10 Opportunities to Grow Farmer’s Markets in 2011 and Beyond

I saw a Tweet this morning that introduces the 2010 National Farmer’s Market Directory.  The quick takeaways for me are:

1. Farmer’s Markets are growing like wildfire – up 16% YOY, continuing healthy growth every year since 1994 (the first year on the accompanying chart);

2. NC is in the Top 10 in the nation for number of markets, with 182.  That’s a market for every 44,000 people.  By those numbers, Cary should have 3 markets, and it kind of does (if you count the State market).

That’s good news, it really is.  We sell a lot of coffee in farmer’s markets, and spending every Saturday in multiple markets has had numerous benefits for us personally.  We eat better.  Our children have favorite farmers for every food.  We enjoy a sense of community with the vendors and the customers.  Our lives are enriched in ways we had never even considered.

But it could be better.  It really could.

Because in my experience, many (most?) farmer’s markets are missing a LOT of opportunity.  So I offer my unsolicited advice to any market manager willing to listen.

Opportunity #1: Ask your customers what they want.  Sure, you can guess.  But you don’t need to.  So ask.  Then do what they ask.

Opportunity #2: Be willing to shake things up. The fact of the matter is that most markets are squatter’s markets.  Once you’re there, you’re there forever, if you want to be.  The argument for this behavior is loyalty to vendors.  They come every market day, rain or shine, good day or bad. Shouldn’t we respect that and allow them to continue participating?  My answer is, “of course”.  To the extent that customers still want that vendor more than an alternative.  Fact of the matter is that markets have finite space.  Use it for the vendors customers want the most.

Opportunity #3: Let the brutally efficient capital market sort the winners from the losers. Market managers play God every season by determining who gets in, and who doesn’t.  Most of these decisions, in our experience, come down to vendor protectionism.  Market managers want to make sure vendors have a good season, so they keep coming.  Understandable.  And we’ve even benefited from that behavior.  But I hate it.  Take on more comers, and let the customers sort it out.  If there are too many vendors of something, some of them will go away.  Let it happen.

Opportunity #4: Be more expansive in terms of product lines.  People today are busy.  They don’t necessarily need one-stop shopping, but they are not going to The Lettuce Store, then the The Tomato Store, then The Bread Store, etc.  You’ve got to give them as much as possible in one stop.  That means meeting ALL their food needs, not just the things you think are important.  So even if your vision, Mr. or Ms. Market Manager, is The Ultimate Produce Stand, recognize that there are MANY customers who also want cheese and butter, cakes and breads, prepared foods, and more.  And accommodating them will help you achieve your mission, too.

Opportunity #5: Embrace modern communication technology. Most markets are starting to get this.  But there are still many opportunities to improve.  Part of the problem is that people involved in markets seem to believe that everyone thinks/cares about markets as much as we do.  Nope.  Not true.  Sure, we all have our die hard customers who do care as much as we do.  But most are more casual consumers of what we offer, and they need to be reminded, stimulated even, to engage in unfamiliar routines.  Remember, for us it’s a habit.  For them, it’s a chore.  Really.

Opportunity #6: Engage community. Many markets are situated near retail businesses.  Invite them to participate in your market.  To come tell market customers what it is they do, and why customers should care.  Most will be happy to do so.  And customers will benefit.  It’s a virtuous cycle.

Opportunity #7: Keep your petty squabbles in the family. In our experience, farmer’s markets are like families: they’re all dysfunctional.  Some are openly nutty.  Others appear normal until you get to know them.  But make no mistake, there’s no such thing as normal.  And like any family, there are all sorts of squabbles.  “So and so took my space.”  “He’s selling his tomatoes too cheap.”  “She didn’t grow that stuff, she bought it somewhere and is reselling it.”  The list goes on.  The thing is, customers come to the market for peace, tranquility and organic lettuce.  They live dysfunctional every day of their lives, too.  They want a little slice of Norman Rockwell from the market.  Let them have it.  No squabbling after the opening bell.

