Join Northside Farmers Market on Facebook! click here

The Dralles Do it Right!
article by Jim Franck, photos by Amy Pace

Do you think you could name the 25 healthiest foods on the planet? Would your list include red meat? If not, you might want to bone up on what makes pastured, grass-fed, unprocessed beef so different from its distant cousin, the commercial, supermarket-supplied processed variety referred to in the bad press that red meat sometimes gets.

Don and Marilyn Dralle, proprietors of CC (Coyote Creek) Angus Beef LLC, have been in the business of raising their famous high-quality pastured livestock for more than 20 years and are one of our Market's veteran vendors.

Pasture-raised beef can have as little as one third as much fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed animal. In fact, a lean cut of grass-fed beef can have the same amount of fat as skinless chicken breast. That means a lot fewer calories too. So few, in fact, that if you are at all like the average American who consumes 66.5 lbs. of beef a year, you will consume about 17,733 fewer calories by eating grass rather than grain-fed beef. In addition, meat from grass-fed animals has two to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain-fed livestock.

The Dralles have become famous for their production methods as well as for the quality of their animals. They have been the subject of numerous cattle industry articles about how small acreage farms, using the best in intensive technological oversight, can make a financially viable business producing a very high-quality product using a lot less land than normally assumed.

Their farm, located in SW Wisconsin between Mineral Point and Darlington, is home at the moment to about 80 head of prime Angus cows luxuriating on about 65 acres of excellent grassland. What makes their production method so successful is the result of a very careful, multi-prong management approach that includes leading-edge computerized control of feed, pasturing, and genetics. Their fame rests, in part, on how they rotate their pastures daily which few farmers do. Using moveable fencing and herding the cattle into a different pasture every day gives the Dralles constant oversight on how well their herd is doing, how much they are eating, and exactly when each cow will be ready for market.

Don and Marilyn are so proud of their product and reputation that they refuse to allow middlemen to come between them and their customers. They sell direct to you and I and attend a number of farmers markets every week to ensure they keep in close contact with their customer base. Stop by the Dralles stand some Sunday and say, "Hi!" They not only have some of the best beef products you'll ever eat, they're also a couple of the nicest people you'll ever meet!

This week at Artisans Row...
Helen Mary Beck - Watercolors, cards.
Youa Lor - Handmade bags, clothing
Vicki Lane - Funky Bracelets (link)
Jean Mani - Soap, lotion, candles (link)
Rachael Winkley - Jewelry
Elinor Gbedey - soy candles, t-shirts
Muriel Simms - cards, bookmarks

Market Report for July 5
article by Amy Pace and Jim Franck, photos by Amy Pace

July 5th brought another gorgeous day for Northside Farmers Market customers. Crowds were entertained with a patriotic sing-along by local musician John Duggleby, shown above, (link) and a surprise performance by a cappella singers MadFusion. (Read more about MadFusion in the article below.)

Knee-high and then some! J&R Farms brought 60 dozen ears of sweet corn to the market this Sunday and sold out by 11am. Jan says they'll have 80 dozen ears of the tender and tasty seasonal favorite next week. Make sure you get yours!

Liz Wyman is growing beautiful celery in a dirt blend so unique that she's trying to patent it! Sold by the plant or by the stalk, the celery is tasty, crisp, and packs a lot of 'celery' taste (not the same as what you'll find in grocery stores). Jimmy Hudson, who also plans to bring celery this year, says it is one of the hardest vegetables to grow.

Capital City Cookies is planning on bringing ice cream-cookie sandwiches next week to help customers beat the summer heat.

Cindy Hollenbeck at Keene Organics says that this coming Sunday they will be introducing their frozen, pastured, 4 - 6 1/2 pound whole chickens at $3.25/lb. They have been fed an all-organic diet although they are not actually certified organic. Cindy and Keene expect to have about 35 chickens this Sunday, with more coming in September. The Hollenbecks brought 20 dozen eggs last Sunday and sold out by 10am. Expect the chickens to do similarly. If you want top quality poultry products, get to the Market early!

Itching to get outside and spruce up your garden? Stop by Morningwood Farms or Rich Pederson. Both vendors have a large selection of beautiful perennials to choose from.

Would you rather let someone else grow the poseys for you? Paul Libal of Woods Edge Landscaping in Waterloo, purveyors of mixed bouquets, had beautiful gladiolus arrangements on Sunday. He expects to be at the Market through the summer as long as his flowers continue to bloom.

See you this Sunday!

What the heck do you do with epazote, anyway? article by Jim Franck

Epazote? Garlic scapes? Lemongrass? Ever been tempted to pick some up at the Market but didn't because you hadn't a clue what to do with them?

If you spend any time searching the web, you are probably, like most people, fixated on Google or Yahoo! It's time to broaden your horizons. Two relatively new specialty search engines have come on the scene, dedicated to crawling the Internet, returning nothing but recipes and food blogs.

At foodblogsearch .com, you can enter 'epazote' (a Mexican herb) into the search field and, bingo, in less than 2 seconds it will search over 3,000 food blogs and present you with 312 pages that contain epazote recipes or tips! Scrambled eggs with epazote and poblanos sound like a great way to spice up your morning? Next time you're at the Market, pick up some epazote from vendor Juan Gonzales. There are at least 312 reasons why you might like to.

Try the same experiment with supernaturalrecipes .com, a site dedicated to natural, delicious, whole food recipes. In less than .7 second, it turned up a recipe for mole-roasted cauliflower that uses epazote, of course.

Send the same searcher on a quest for what to do with lemongrass and in slightly over a second (1.37 to be exact) it will offer up 10 recipes including "In a Hurry Green Curry" which uses curry paste made with lemongrass.

Armed with these two tools, many of our Market's offerings will shed their mystery and open your culinary world. And you won't go home on a Sunday morning having passed up some of the most interesting food items our vendors have to offer.

Musical Surprise
article by Jim Franck, photos by Amy Pace

click on image to enlarge

Market customers were treated to a musical surprise Sunday by the spontaneous appearance of a group of a capella singers who call themselves MadFusion. If your Italian is rusty, "a capella" means "singing without instrumental accompaniment" or, as their byline has it, "We do it without instruments..."

The singers perform pop, barbershop, soul, and jazz and have graced the Art Fair on the Square, Cafe Bellitalia, and the Children's Hospital to name a few. They chose our Market this past Sunday because one of their members is a vegetarian who lives on Sherman Avenue and does a lot of shopping at our NFM. They said there's a very good chance we'll see them again this summer. If you want additional information about MadFusion, check out their website (link).
  

Tortilla Soup
Image courtesy of the Hass Avocado Board

Ingredients

3 tbsp. corn oil
4 corn tortillas, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp. chopped fresh epazote
1 c. onion, chopped fine
2 c. tomato purée (fresh is best)
1 tbsp. cumin powder
2 tsp. chili powder
1 bay leaf
2 qts. chicken stock
salt to taste
cayenne pepper to taste

Garnishes:
Grilled chicken breast strips
Fried corn tortilla strips
Avocado strips
Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Sauté tortillas with garlic and epazote until soft.

2. Add onion and tomato purée and bring to a boil.

3. Add cumin, chili powder, bay leaf and chicken stock. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat to simmer.

4. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste and cook, stirring frequently, for 30 minutes.

5. Remove bay leaf. Pour into soup bowls. Garnish each bowl as desired. Serve immediately.