abowlofgood.com

Today at 9:00 on Mt. Clinton Pike, the future Gift & Thrift Business Campus ground-breaking ceremony took place. Katrina was given an opportunity to speak. As one person told me afterwards, “I was drooling just listening to her talk about the ingredients she will be serving!” Indeed, Katrina gave a wonderfully enticing chat and set the table nicely for the many Gift and Thrift volunteers and others attending the ceremony.

The white hard hat made Katrina look… er, uh, enticing as well.

Our understanding is that August 2009 is the target date for opening the Business Campus and thus A Bowl of Good! Stay tuned!

Our family used up our frequent flyer miles and went back to visit Guatemala this summer. We returned this week and we are back in the saddle cooking all day. We had some Roma striped Tomatoes available from our garden and so we have included them in our Garden Tomato and Basil Bertha Burstin’ Loaves.

We are thankful to Rachel Dorsey, Helena and Wes Edwards, and Mary Bendfeldt who helped provide you A Bowl of Good products at the market while we were gone and made our trip possible. We heard nothing but good and we’re hoping we can get Wes a gig here in the ‘burg for his guitar playing.

The trip gave us lots of ideas for ingredients and cooking from beautiful and colorful Guatemala.

From the Poqomchi (Eva’s people group) we ate the white, corn based, turkey soup called “Sak’ ik’”.

From the Keck’chi’ (Luther’s people group) we ate the clear red based, turkey soup called “Kak’ ik’”.

And from the Ixil we ate the amazingly healthy Boxboles (pronounced bosch-bowl-ies) which are essentially steamed squash-type leaves wrapped around tortilla paste, slathered in a delicious tomato sauce, and dipped in a pumpkin seed sauce. They look like green cigars.

We always like talking about Guatemala. If you have an inkling of interest, drop by and have a chat with us about it.

While our garden may not be much to look at due to a fair amount of rain and not enough weeding, we have found some nuggets that should tantalize your tastebuds. It seems our Vidalia onion sets did quite well!

As I write, Katrina and Rachael are roasting up the onions we harvested yesterday from our garden with some garlic. They are tossing it with mozzarella and parmesan cheese and baking it with the potato buttermilk, Bertha’s Burstin’ Loaves. You might want to get to the market a bit earlier before they sell out.

We will be providing the Groovin’ Gorgonzola Dill Dip tomorrow (due to popular demand) to go with your fresh cucumbers.

Dear Friends and Family,

PEEKABOO!

My daughter, Eva, and her friend, love coming to the market and play. Last Saturday they set up their own “fort” underneath one of the tables. It is this type of family, fun, and relational atmosphere that makes the Harrisonburg Downtown Farmers Market and the Staunton Farmers Market such a wonderful place to stock up on locally grown and produced food and products. “10 minutes of shopping, 45 minutes of visiting”.

It is stunning to see how quickly the Harrisonburg Downtown Farmers Market shelter is progressing. Come on down tomorrow and take a good look - the late Summer/early Fall target date for completion seems quite feasible!

While you are down at the market, chatting and bumping into friends, pick up Katrina and Rachael’s Basil Butter and Honey and Ginger Butter.  The honey that is used was harvested by my husband, Ernie, from our backyard hives. The Basil Butter nicely compliments Sweet Corn that you may be able to pick up at the market.

Katrina Didot
A Bowl of Good
www.abowlofgood.com
abowlofgood@gmail.com
540-435-2674

You may have heard that cilantro and jalapeño peppers are now on the salmonella “watch list”. One thing you can be pretty sure of, the people from Las Vegas and other areas who got infected probably didn’t buy their produce from the Downtown Harrisonburg Farmers Market.

See:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080710-1117-nv-salmonella-vegas.html.

So rest easy and buy a loaf of bread and some Smok’n Cuban Black Bean soup from A Bowl of Good, and then top it off with fresh tomatoes and cilantro grown by one of our Market vendors. Just another reason to buy local!

We have heard bits and pieces of why locally raised honey is better but we would like to hear from you. There’s the word that the stuff in the supermarket has been “stretched” with some kind of evil sweetener or that locally grown honey is helpful against allergies, but all I know is that it tastes great, we’re helping a local farmer and economy, and the local bee population is being stimulated.

