Due to financial constraints, Farmhouse Bakery is no longer able to bring milk, cream, butter and cheese from Crystal Ball Organic Dairy. Donna and Jay’s business van met with an untimely demise in January; the cost of renting a trailer combined with rising fuel prices have had a significant impact on their bottom line. As we mentioned in last week’s newsletter, Aeppel Treow Winery will bring Brightonwoods’ award-winning cider on Saturday (the winery is located at the orchard). Rushing Waters Fisheries would like to attend every week from now until the end of the season; we will do our best to have them as often as space allows. Decatur Dairy will return with cheese this week and Springdale Farm will be back on the 19th with their lovely produce.

Farm Fresh Market Breakfast

We are finalizing our spring menu (and pricing) for the March 26th breakfast and plan to send out a special edition of our newsletter early next week. Participating chefs include Peter Sandroni (La Merenda), Andy Tenaglia (Lagniappe Brasserie), Michelle Evans (Northwestern Mutual), Pat Sturgis (co-owner) of Beans & Barley, Jack Kaestner (Oconomowoc Lake Club), and Louis Danegelis (Lee John’s Catering).

Eden’s Market

Located along the North side of the lobby with her back to the window, look for the ebullient Caroline Carter. Though some items like flavored flaxseed crackers and granola chunks look as though they have been cooked, her vegetarian selections are all mainstays of a raw food diet. Caroline’s ingredients feature fruits, vegetables, sprouted seeds, nuts, herbs, and natural sweeteners (eg dates, bananas, carob powder). Food products sold at the market include the aforementioned crackers and granola as well as vegetable dips, salsa and the new, not-to-be-missed, collard green roll-ups. Eden’s market website

· “Raw foods become a way of life for mother, daughter” An interesting Journal Sentinel article by Cailley Hammel that describes a raw food diet, the local PBS station’s “Cooking Raw” show, Caroline Carter’s training as a certified raw food chef and the evolution of Eden’s Market.

· Cooking Raw” Co-hosted by Caroline and Shenita Ray, her daughter and business partner, this 8-part series on MPTV shows viewers how to prepare flavorful meals using healthy, uncooked ingredients. Channel 10’s website contains numerous recipes, several full length videos from the show, and information on how to obtain a copy of "A Mother and Daughter Diary of Raw Food Recipes for Beginners".

· “Local Foodies Spread the News About Cooking Raw” A blog entry on Burp! Where Food Happens features an interview with Shenita Ray. If you watch the embedded video from the premiere episode of “Cooking Raw” you will see a segment that was filmed at the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers’ Market (beginning at approximately 7 minutes, 20 seconds).

2011 Farm Fresh Atlas of Southeastern Wisconsin

Just Released: The seventh annual edition of a remarkably successful local food guide for residents of southeastern Wisconsin. Featuring farms, farmers’ markets, organizations and businesses that produce, use, sell or support the use of Wisconsin farm products, once again, patrons of our winter market will have an opportunity to pick up copies of this colorful, free resource through the end of April. To look at an equally colorful, well-designed FFA website, click www.farmfreshatlas.org/southeast. The web team has added a particularly useful feature – an alphabetized farm list.

Local Farmer Open House

Have you ever considered becoming a member of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm at the onset of a traditional outdoor growing season? To learn more about becoming a farm ‘shareholder’ and to meet the growers who do this type of direct marketing, travel over to the Urban Ecology Center on Saturday afternoon (after visiting your favorite MCWFM food producers). For further details about this annual event, visit www.urbanecologycenter.org/localfoodopenhouse.html

Samples

This Every week you have a wide variety of market foods to sample: soup (Wisconsin Soup Company), dips (Aleka’s Kitchen), crackers (Eden’s), salsas (Tomato Mountain), breads (Water House Foods), enchiladas (Cocina DeLeon), caramels (Becky’s Blissful Bakery), cheese (Saxon Homestead Creamery), and sausage (Golden Bear Monarchs Elk Farm). This Saturday, as a special feature, Bolzano Artisan Meats is offering pancetta stuffed mushrooms and Thymely Herbals is introducing a Spinach-Arugula Pesto that will be available for tasting as well as purchase (6oz for $6).