would be, a question that
has been difficult to answer.
From my understanding of the co-op’s situation, it’s been a sort
of chicken and egg dilemma for the co-op: they need enough members
and capital (which comes, in part from membership fees) to secure a
location, but some people are hesitant to put a $200 fee on the
line before they knew where it would go and how viable this project
would be.
Conceivably, the announcement of a location gives the group an
additional selling point for membership.
“Were really lucky to name a location that doesn’t require an
infusion of capital,” Moynihan said.
In addition, the group has drawn some influential backers,
namely Mayor Patty Lent, local architect Steve Rice, who has helped
the Co-op look at potential sites, and members of the Boys &
Girls club (the club’s director of special projects Stacy Dore’ was
at Sunday’s meeting).
The East Bremerton campus
has been conceptualized as a center for youth wellness issues.
The youth wellness center, which would offer classes on nutrition
and cooking and exercise, was the brainchild of former Mayor Cary
Bozeman (though originally slated for Bay Vista, formerly known as
Westpark). A
design created by world-renowned and Bremerton-raised architect
Steven Holl has three wings, one for health-monitoring (which may
now include a dental center), one for cooking and gardening, and
one for play.
There will be a lot of money to raise both for the Co-op and
other players on the East Bremerton campus. The Co-op is expected
to cost $3 million to open. The Boys and Girls Club estimates the
cost of it’s facility at $4.3 million, and the wellness center is
estimated at $14 million.
“This campus makes everybody more visible,” Rice said at the
meeting.
“We’re all stronger as one thing together,” he added.
Though so much is tentative, Moynihan envisions partnering with
the schools and/or Boys & Girls Club on a demonstration garden,
which was part of the campus’ original concepts.
The plan also included a year-round farmers market (which still
is
in dream-phase in Kitsap), which Moynihan said could enhance
the visibility of the Co-op, and could possibly mean another
partnership with the Co-op, which other area co-ops have done,
Moynihan said.
One other thing of note is that this would put the co-op nearly
next door to an Albertson’s. That could be an awful lot of grocer
competition in one place, but Moynihan said it also could be an
asset, allowing people to hop over for items they can’t find at the
co-op.
On the subject of partnerships, Moynihan also said that the
Co-op, when opened, wants to talk with the school district or area
restaurants about procuring food for them.
The Co-op store itself has originally been planned as a 10,000
square-foot facility, with a 1920s grange-style look. Included
inside may be a cafe.
The guidelines for what products will be sold still has to be
determined by members. The overall philosophy, though, will put
priority on purchasing foods grown and made in Kitsap then working
out from there.
As Co-op vice president Kristina Kruzan said at Sunday’s
meeting, “First we have to have a co-op before we know what we’re
going to have in it.”
As part of Sunday’s presentation, a prepared video with words of
encouragement from Lent and Bremerton School District
Superintendent Flip Herndon also included some snapshots of the
building and early conceptual sketches for the store:
The Taste of Tacoma runs Saturday and Sunday at Point Defiance
Park. Admission is free, but the food is not. The TNT Diner blog
has info on what restaurants are dishing up for the festival.
More information on other entertainment is at tasteoftacoma.com
The Kitsap Food Co-op, which has been gathering members and
searching for a home has a “big announcement” coming on
Sunday.
Poulsbo Farmers market announced that it would extend its season
through Dec. 17. I’ll try to get more on that soon.
Kitsap Sun’s food critic Bernard Jacobson this week
offered his review of Bay Street Bistro in Port Orchard. He
gave it a 9/10 for both food and service.
Random
The Accidental Hedonist blog this week chimed in with some
thoughts on locavorism, and why so much focus has been put on food.
Also this week, the Kitsap Cuisine blogger also has a
post on local food, imploring people to get more serious about
food in Kitsap.
Recipes
On the
Small Potatoes blog, Anne cooked up some savory veggie
fritters/pancakes for what looks to be a simple weeknight meal.
At the Fat of the Land blog, Langdon Cook offers up a suggestion
for preparing the influx of salmon at local markets as well as a
use for morels in a recipe titled
Salmon with Pinot Noir Sauce and Morels.
People who walked around downtown Poulsbo during Viking Fest
last weekend may have noticed a new store on Front Street. Crimson Cove, which has been
selling smoked salmon, smoked cheeses, nuts and other goods at area
farmers markets during the past few years has opened a
storefront.
Mark and Jody DeSalvo began selling smoked goods in 2007. They
use alder and apple woods to smoke their goods from a building in
Kingston.
The store, next to Sluy’s Bakery, has the same salmon and the
variety of cheeses from blue to swiss that they’ve sold at farmers
and other area markets as well as smoked salts, nuts, dips,
crackers and salsas so boaters at Poulsbo marina can take back
enough snacks for a day on the water. Plus, they have samples.
Kitsap farmers are in nascent discussions about a year-round
farmers market in the county.
At a Monday night meeting of the Kitsap Community and
Agriculture Alliance, Nikki Johanson of Pheasant Field Farms
kicked off a discussion among the roughly 30 attendees.
As farmers market seasons close up for the witness, she said,
she’s increasingly heard vendors and customers wonder aloud where
to go next for their local foods.
“People want local food … and they want it more than x-amount of
months,” she said.
KCAA President Marilyn Holt said that additionally, for a
commercial farmer to make it, the farm needs to be selling for 48
weeks out of the year. The farmers who don’t likely have to find
additional sources of income.
Currently, most markets close in October. Poulsbo has a
one-weekend Thanksgiving market and Bainbridge Island reopens its
market in a new location in mid- to late-November and stays open
for another month.
Year-round farmers markets exist elsewhere in the Puget Sound
region. There is, of course, Pike Place, but also Ballard,
University District, West Seattle, Port Angeles and San Juan
Island.