Opportunity #8: Embrace modern financial tools. Basically, this means find a way to take credit cards.  Customers in the US just don’t carry cash.  Quit complaining about it.  Either make all your vendors take them (unreasonable, probably), or find a way for the market to take them.  There is a 21st Century Farmer’s Market program – join it.

Opportunity #9: Dump the non-food. In a desperate attempt to have a parking lot full of tents, many farmer’s markets go the way of flea markets.  All manner of pottery, jewelry and soap crowd out the lettuce tents.  Some amount of this stuff may be desirable, but in many markets, it’s too much.  Now, there is a caution to accompany this opportunity.  Many markets categorize vendors as “growers” or “crafters”.  If you’re not a grower, you’re a crafter.  Hmmm.  We’re not coffee growers.  But we’re not crafters, either.  We’re artisan food processors.  We recommend you amend your categories to “food growers” and “food processors”.  Then maybe reallocate the mix – in many markets, it’s 75% growers, 25% crafters.  How about 60% food growers, 40% food processors. That’s a more accurate reflection of consumption patterns, too.

Opportunity #10: Have some fun! Ultimately, that is what it’s all about.  Create a party atmosphere.  Invite everyone.  Let your hair down.  Because in the end, life’s too short not to dance to a fiddle and have a watermelon seed spitting contest.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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Top 3 Coffee Megatrends for the Next Decade

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.           -Bill Gates

This post has been brewing (pardon the pun!) in my head for a couple years now.  I’ve watched the evolution of specialty coffee as an “insider” for three years at this point, and while that is a relatively short time, it’s long enough that we’ve already detected shifts in the marketplace.  In another life, I was trained and became pretty good at making these kinds of predictions; let’s see how I do on these when we look back ten years from now.  Note that while I view these as the primary market moving forces, I’m not sure about their relative impact, i.e., they are in no particular order.  I also think about the topic from the perspective of a specialty roaster, so I look for trends that impact us, and I tend to focus on things I perceive as threats; I’m sure there are other relevant and/or positive trends I neglect to mention here.

Megatrend #1: Evolution of the Single Cup (non-espresso) Format.

Single cup brewers are nothing new, of course -  I remember lousy machines from Black & Decker when I was a college student in the 80′s – but early entrants were still inconvenient and messy, offering only lower waste and a fresh cup each time as their value proposition.  Nespresso came along with a decent product, but in my opinion, its appeal is limited by a few things, not the least of which is marketing to coffee snobs, and in select geographies, no less.  No, it took Keurig with its K-Cup format to put single-cup brewing on Everyman’s map, and the world is not looking back (or blanching at $0.50+ cups, apparently).  Analysts expect 3 billion K-Cups to be sold in 2010, and an astounding 5 billion in 2011.  And this is with less than 7% penetration of the US market.

Keurig’s growth in the face of adverse market conditions is evidence enough that convenience trumps quality and price, but imagine a world of half-price K-Cups.  Because that’s what’s coming.  I’m no patent attorney, but I’ve spent enough time in IP World to know that Green Mountain is gonna have a problem on its hands when its core patents expire in 2012.  Sure, they’ll argue that they filed lots of CIPs, and the market is about more than just government-granted monopoly, both of which are true.  But I predict that megabrands like P&G will wade in to take a piece of the K-Cup action, maybe even via partnering from a position of strength.  But mark my words, in three years the race to the bottom on K-Cups will begin, and by 2015 you’ll see them everywhere, and for almost free.

Megatrend #2: New Prepared Beverages, and Beverage Formats

I’ve been a world traveler for 25 years at this point.  My observation is that while we do export a lot of western, i.e., American culture abroad, we also import world culture, albeit with less balance and at a much slower rate.  And ultimately, we tend to put our our American impression on the things we import from abroad, making us believe we somehow thought of them in the first place, so to us, they seem American, home-grown.

