friday 10/25

This is our last buying club until our Monday-before-Thanksgiving meeting in about a month.  And that will be the last one for 2013, so if there's anything you need, be sure to tell me so I can get it onto this order or the next one.  



I had SO hoped that I could get a whole case of honeycrisp apples just for my family, the organic ones are so expensive in the stores.  But the price through Albert's is nearly as high as at Publix.  I swear our prices aren't as good as they used to be.  But I remembered picking up some Ambrosia apples at both Publix and Fresh market over the last couple of weeks, and we really enjoyed them, as much as the honeycrisps, in fact.  So I looked those up, they do have them, a little cheaper than the honeycrisps.  So those are on there.  More about them HERE.

Albert's received a shipment of Murray's tenders, Rocky jr bone-in thighs, and Rocky jr leg quarters that was supposed to go to a different warehouse.  It's all fresh meat, they don't freeze it, so they hope to ship it out to someone on Monday.  They called us and offered it all at a discount.  It's all "bulk", which means naked chicken in one giant bag, it's not packaged neatly into 1 lb packages.

So here's how I'll do it.

The tenders are a 40 pound case, which is a hell of a lot.  And it's 4 ten-pound bags of loose tenders.  I want to handle the meat as little as possible, and hopefully just cut each bag in half and close it back up without having to transfer the meat from one bag to another, so they're on the form in FIVE pound increments.  You can go home and further divide them into smaller increments to freeze them.

The legs and thighs are 20 pound cases, which for some families with a freezer (and whose children don't think dark meat is gross) is a reasonable amount to get. It's on the form, so grab it and growl.  If you don't see it on the form it means they've all been taken.

PICKUPS: If you get milk, pick up on Wednesday.  If you don't, and all you have is meat and/or produce, you can pick up on Monday OR Wednesday.  I'll send out emails reminding you of when to pick up.

That's it.  Order before Saturday at noon.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnRnG5MU84qLdDJ0TEc2WDJXdFlNTk5XVUdHZGRiS2c&usp=drive_web#gid=0

Friday 10/11

PICKUP WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT THIS WEEK, NOT MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm experimenting with something this week.  A Wednesday night pickup instead of a Monday night pickup.

1. I will be working outside the home soon, and need to have more time to do so.  Right now I'm obligated to be home all day on Mondays, Wednesdays I have to be here to receive milk deliveries, Thursday mornings I deliver milk, Friday mornings are assembling the price list.  It's not hard, but much of it ties me down to the house, time that I was completely willing to tie up until Houston needed me elsewhere.  Doing this will consolidate things and allow me to be at the office more (don't get too excited for me - I'll be office manager/dvd duplicator/battery charger for Houston's production company to free him up to do more shooting and editing)
2. While the produce is fun, I feel like we aren't getting the wildly good prices we used to, sometimes I wouldn't have bought it if I could have seen it first, and it's difficult to explain, but the produce is more labor intensive for me than the non-produce.  We have csa's, farmer's markets, trader joe's, ward's...  I think we have a good choice of places to get good produce in town, but not as many choices for good grassfed or humane meats. (it would be cool if a csa would agree to make this a Wednesday drop point, yes?  Then we could support someone local and still have a single pickup for milk, meats, and produce? Anyone know a csa person personally who might be open to that?)
3. If I see a really great price on a produce item, we can still order it and you can choose to pick up on Monday rather than wait.  Or things like apples or winter squash would last the two days, so we could still get those.  We can be flexible.
4. Doesn't hurt to give it a try.  If you hate the idea, feel free to let me know.

If this sticks, and it's mostly freeze-able meats we're getting, we'd probably only do it every OTHER week. 

PICKUP WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT THIS WEEK, NOT MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kathy L, Alex, Laura-Lan, Helen, Michele, and Hellena are the only people with pre-ordered items coming in (heavy cream, whole chickens, and/or the eberly conventional chicken breasts)

Even if you don't plan to pick up this week, or aren't getting milk,you can put in for pre-orders for our NEXT delivery in two weeks.

Natural by Nature whipped cream is on special this week.  The expiration date on them is usually pretty far off if you want to buy now for Thanksgiving.  It's the only nonproduce item on special right now.

Raw almonds.  Someone asked for these months ago and I just forgot.  I found a new farmer, this one has shipping built into the price and it's going to be a little less.  Plus we don't have to buy 40 pounds, just 25.  If we can't get to 25 pounds as a group, and you really want some, I'll give you the link to order yourself. They'll do orders as small as 5 lbs, for more per pound.   For those who haven't been around for past orders, these are UNPASTEURIZED almonds.  Even if you buy "raw" almonds in the store, if they're grown in the US they must be, by law, pasteurized either chemically or with radiation.  The small farmers can get around this law by selling directly, and that's who we're buying from, a guy and his wife with an almond farm in California.  He says he uses compost and chicken manure for fertilizer, and otherwise does not treat anything, and the nuts are not treated with anything afterwards.  Unpasteurized almonds will sprout if soaked. Not certified organic.