In
downtown Everett, a developer plans to build a 60,000
square-foot agriculture center to house a year-round farmers
market, and will include a commercial kitchen and processing
facility The facility will anchor a 180-unit housing project. A
nonprofit group of farmers will operate the market, which
developers hope to have open for the 2012 season.
Some markets like Port Townend’s and Olympia’s are open until
Christmas, which some at the meeting suggested may be a better
option for Kitsap.
And what’s sold at these markets isn’t just soaps and jams,
though the producing of the latter has recently been made a little
easier with the passage of a
cottage food bill in Washington .
The winter offerings are, of course, not nearly as abundant as
what’s offered in the summer, but farmers are able to bring in
squashes and root crops and dried fruits and vegetables.
And let’s not forget that animals are raised on farms, too. One
farmer said she saw plenty of poultry at West Seattle’s market. For
the same to happen in Kitsap, though, farmers would likely have to
find or create a facility (possibly a mobile one) to process
poultry.
Johanson said that additionally, she’s had success with hoop
houses, which could allow her to have marketable produce in
February and March.
But many questions remain.
Questions such as: Where would the market go? Would there be a
single space or would it be better to extend the seasons of several
markets? Would the market(s) be truly year-round or is it better to
lengthen the season to, say, Christmas? Would there be enough time
after planning to plant crops to harvest this winter? Can you draw
enough customers? Would there be a high enough proportion of
farmers to meet Washington State Farmers Market Association
guidelines (and thus gain the benefits that goes with being a part
of the association, such as insurance)?
And, importantly, would enough farmers be willing to extend what
can be an exhausting work year?
That last question is one group members hope to address
first.
They’ve asked farmers market managers — Bremerton and Poulsbo
markets were represented at the meeting — to poll their vendors and
will go from there.
And until I hear those results, I’m going to do a little polling
of my own and, as always, please comment away.
Just a short note for all of you local food lovers out there: If
you haven’t caught it already, Diane Fish over at the Kitsap Farm to Fork
blog last week started a series taking a historical look at
farming in Kitsap.
KINGSTON — If people had told Tami Bowen a dozen years ago that
she could make a living selling peanuts, she’d have told them they
were crazy.
Crazier still might have been the notion that not only could she
make living but be on the verge of greatly expanding a nut
business.
That was before Tami met Clark Bowen, the CB in CB’s Nuts.
It was 2003 and Clark was both running a family outdoor
advertising business and selling roasted peanuts from a tent on
Occidental Avenue in front of Qwest Field.
He’d been hooked on peanuts since munching on them during
Mariners games, and decided to make a business out of them after
falling in love with a bag of fresh-roasted North Carolina peanuts
at Camden Yards in Baltimore. From there, he traveled through the
South and convinced family peanut businesses to share close-held
information.
Tami described her husband as a student, intense in his
research.
“If I get interested in something, I’m going for it,” Clark
said.
Clark Bowen fills the hopper
with peanuts to be ground into peanut butter.
After they married, they prepared the nuts together in a roaster
that screamed like a jet engine from a steel outbuilding at a
friend’s house in Kingston. When neighbors couldn’t take it
anymore, they moved the operation to their own home in
Hansville.
By then, they were working with several grocery stores. Clark
would go out and sell nuts and Tami would take care of deliveries
in between their first child’s naps.
As sales grew, Clark sold off the sign business and in 2007 they
bought a 1,000 square-foot building off Highway 104.
There, they expanded to other nuts and offered shelled nuts to
stores with grinders for peanut butter.
Along the way, they developed a relationship with Whole Foods, which got them
buying organic peanuts from New Mexico.
After a distributer accidentally delivered 10,000 pounds of
shelled nuts, they found themselves in the peanut butter business
too.
Much of the early peanut butter work was done in small batches
with a lot of hand work.
Protective wraps of plastic on the peanut butter jars were
shrunk with a hair dryer and labels were pasted on by hand.
Clark at first utilized an old Hobart industrial baking mixer to
rub off the papery skin from the nuts. Batches were then shaken by
hand on a screen to let the skins fall out.
Eventually, Clark got a lead on an old industrial skinner form
the South that he had rebuilt and shipped to Kingston.
To make the butter, peanuts were ground in small batches in a
grinder about the size of a microwave with a two-inch in diameter
grinding wheel.
“It’s been really fun to figure out how to grow within our
means,” Tami said. As one part of the business grows, they’ve built
up around it.
The peanut butter has been selling well as customers grow
comfortable with a fresh product with a suggested four-month
shelf-life.
Add to that a growing desire for fresher and locally produced
foods, and the company hit its peanut butter processing limit.
They applied for a business loan to buy a larger grinder, but
were turned down.
That’s when Whole Foods suggested they apply for one of its
local producer loans.
Still smarting from the costs involved with the other loan and
the current state of the economy, “I thought maybe we shouldn’t do
it at all,” Tami said.
But apply they did, and in mid-April they had their new,
refurbished grinder up and running.
“This will really allow us to expand,” Clark said.
At full capacity, the machine, which has an 18-inch girding
wheel, can process 16,000 pounds of nuts an hour, 20 times the
peanut butter they were making before.
“It’ll take us awhile to get to full production,” Tami said.
Peanuts don’t grow overnight.
Clark will soon set out to visit their peanut growing partners
in to see how much more they can supply CB’s going into 2012.
For now, they’re adjusting the grinder, seeing how much
production they can manage. One of them goes in early in the
morning, the other joins in the work in the afternoon.
“I consider this (business) the third kid … something we’ve
grown from an idea,” Tami said.
And they’re planning for July, when they’ll take their first
vacation in four years.