In my travels, I’ve encountered many tasty beverages.  And some not-so-tasty, but different and interesting.  I still remember my first canned coffee in Japan decades ago.  In an age before Starbuck’s Doubleshot (hell, before Starbucks even), I thought that can of coffee on a train platform in Tokyo was about the oddest thing I had ever seen. Not so odd, anymore.  There are just too many good morning beverage ideas in the world to think that they won’t make erode the American coffee industry.  I can only imagine what they may be from today’s vantage point – yerba mate, anyone? – but rest assured, they’re coming.

Megatrend #3: Good Green is Harder to Source

The world is changing, especially the developing world.  I’ve seen in in my other life as a medical product professional, and I saw it this winter as a coffee professional in Costa Rica.  I grew up on a farm, and can tell you first hand that farming is hard work.  Those who tune in know that farming as an occupation is on the endangered species list in the USA.  Guess what?  It’s no easier (harder, actually) outside the US.  Not surprising, many farmers want a different vocation for their children.

And for the first time ever, sending the kids off the farm is becoming achievable in many places.

There are other pressures, too – development pressure, availability of easier, more profitable crops, etc.  But the net effect is that in a time of increasing competition for the top 1% of the world crop, that 1% is shrinking.  Getting good green coffee is going to become an increasingly difficult and expensive proposition for roasteries like ours.

So what are the net effects you can expect to see as a result of these trends?

Effect #1 – Your Options Will Shrink

Like other aspects of American food, the number of choices is shrinking.  Production realities and distribution economies of scale demand it.  It’s never more efficient to have more SKUs when you can have less instead.  Anticipate that the mainstream options will be reduced to about the ten left-most bars on the Pareto chart.

Effect #2 – Quality will Regress to the Mean

Again, in the interest of efficiency, quality will become a casualty.  Not that low quality will become the norm – no, something much more troubling (IMO) will happen.  Everything will become mediocre.  we’re already well on the way.  If you have any doubt, count the number of chain restaurants you see in a day, and notice the amount of food diversity on a national and/or international level the next time you travel.

Effect #3 – Prices Will Increase

Once the selection is narrowed, and the quality has regressed, you are trapped with no options.  And then the prices will rise.  I’ve seen evidence of that already, as pointed out in another post.

So what can you do?

The same thing that you can do to fight the effects of homogenization everywhere: support your local independents.  Pay more to reward quality.  Patronize businesses you think do a good job.  While I’m pessimistic about the future of food, I also realize it’s not here yet, and things can change.  It’s up to you to be the change you want to see in the world.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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More Money, Less Choice. Welcome to the Grocery Store.

The first two years of our business, I followed local coffee pricing pretty closely*.  I monitored local groceries every couple months, noting changes in pricing and availability.  This past summer, life started getting pretty crazy, and my last price check-in was in July 2009.  Given that we do all our food shopping in farmer’s markets, that was probably the last time I was in a grocery store.

Until yesterday.

My first reaction upon returning to the grocery store was to be glad I’m not in the ice cream business -  Breyers blowout in progress, but 2, get 3 free.  Man, that’s some tough competition.

My second reaction was, “What happened to all the coffee?”.  It was immediately evident that there was a much smaller selection than I saw in July.  Consulting my spreadsheet later, the numbers revealed that there was fully 33% smaller brand selection than in July 2009, and the brands that remained were large, national brands.  I’ve never tracked the SKU level, but my sense as that even within the remaining brands, the number of individual SKUs was reduced (essentially, there was just less shelf space devoted to premium coffee).  Bottom line, if you buy coffee at the grocery store, you have a lot less choice than you did just nine months ago, and you will be selecting from major national brands.  This isn’t entirely surprising, except that exactly the opposite has occurred in the beer aisle. Given there are just about 500 craft brewers in the US, and 1600 craft roasters, this is a little counter-intuitive.  My best guess is that structural aspects are driving the difference, e..g, beer has a better distribution network, and the profitability to retailers is higher.  But that’s just a guess.  Maybe people just like beer more – some days, I do.