Chicken backs: We didn't make a case last time, so we'll try again.  It's two 10-lb bags.  Each bag has about 30 backs in there, the "back" being really just the spine.  Makes good cheap broth without having to roast a chicken first.  The bag comes never-frozen, so you can portion them out before you put them in the freezer.  To the right you can see how large a 10 lb bag is.  I portioned mine into four bags.  Should keep you supplied in bone broth for a while.  Organic/free range.

Split breasts: This is sort of what we got accidentally when we ordered the conventional boneless breasts (and we were charged for conventional).  I liked them, easy to roast.  The ones we got last time were "whole", both breasts still attached together.  These are "split", meaning it's cut into two breast/rib sections. This is the organic/free range option.





WHITE jersey sweet potatoes: I never knew sweet potatoes were anything but orange.  But there's these.  I've been keeping my eye on them, and they've finally come down to a reasonable price, not much more than the orange ones.  If you haven't had them, they're sweet like sweet potatoes, but drier/fluffier, not quite as sweet.


Garrett Valley ham "nugget": It's a 1.75 lb unsliced ham.  About the size of a small nerf football.  INGREDIENTS: PORK, WATER, SUGAR, SEA SALT, NATURAL FLAVORING, MAPLE SUGAR, DRIED HONEY. 
Humane certified, no nitrates/nitrites.


Pirate Dog Acres

This is the name of Camille's farm, and you can now catch her at the Saturday 441 market selling her goat milk, ice cream, and chevre. If you take a look at the sign you'll see that right now we're getting a better price than the farmer's market patrons.

Important note for ordering chevre, ice cream, or goat milk!  Order by Friday night so that Camille can deliver here on Saturday after the market.  This will eliminate the need for her to have to come all the way back in from High Springs for a delivery to us.  ORDER GOAT ITEMS BY FRIDAY NIGHT!

WAINWRIGHT MILK

And finally, Wainwright milk.  Up til now only those who lived near me could order milk.  Now anyone can order since we're consolidating milk and albert's pickups.  Bad news for those who were enjoying the home deliveries, but perhaps good news for those who'd like to pick up milk with their buying club order.  Wainwright Dairy is in Live Oak.  They are pastured, but also supplemented with silage and grain that they grow themselves.  NOT certified organic.  You can get raw or low-temp pasteurized.  Glass bottles ($2.50 deposit) or plastic jugs.  The cheese is $7/lb, but usually come in packages that around .50-.65 pounds each.  So if you put "1" down on the order form the total will come up as $7.00, but know that it'll be closer to $3.50 when I enter the actual package weight.




PICKUP WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT THIS WEEK, NOT MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!




PICKUP WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT THIS WEEK, NOT MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!


ONE more thing.  I have a facebook page for the buying club that I think nearly everyone is on.  A lot of news goes out that way. If you're on fb and you aren't in the group, let me know.

GO.  ORDER.  And let me know if the changes are going to ruin your life.

Friday 10/4

Our turkey order worked out perfectly.  Cases were filled exactly and the order is in.

We have lots of preorders coming in.  Bacon, our white oaks beef, and lots of other things.  The produce list is sort of short this week.  There just weren't very many impressive prices.

Here's the "news" from Albert's: "Broccoli is very limited and markets are climbing. Florida Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Peppers, Tomatoes coming soon."

Honeycrisp apples.  At 8.50 a 3# bag, they aren't cheap, but there are no pink ladies on the list.  The only place I've seen organic honeycrisps had them for $4/lb.



There's no head romaine once again, but they do have Taylor Farms chopped romaine in bags.  It's 2 lb bags, which their web site says is equal to four heads of romaine.  That's a lot of lettuce, but I'm willing to try it since it's about the price of 2 organic heads.






Starkrimson pears are red-skinned, like usual pears on the inside, for raw eating.

Eberly whole chickens are on sale, not much, just 30 cents per pound off, but they're on.  Also the eberly conventional boneless chicken breasts that I'd tried to order before but i messed up and got the bone-in.  Let me know if I forgot anything.  Order by noon on Saturday.  HERE's the link.

Turkeys ORDER DUE FRIDAY A.M.

