Posts Tagged ‘Applecheek Farm’

• The Town That Food Saved

  Date: 03.12.2010 | Category: The Beat | Response: 0

  At first glance, Hardwick seems a typical Vermont town. Main Street turns into Mill Street as it follows the curves of the Lamoille River. Stolid public buildings hint at its granite-quarrying past. Ford pickups and Subarus jockey for street parking and people dash into stores to grab a paper or a cup of coffee.

  Yet when you skim through the Hardwick Chamber of Commerce directory, you begin to suspect there’s something happening here. Listed are not one, but two bakeries in this town of 3,200 people. The several ag/farm members list a wide variety of products including worms, soy foods, cheese, seeds, berries and vegetables galore. There’s also a healthy handful of nonprofit organizations including The Center for an Agricultural Economy, which is devoted to ensuring access to local, affordable foods.

  In the past few years, food-based businesses—Applecheek Farm, Bonnieview Farm, Claire’s Restaurant, Connie’s Kitchen, High Ledge Farm, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Jasper Hill Farm, Patchwork Farm & Bakery, Pete’s Greens and Vermont Soy to name only a few—have transformed Hardwick into a sustainable foods Mecca. Along the way, Vermont farmer/writer Ben Hewitt has been taking notes.

  Hewitt’s book, The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food (Rodale Books), will be released on Tuesday. This engaging account looks at the long tradition of agriculture in the area and focuses in on today’s localvore movement and its creative “agrepreneurs.” Vermonters will recognize many of the characters from charismatic leaders to quiet activists to laconic old-timers.

  Claire’s Restaurant, the farm-food hub on Main Street in Hardwick, is hosting a book-launching party for Ben Hewitt on Tuesday, March 16. The three-course $25 prix fixe dinner will celebrate the farmers, artisans and producers highlighted in Hewitt’s book. To make a reservation, call 802.472.7053.

  Ben Hewitt will be signing books at bookstores throughout the state in the coming weeks:
  Tuesday, March 16: The Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, 7 pm (For every pre-sold copy, the store is donating $5 to the Hardwick Area Food Pantry.)
  Tuesday, March 30: Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, 7 pm
  Saturday, April 3: Phoenix Books in Essex, 7 pm
  Thursday, April 8: Bridgeside Books in Waterbury, 6 pm

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• One Big Block Party

  Date: 02.25.2010 | Category: Coming Up | Response: 0

  Move over Crescent City. It’s Burlington’s turn to let les bons temps rouler. The Magic Hat Mardi Gras Celebration in downtown Burlington, Vermont, opens with music at Higher Ground on Friday night. On Saturday, live bands on Church Street will fill the air with Cajun/Creole sounds as pubs and cafes will serve up tasty New Orleans fare.

  The King & Queen of Mardi Gras Costume Contest begins at noon outside City Hall. Winners are each awarded $500 and will help lead the Grand Parade with Magic Hat’s Alan Newman and Mayor Bob Kiss. The event, now in its fifteenth year, will benefit the Women’s Rape Crisis Center.

  • If you go, keep in mind: Smart revelers park their cars at Magic Hat HQ on Bartlett Bay Road in South Burlington or Burlington High School and take the free Mardi Gras shuttle into town.

  • Buy your beads to throw at the Magic Hat Mardi Gras Headquarters located in the old Maplehurst Florist shop on Church Street in Burlington. Sales benefit the WRCC.

  • It’s going to be chilly! Fingerless gloves are best for catching the beads, authentic Louisiana moon pies and Lake Champlain chocolates as they fly from the floats!

  • Families with children under 7 years old are welcome to catch the parade from the Little Jambalaya Viewing Zone, on the corner of Main Street and South Winooski.

  More Regional Events

  (All events take place in Vermont unless otherwise noted.)

  Thursday, February 25
  Ron Krupp, local author of Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis offers up practical actions for Vermonters.  7 to 9 pm at Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. Free.