The final unpleasant surprise came when I entered the prices into my spreadsheet.  In the past nine months, the average price of coffee has increased 3.7%.  This, in a period where the inflation rate was 1.06%.  The average price of premium coffee when I calculated it last night was $13.91 per pound, up from $13.44 per pound on July 27, 2009.

Interestingly, in July there was only one 16 oz. put-up.  Now there are none available in the grocery.  Most of the put-ups are 12 oz., a couple are 10 oz, and one is 11 oz.  This smacks of the incident with propane sellers about a year ago, where tank exchange companies quietly decreased the fill weight of tanks while keeping price constant.  It seems that coffee sellers are using the same cleverness to hide the fact that small increases in package price translate into large changes in the per pound price.

Now, you may think I’m going to argue that coffee prices are too high.  Well, I’m not about to argue that; in fact, I think coffee is still too much of a bargain, as are many food items in the United States.  Read the book Cheap to get some perspective on food prices.

But I am going to argue that if you buy premium coffee in the grocery store, you should be buying from us instead.  You like variety?  You like fresh?  You like local?  You like a good deal?  Our coffee averages in the low 12′s per pound.  We have about three dozen SKUs to choose from.  We roast fresh weekly.  We roast date the packages.  We can tell you about the pedigrees of the coffees we buy.  We are a local bricks-and-mortar merchant and tax-paying member of the community.  The only thing we’re not is as convenient as a grocery store.  So what’s the problem?  Why are you still buying coffee in the grocery store?

Break the habit of buying bad, stale coffee from the grocery store.  Come visit us and let us show you a real value.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

*Comment on methodology: I follow coffee prices in a few “mid-range” groceries in my area, e.g., Harris Teeter, Lowes.  I look at coffees I think of as “premium”, that is, comparable to what we sell – coffees like Peets, Starbucks, Green Mountain, and a few local roasters.  I do NOT include what I think of as commodity coffees, e.g., Dunkin Donuts, Folgers, etc.

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Pimples, Elephants and Coffee Beans: Climate Change and your Morning Cuppa

One year ago, President Obama came to office in the US with a wave of enthusiasm. Yes We Can was the mantra. Yes We Can to all kinds of things. Yes We Can end war. Yes We Can fix healthcare. Yes We Can promote equality. Yes We Can address climate change. Regardless of how you may feel on any of these topics, it’s the last point I want to address here. And I’ll give you a prelude to my opinion: the mantra should have been We Don’t Really Care. At a minimum, it’s safe to say, We Haven’t Yet.

This week, I have the opportunity to be penning this missive from Europe. On this trip, I realize that I’ve been coming here quite often, for quite some time now (several times per year, for nearly the past 20 years – it’s safe to say I’ve probably been here 50 or 60 times in the last two decades). The advantage of being in Europe is that one is acutely sensitive to world news here. (To be fair, one reason for that is that world news in the only English-language television or newspaper available, aside from porn.). In addition to Europe, I realize I’ve been exceptionally privileged to have traveled extensively throughout the world. I used to keep track of the statistics – dozens of countries, hundreds of cities (thousands of excellent meals and probably an equal number of dreadful cups of coffee), but honestly, I’ve lost interest in scorekeeping. For one reason, I have nothing left to prove. But more to the point, everything is becoming the same, everywhere. It is a small world, after all. As one of my graduate engineering professors liked to point out, everything is connected, it’s a matter of how tightly. That extends to you, your coffee, and your future. As well as mine, and everyone else’s.

The news in Europe this week is the Climate Change summit in Copenhagen (show of hands – how many of you even knew it was going on?). The world must act, is the punch line of all the coverage. (Despite all the coverage, it’s not clear to me whether President Obama will be here; presumably he will send representation, at least.) So what does this have to do with your morning cuppa? That’s a fair question. The answer is, hardly anything. And that’s part of the problem. It’s hard to care about small things. But it’s hard to act on big things. The classic Catch-22.

