Order form is ready...

A few things:

1. If you have a ".edu" email address, you can score a free YEAR trial membership to Amazon Prime. This is fantastic for stocking up on organic deals. Prime gives you free TWO DAY shipping. Like, you order a case of oatmeal on Monday and it's at your door on Wednesday. Fantasikrazy. You only need that edu address to confirm your membership, then nothing goes to that address again, if you sign up with your own email as the primary contact. I used Houston's UF address, and he just forwarded me the confirmation link when he got it and was never bothered again. I keep an eye on Amazon's food deals and will alert you to them on this blog. Some of them are really crazy good, and I keep a special eye on the organics. Sign up HERE.

2. Gainesville Cow Pool: Many of you are already members of this group, but I urge you to join if you want access to local pastured meats for a better price than we can get meats through this buying club. I've now done a cow pool, a venison pool (had really fantastic venison stew last night) and a pig pool. Usually around $3-$4 per pound. You might get unfamiliar cuts, so you have to be willing to learn new meat-cooking skills. Sign up for the yahoo group HERE to get notices of upcoming pools. It's run by Andi Houston, and pickups are usually from her house near Buccholz High School. She runs a blog HERE about some of her experiences with local foods/farms.

3. This has less to do with food, except one time a grassfed meats place in Lake City offered a special once, but if you don't already belong to Groupon, GO HERE and sign up for their Gainesville alerts (different cities have their own little groups, be sure to sign up for Gainesville's). It's a program through which you can buy, say, a $40 gift card to Liquid Ginger for $20. Or, like today, a tandem skydive jump for half off. Ron's yoga college did one last week. Zumba classes at GHF was earlier this week. Just local businesses promoting themselves by offering gift cards for usually half off. Worth getting notices for.


Okay, on to today's ordering!!

MEATS
Norman has EIGHT white rock chickens available this week (different from the breed he had before). They're 2.50 per pound, and should be around 3 to 4 pounds, so somewhere between 7.50 and $10 for each frozen, locally produced chicken, ready for roasting. There will be more available in coming weeks, but he doesn't want to have to do too many in one weekend. (I have $10 on the form since I have to put a price in now, but I'll adjust it depending on what your bird weighs.)

Speaking of local meat, there's no buffalo this week.

Several people requested grassfed ground beef, so Grateful Harvest in on. We've been getting Heartland Meadow which is the mostly pastured but also grain fed, not certified organic. This is the all grassfed and organic stuff. I also added Eberley ground turkey. Eberley is the pastured Amish-farmed stuff, and organic. I'll try to offer the organic/grassfed some weeks, the more affordable but still humane/natural stuff other weeks.


PRODUCE (I think I must have missed the produce - I made a loooooong order form today! Everything looked good.)
Cucumbers are on special. 1.75 per pound. Each share is two pounds, so I'm guessing that'll be 2,3, or 4 cukes, depending on size. Looking around, apparently that's a good price for organic.

Red peppers are coming from Florida now, rather than Holland, which is making the price better. They aren't on special, but they're much cheaper then they have been. I assume these will be like the ones we got last time. Less bell shaped and more elongated.

Someone requested those northern sweet potatoes again. They weren't on the list this week, but "japanese sweet potatoes" are. Read more about them HERE. Like the "northern" ones we got, they are lighter-fleshed and have a more dry/fluffy texture than our moist orange southern sweet potatoes. I think these are very large, so 4 pounds might be 3-5 big potatoes. We'll do traditional southern orange ones next week (they're also available at local farmer's markets right now.)

Ataulfo mango: I admit I don't know much about mangoes, but this was noticeably cheaper than the other mangoes offered, so it caught my eye. This variety is apparently stringless and has a smaller seed. Read more HERE.

OTHER
Goat's milk: Since our goat milk source is gone, I thought I'd put this up. It's listed as conventional, "Albert's choice" brand. $6.60 per half gallon. It's a preorder, so it's down there with the preorders.


PREORDERS
cottage cheese (18): 2 Ruth, 4 Talia, 2 Jen B, 1 Naomi S, 2 Steph, 2 Heddy, 3 Beth, 3 EXTRAS
Tribe Hummus, 4lb (2): 1 Steph, 1 EXTRA
Bacon 2.5lb : Ruth, you had one preordered, but i just put it up with the meats. Just re-order it.
Fage yogurt (6): 2 Ruth, 2 Tonya, 2 Beth
Heavy Cream (12): 2 Talia, 2 Brenda, 2 Beth, 2 Ashley, 4 EXTRA
1 case heartland meadow steaks: Beth
1 case turkey drumsticks: Brenda (I'll share if you want one, but I can't remember what the price is per package, and I'm not sure which one I ordered.)
Stringles: 1 Brenda, 1 Ashley, 1 Naomi, 1 Beth (it's not usually a preorder item, so I put this up in the regular ordering section. If you're not listed here but want one, go ahead and order, as it'll probably come in this same week.)

If you'd fill in your own preorder numbers in your column, it makes it easier on me, so I don't have to.


BUTTER: I'm sorry I keep making you order this over and over, but put in how much you really want, not worrying about if the totals go over the 55 pounds available. I'll keep ordering a case a week until everyone's order is filled. Everyone who orders this week will get at least a portion of what they want to hold them over until future orders can bring you up to the amount you actually want. But I can only handle one 55 pound block at a time. I don't want to try to deal with more than I can safely cut and store each week.

Someone asked how you know what to ask for, since there's not a list of what's available. I need to fix that. I'll work on a master list.

That's it. The form's ready. Go ORDER NOW, and remember, try to have your order in by 10:00 Saturday morning!