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• Applecheek Farm’s Creative Viability

  Date: 01.15.2010 | Category: Farmer Beat | Response: 0

  In the early 90s, Hyde Park dairy farmers John and Judy Clark felt worn out from working so hard and still having a hard time paying the bills. Instead of selling out and moving on, they got creative. Today the Clarks and their two sons continue to milk 70 cows on the 243-acre organic farm but they’ve diversified into grass-fed meats, pasture-raised poultry, raw milk and agri-tourism. So along with the mooing, visitors can now hear gobbling, clucking, quacking, whinnying, bleating and the deep-throated drumming of emus and llamas.

  Applecheek is a busy place. The farm offers old-fashioned horse-drawn sleigh rides in the winter and llama trekking in the summer. Thousands of school children come each year on field trips to learn about agriculture and where their food comes from. Members of Applecheek’s meat CSA stop by to pick up their shares. Restaurateurs and cooks-in-the-know come to buy guinea fowl, heritage turkeys, Muscovy ducks or a couple dozen farm-fresh eggs.

  Applecheek Farm has become an important focal point of the community. The Clarks have built a barn with a large dining hall and meeting room that has become a gathering place for meetings, reunions, conferences and weddings. Son Jason Clark, a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, operates JDC Just Delicious Catering from there featuring farm-fresh ingredients.

  Recently, John and Judy decided to sell their development rights to the Vermont Land Trust to pay down debt and help transfer the farm to their sons. Neighbors have also jumped in to help: The Freeman Foundation has pledged $215,000 to the project, and the family and locals must raise the remaining $95,000—they’re close the halfway mark. Judy Clark said the neighbors’ response has left the family “amazed and grateful. Even though most of these neighbors aren’t involved in agriculture, they see the importance of sustaining land and sustaining farms.”

  On Saturday, January 23, Applecheek Farm will be hosting a localvore dinner to welcome in the New Year in mouth-watering and foot-stomping style. Chef Jason’s feast will showcase products from area farms. The band Knotwork will play traditional Irish music. For more information and reservations call 802.888.9407 or email jdccatering@yahoo.com. Reserve by January 21 for the early reservation discount.

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• Farm Bureau Opposes Climate Change Bill

  Date: 01.12.2010 | Category: News Feed | Response: 0

  The American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention kicked off in Seattle last Sunday with a heated keynote speech about climate change legislation from AFBF president Bob Stallman.

  Stallman called on members of the six million strong group–the largest farm group in the U.S.–to unite despite differences in farm size and ideology to aggressively oppose climate change legislation in Congress.

  The climate bill, which Stallman calls “misguided, activist-driven regulation,” was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last summer and is currently being reviewed by the Senate.

  The bill calls for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In order to achieve this goal, a cap-and-trade system has been proposed to curb emissions from factories and power plants, says Reuters.

  The New York Times reports the bill would allow regulated entities “to buy offsets for some of their emissions by paying farmers to plant trees, practice no-till farming or other carbon-storing practices.”

  Stallman noted the bill calls for as much as 59 million acres currently used for farming to be turned into land for forestry. He argued, “At the very time we need to increase our food production, climate change legislation threatens to slash our ability to do so.”

  “A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule,” said Stallman.

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• One Sweet Weekend

  Date: 11.19.2009 | Category: Coming Up | Response: 0

  Master chocolatiers and amateurs alike can learn, shop and best of all indulge at the Festival of Sweets this Saturday and Sunday at South Burlington’s Doubletree Hotel. The festival, formerly known as the The Vermont Chocolate Show, showcases world-class confectioners working in Vermont today.

  Culinary students from NECI and St. Johnsbury Academy compete for prizes in sugar and chocolate sculpture.

  Presentations include Kim Greenwood on Vermont beekeeping, Ken Hastings on making maple candies, NECI chef Adrian Westrope on making a decorative chocolate cake, Drew Emory on making a great cheesecake and lots more.

  The festival runs from 10-6 on Saturday; 10-4 on Sunday. Admission is $10 for adults, $6 for children.

  More Regional Events

  Thursday, November 19

  As part of a Sustainable Living in Vermont series, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center hosts Alan Benoit of Sustainable Design who will discuss how passive solar technology can be incorporated into new and existing structures. The talk begins at 7 pm.

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