Climate change, driven by man-made carbon emissions, is a multi-faceted problem. The elephant in the room is building heating, cooling and electrification generally, accounting for approximately 50% of emitted carbon by some estimates. Nobody seems interested in addressing this (not easy, or sexy), so we make noise about chipping away at other stuff. Auto emissions, maybe high single digit percentage on the Bad Actors list. Aircraft emissions, 2%. Coffee – the proverbial pimple on the ass of the elephant.

But pretend for a minute that we really do care about chipping away at the small things. Organic. Fair Trade. That’s the answer, right?

Let’s dismiss the obvious. Fair Trade has to do with prices, not the environment, per se. But to some small extent, the ability to make a living wage on a small plot might prevent some slash and burn to plant more coffee (though from a pure carbon perspective, the coffee trees are good, too), so Fair Trade probably has some de minimus positive influence.

Organic? It’s hard to argue that organic practices aren’t better for the environment than conventional agriculture (at least you avoid fixing nitrogen from fossil fuels), so you get some points there. But both of these things, organic and Fair Trade, are pimples on the pimple of the ass of the elephant. It’s been observed that better than half of the carbon emitted due to coffee consumption is due to things that happen after beans leave origin, namely roasting and consumption. (I should observe here that I am very favorably impressed with the Rainforest Alliance and what there certification implies for sustainability. They are really about much more than rainforests, and my opinion is that they have missed an opportunity to reach American consumers because they are narrowly branded with a topic that most Amercans, frankly, do not really care about. Maybe that can be the topic of a separate post.)

On the consumption side, it’s the disposables that are the big culprit. Want to make a difference? Reusables are the answer, wherever possible. Bring your own cup, in other words. But packaging is an opportunity, too. At Muddy Dog Roasting Company, we package all our coffees in biodegradable, compostable bags. How do I know they are compostable, aside from the claim printed on the bag? I compost them myself. Three months in my Earth Machine and there is no sign of coffee bags, just rich fertilizer. Buy one from us and try it, I dare you. To our knowledge, we are the only company in the southeast using this particular compostable bag, and one of the few in the nation using any type of environmentally friendly packaging.

So what about roasting? Well, in most cases, this is an activity that has not technologically changed in a hundred years or more. Essentially, most coffee roasters (machines) operate by continuously heating room air, and blowing that hot air out the ceiling in almost instantly. This activity requires a prodigious amount of fuel. Say what you want about natural gas being better than other forms of fossil fuel, burning less of it is better than burning more of it. At Muddy Dog Roasting Company, we partnered with US Roaster Corp to help develop a new type of eco-friendly roasting machine, one that oxidizes smoke and recirculates heat. We use 94% less energy than conventional roasters. We can roast coffee in North Carolina and ship it anywhere in the US with less total emitted carbon, from roasting PLUS shipping, than the same coffee roasted on site with a conventional system. We are one of only a few of these systems installed in the world. You would think that people would care about these kinds of improvements. To be fair, most people, when they learn of our environmental leadership activities, are favorably inclined (the rest don’t care, and they say so). But it’s also fair to say that they were going to buy from us anyway, regardless. They buy from us because we’re local, they like us, and in some cases, it’s convenient. And we sell excellent products. By and large, they don’t make environmental responsibility part of their purchase criteria.

And therein lies the opportunity.

All else being equal, selecting the organic, Fair Trade, locally roasted option is usually the best course of action. And nine times out of 10, when you ask the right questions, you’re going to find that your options are roughly equivalent in terms of roasting and packaging technology. Same circus, different clowns, as it were. But occasionally, when you peel the onion, and ask the right questions, there is something new. Something different. Something better. When you find them, select them. And make a difference.