Nate Clark at Good Earth Gardens makes your honey purchase experience even better. You can taste test the various types of honey and you can even use bread baked from A Bowl of Good as a vehicle for the testing.

They even provide an actual bee-hive for kids to try and locate the queen and learn about honeybees. Check it out at the Downtown Harrisonburg Farmers Market.

I sometimes hear people say that they like the ambiance of the Harrisonburg Farmers Market but that it’s too expensive. The other day we were in a pickle for ingredients so I needed to make a late evening purchase at Martins. When I saw the $5.39 pricetag for a bunch of Basil in spiffy plastic packaging, I began to calculate what it would take to get into the business of growing Basil. $5.39!!!! The basil was presumably packaged and grown locally since the supplier was local, but upon further review, we discovered that this supplier will often import their products from Chile, China, or California. There’s a great unknown.

But here’s how you can be in the know. At the market last Saturday we compared prices and found out that Marlin Showalter carried bunches of Basil grown in Rockingham County for $1.35. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine which is the better deal all around - cheaper in price, fresher, local, and you’re supporting a local farmer and our local economy.

Last Saturday after the market, Marlin allowed Katrina to cut a huge amount of basil for an exchange. Tomorrow at the market you will be able to purchase fresh Pesto made from Marlin’s basil; toss the pesto with pasta and slice up some of Marlin’s locally grown, salmonella-free tomatoes and you’ve got a mid-summer, fresh feast!

Marlin, Miriam and family are can-do people too! You can find home-made donuts,

home-grown flowers,

and even home-made dog bones for sale

- all carried in a unique, hand-painted van.

We encourage you to get to know them and their excellent products this Saturday.

Dear Family and Friends,

Last Tuesday my daughter Eva and I went on a hike to the High Knob Fire Tower.

[Directions: Take 33 West (from the intersection of 42 & 33 this takes about 30 minutes). Directly after you pass the "Welcome to West Virginia" sign, park in the parking lot on the left. The hike is approximately 55 minutes to the High Knob Fire Tower (1.25 miles). It is moderate in difficulty.]

The stroll along the path was as beautifully impressive as walking down an aisle of a church on wedding day. The flower pictured below was in full bloom in all shades of white and pink.

At the top we also encountered the mysterious flower pictured below.

Can anyone “name-those-flowers” for florally-challenged folks like us?
We found ourselves hankering for a Nine-Grain Bread sandwich and a Monster Cookie. With this gorgeous weather, we are in peak picnic season; make sure your not caught with your picnic basket down at the house - pick up all you need for nourishment at A Bowl of Good tomorrow.

Well, the cat is out of the bag: A Bowl of Good will be evolving into a A Bowl of Good Café in the summer of 2009. If you haven’t heard, you can read about it here (http://www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=29195&CHID=2 ) in the Daily News Record, Saturday edition. The back story is fairly interesting (to us at least), but we won’t go into the details right now. Suffice it to say, we are excited, hopeful, scared, and trying to rest in God’s hands.

Rachael has been partnering with me in the Staunton Farmers Market and will be launching out with me in this new venture on Mt. Clinton Pike next to A World of Good and Artisans Hope. We are excited because this will allow us to spread our creative, culinary wings. We hope to provide you a warm, rooted in community place to eat internationally inspired, local goodness.

We have a tremendous amount of work between now and then but for certain, we want to hear from you in what you would hope to find in A Bowl of Good Café. We are excited in where all of this will take all of us.

We believe that with the friends and loyal customers we have developed over the past few years, we can’t lose.

So what do you bring to that summer dinner party that has meaning and does NOT have “Made in China” or “Packaged in California” on it? How about a homemade card from Charlynn Turner at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market and Grandma Shoonies Fennel Bread, and Groovin’ Gorgonzola Dip from A Bowl of Good?

Charlynn makes her own paper and cards which have one of a kind stamps on them. Stop by her stand to learn how she makes the stamps, paints and/or colors them; she creates quite attractive work. Kids might like learning the process. Proceeds from her sales are donated to the Liberian Orphan Fund.