Yes We Can.  Change We Can Believe In.  CHOPE.  Call it however you like it, just DO something.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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Hottop Roaster Review

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog post here, so I figured when I did, it should be significant.  I think this one qualifies.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to spend an hour with a customer and friend, Mike M., observing the operations of his Hottop roaster.  We are authorized resellers of Hottops, but quite honestly I had never put one through its paces before this (shame on me, I know).  I’ve rectified that situation with a 9-part series of short videos (each is between 1 and 3 minutes long) showing the construction, features and operation of the machine.  Overall, I found this machine to be well built, nicely featured, easy to operate and produces a great result.

Each video is embedded below, but here’s a link to the entire playlist.

Here’s a link to Hottop Roasters available through our website.  We ship these roasters for free, and include a four-pound green coffee sampler to get you started.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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Is It Tea? Or Is It Coffee?

We heard some interesting feedback at the Duke University farmers’ market today.  More than one customer, independently of each other, tasted our sweet tea made with the beautiful Sewpur Estate Assam black tea, and offered the following observation… “tastes like coffee”.

Since I was not at the market, this message was relayed to me this afternoon, with some concern about my competence and attention to detail.  After all, it was Yours Truly who made the tea.

I had cleaned the brewer thoughly before brewing it (yes, I use the coffee brewer to brew black teas in large batches).  I cleaned the urns.  All the utensils.  The countertop.  Even the scales.  So I was puzzled.

With great trepidation, I just tasted the offending tea.  And since it is a cold sweet tea, I even heated some up to see if temperature made a difference in the volatiles.  You know what I tasted?

Tea.  Just tea.  No coffee.

Just to be sure, I had my teenagers taste it.  They have highly sensitive and pretty sophisticated palettes.  And they don’t like coffee.  If there was one part per million of caffeol (the water-soluble substance that gives coffee its aroma and flavor) in that brew, they would be all over it.  You know what they said?  “Good tea.”

That rich, complex flavor the customers were talking about?  The malty, slightly floral, beautifully nuanced beverage, with a fairly full mouthfeel?  It’s called TEA.

I don’t say this to be some kind of smart-alec.  Part of me wanted the complaints to be correct, because that would be easy to fix.  The problem, I realize now, is that too many people have never actually tasted a really GOOD tea (and for that matter, if they thought the tea tasted like coffee, they’re not drinking good coffee, either).  One with rich, full flavors that compel you to taste it over and over, because you get a new experience with each mouthful.  One that’s lovingly grown, carefully fermented, skillfully sourced and thoughtfully brewed.  One that’s treated like a beautiful, seasonal agricultural product, which, of course, it is.  That stuff chopped up in bags you buy in the supermarket?  It bears a passing resemblance to tea, but is no substitute for the real deal.

So if you were one of those customers who thought the tea tasted like coffee today (or any other customer, for that matter) – I invite you to contact me to arrange a private or semi-private tasting.  I would be thrilled to have you cup teas and coffees of the world with me to show you what you’ve been missing.  Please give me a call, seriously.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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El Salvador Sam Emilio Pulped Natural

I’ve been so caught up in minutiae lately that I realized I forgot blog about this new arrival: El Salvador San Emilio Pulped Natural.

A pulped natural is the love child of wet process and dry process.  In wet process (aka washed), the cherry is fermented for a good, long time, depupled, then the (now clean) parchment is dried.  A dry process (aka natural) is simply picked, then dried in the sun like a raisin.  The dried cherry is stored that way until time of sale, at point it is depulped, cleaned, sorted, etc.

Wet process coffees are typically a “cleaner” cup – lighter mouthfeel, crisp.  Rounded.  Dry process is more “rustic” – bigger mouthfeel, earthy, and in most cases, fruiter.  Sometimes to excess.  Crazy fruit.

Pulped natural is the best of both worlds.  Washed, but not as long, depulped, but not as clean, then sun-dried.  In the cup, it’s clean, yet full.  Rounded and fruity, but not excessively so.  Outstanding.  Makes a great SO espresso, too.  Maybe a little light on the body, but oh, the taste!

Get it here.  While it lasts.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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Coffee-Infused, Strawberry, Fired Jalepeno Salsa

This past weekend, we attended a Cinco de Mayo party at Casa de Alarcon.  Jason and Michelle pulled out all the stops, with an authentic menu and a Mexican guitarist.  But the highlight of the party, for me at least, was the salsa contest.  With three categories – hot, mild and fruit – I wasn’t sure which I was going to enter.  But I did know that my salsa would contain… you guessed it, coffee!

Categories, schmategories.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have trouble working within frameworks.  So I did my own thing.  Given that it’s now strawberry season in North Carolina, and that I love spicy salsa, I was determined to create a hot, fruit salsa.  Here’s how it went.

Ingredients:

1 Pot Mexican coffee
1 Medium white onion
30 cloves
4 quarts strawberries
3 Green onions, sliced thin
1 TBSP dried oregano
Small bunch cilantro, minced
1 garlic clove, smashed with a generous pinch salt
1 TBSP good balsamic vinegar
1 dried ancho chile, reconstituted, and scraped into a paste
1 Poblano Chile, roasted and minced
1 red bell pepper, roasted and minced
1 jalepeno, roasted and minced

For the coffee infusion, I wanted some coffee flavor, but I didn’t want it to be the dominant flavor.  To achieve that, I used a lesson I learned at Aregash Lodge in Ethiopia: I studded a white onion with cloves (about 30 cloves in a medium onion), sliced it in half, and placed it in a pot of brewed Mexican coffee.  I started that a day ahead.

You can also roast your peppers a day ahead.  Just put ‘em on the grill, or on the hobs of a gas stove, and roast until the skin is uniformly charred.  Put the hot, charred peppers in a kraft sack to let them steam and loosen the skins.  When cool enough to handle, remove and compost skins and stems, then mince or dice to desired size.  Be sure to wash your hands after handling the jalepeno.

Once your clove-studded onion is sufficiently marinated, remove and compost the cloves, and dice the onion.  Add that to the strawberries and the garlic.  Now you want to make it smooth, but not too smooth.  I pulsed my immersion blender in it till I got the desired consistency.  You could pulse in a food processor, I suppose.  I think a regular blender would be too much, though.

Once you have your slightly pureed strwberry/onion/garlic mix, add the remaining ingredients and stir.  Let it all marinate for a few hours.  Taste and add more salt and vinegar if necessary.

I won the hot salsa category!

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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Come See Us at the Farmers’ Market

Hey all.

Did you know that the Downtown Cary Farms’ Market has been open for one month already?

Judging by the crowds, or lack thereof, we’re guessing you don’t know.  But the good news is, now you do.

We’re expecting beautiful weater today.  And more importantly, strawberries.  So c’mon out.

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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OT, or maybe not: Louisiana’s Last Shrimpers

Photo credit: Garden & Gun Magazine

Ok, this one is off-topic.  Or maybe not.  It all comes back to buy local.

Yesterday I got my new edition of Garden & Gun.  Yeah, yeah, get the jokes out of your system.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is a magazine I really like.  Think “Southern Living”, but for men.  And the kind of women I find interesting.

Lots of good articles in this month’s edition.  But the one that caught my attention was the one I mentioned in the title of this post: Lousiana’s Last Shrimpers (click HERE to read it online).  I was captivated by the story, and thought about all the parallels I’ve seen just in my adult life: US steel, NC textiles, and of course, food of all sorts.

The gist of the article, as you might have guessed, is that Louisiana shrimpers are getting killed by Asian competition.  Hardly news, I suppose.

But it makes me angry.

This fall, in our sad and tragic (on so many levels) presidential election, both of the leading poseurs (err, I mean “candidates”) made a great show about how they would “stop rewarding corporations who ship our jobs overseas”.  That statement is ludicrous on so many levels, but most obviously because politicians have no power over this situation whatsoever.  Companies, mine included, respond to customers, not to government.  They tolerate government, they influence government, they take advantage of government, but they respond to customers.  So at the end of the day, the only power resides with… YOU.  You vote with every dollar you spend.  Do you think if every shrimp consumer walked into their seafood purveyor, and asked for gulf shrimp, and turned around and walked out in disgust when presented with a Thai alternative, that Thai shrimp would threaten the very existence of Louisiana shrimpers?  Of course not.

I also hear it with many of the wanna-be local foodies I encounter (no offense to the many, many genuine local food advocates we know), who think that eating local was invented in 2008 (nuevo-locavores?) .  By them.  They talk a good game about wanting local food, but when it becomes even a little more inconvenient or expensive to eat that way, bam, ideals are out the window.  Back to Whole Foods they go.

Take a stand, people.  We ran out of eggs this week.  What am I supposed to do, buy some from the grocery store?  I don’t think so – the answer is to go without until Saturday when I can buy them at the Market.  I stand in a freakin’ parking lot every two weeks to get raw dairy from a farmer in South Carolina because my government chooses to stifle my freedom by making it ILLEGAL to buy it in North Carolina.  Ridiculous.  My kids are sick of eating kale and sweet potatoes (ok, maybe not sick of sweet potatoes) because that’s what’s in season and grown by our farmer friends.  You know what I tell them?  Tough shit, suck it up or be hungry.  Tomato, squash and watermelon season is coming, and you will appreciate it more when it gets here.  You’re not getting asparagus from Peru in March just because Harris Teeter stocks it.

It’s fair to question whether I’m being hypocritical when it comes to coffee.  I say not, and here’s my thinking.  First of all, coffee doesn’t grow here, with the exception of Hawaii, and they can sell all they grow for all the money and not meet the total US demand.  So my buying coffee from the rest of the world (in addition to Hawaii) is not hurting my countrymen.  I feel the same way about bananas and pineapples.

It’s also fair to question whether it’s sensible to avoid local food because it’s more expensive.  I think if the disparity were so big that it was the difference between being hungry and not, then I have to say buy the alternative.  But I think the flip side of that question is important, too – what are you going to do with the money you save by buying that Thai shrimp that grew up in its own sewage?  Buy a bigger TV?  An iPhone?  More collectables?  Then I think you need to examine your priorities.  Yeah, I know that my neighbors work at Best Buy, own McDonald’s franchises, and service BMWs.  But whether we care to admit it or not, having a local agricultural community is more important to our health and safety, and long-term well-being, physically and mentally.  Job One, as they say.   And our way of life, candidly.  It’s as much about safety, security, culture and community support as it is about food.

And it’s not just shopping, it’s restaurant choices, too.  I was talking to one of our restaurant customers last night who told me that the last two weeks were the worst they have ever experienced in the history of their restaurant.  Yet when I drove by Carraba’s the place was asses and elbows.  That’s sad on so, so many levels.  Everyone I talk to tells me they want downtown to be relevant, and likes to have small businesses with personality in their community, yet when it comes time to vote with the wallet, they choose MSG-laden foods of unknown origin over small, fresh, locally sourced and competitive priced alternatives.  Why?  Main roads, habit, uniformity, etc etc… all shitty excuses.

Yes, being committed to a local food system is sometimes difficult and inconvenient.  I admit it.  I wouldn’t even argue too much if you told me it was more expensive, although I could show you that for our family it isn’t.  But dammit, anything worth doing usually is difficult.  So stop paying lip service, and put your money where your mouth is.

Buy local.  As local as possible.  If that means from your neighbor, great.  If it means from a neighboring state, ok.  If it means buying from a fellow countryman, better than not doing so.  But be committed.  With every dollar.

</rant>

http://www.muddydogcoffee.com

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