I'm sorry I sat on this until last minute.  Our orders are due in at Albert's by Friday noon, so I'll need your orders by Friday morning 8 am.  I've narrowed down the choices this year since it seems like we can find "natural" turkeys more easily now, but it's very hard to find one that's been both pastured AND organic.  The turkeys and breasts are tricky because we have to fill 2- 4- or 6- count cases.  The precooked Plainville stuff we can order just one of, so no need to fill cases on those.

Here are our turkey options:


WHOLE TURKEYS - organic and pastured
Eberly free range organic SMALL 8-12 pounds each, $4.75 per lb (about $47 each)   4 in each case
or
Eberly free range organic REGULAR 16-20 pounds each, $4.75 per lb (~$85 each) 2 in each case

This is an actual Eberly farmer.

Eberly's tends to rank high in yearly taste tests, but the articles mention it's a little gamier and maybe more for dark meat lovers, probably because they're more free range than most turkeys.  

Turkeys are pasture raised on Amish farms in the Pennsylvania Dutch country and supplemented with a limited amount of organic, non-GMO grain. 





TURKEY BREASTS organic and free range/barn

Mary's set-up in California

For you white meat lovers...

Mary's bone-in turkey breasts, 4-8 lb each, $5.75 per lb (about $34 each)  6 in each case

(our chickens are often 3.5 pounds, so a single breast will be like two of those put together.)









PLAINVILLE COOKED TURKEYS AND FULL COOKED DINNER
I'm adding this stuff even though it's just "natural" for two reasons.  1. There's just one to a case, so if you want one, just order and it's definitely coming in.  2. Pre-cooked!  Tempting.


FULL DINNER, cooked and ready to heat. Feeds 10-15 people.
Fully Cooked Turkey-10-12lb.
Homestyle Turkey Dressing-3.5lb
Turkey Gravy-Two 13oz Containers

Turkey Broth [Turkey, Water, Salt, Celery Salt, Onion Powder], Wheat Flour, Cornstarch, Lemon Juice, Salt, Onion Powder
Cranberry Relish-One 14oz Container

Other than the gravy, I can't find specifics on the ingredients of the sides except that they are "all natural and simple ingredients" and ready to heat and serve.  I've found reference to this dinner on other natural foods web sites and co-ops and it tends to run around $90.  It's $68 for us.



OR JUST THE TURKEY, precooked.  Precooked!
Choose from:
1. Whole turkey oven roasted 10-12 pounds, $4.25 a pound
2. Whole turkey oven roasted 14-16 pounds, $4.25 a pound
3. Whole turkey smoked, 10-12 pounds, $4.25 a pound
4. Just the bone-in breast, roasted, 4-6 pounds, $6.50 a pound









Plainville is not organic.  But here's their site describing their practices (they refer to their organic practices on this page, but the ones offered through Albert's are NOT organic)

Here's the link to the turkey orders.  Remember, before 8am on Friday morning.

Friday 9/20

NO BUYING CLUB next week, September 30th.  So get enough eggs to last you two weeks, and buy extras of anything that will last to get you through.

Also, take that week off to save up, because when we get back on October 7, our beef preorders and our bacon will be in, plus anything we preorder today, so it could be an expensive order that week for many of us.

sorry for the crappy phone pic

The biodynamic grapes are back, and "on sale".  These are the tiny ones we got a couple of weeks ago in paper bags.  (see them at right, compared to a raspberry)

"Biodynamic" green grapes. Seedless.
 Grapes are packed in earth-friendly paper tote bags, each holding approximately 2+ lbs. There are 7 totes to a case – approximately 17 lbs per case. To ensure high quality, all of our grapes are picked to order and immediately shipped out in refrigerated trucks.

Seasonal Availability: August – September

Brussels sprouts.  These things are never on sale.  They are this week, though.

Spaghetti squash: It's on special.  This is one of those things that I always hesitate to order because it's sold by weight, and so I can't know ahead of time how many are going to be in the case.  Seems like last time we got them they were all around 3 pounds each, so I'm guessing there'll be about 10-15 in this case.  If they're smaller and there's more, some people may get 2 squash in a "share".  It'll be charged by the pound once it comes in, but on the form I have an estimate for how much a single squash is likely to be.  So put in how many SQUASH you want, not how many pounds.  But know that if you put in "1", and they're very small, you may actually get 2.  (with this many in a case, some people will need to order more than one to make the case.  Remember that they keep well.  Like, for months.)

Red plums: I've got it sorted out now.  I know better how many are in a pound.  These are on special at 1.50 per pound, and there will be about 8 individual plums in each share.

PORK: There's a preorder section just for American Homestead Pork.  It takes 3 weeks to come in, so what you order today won't be in until October 14.  

sliced tenderloin.

Bratwurst: we got this a few weeks ago and I really really liked it.  16 oz package, there's 4 big sausages in there.  It's uncured, smoked, fully cooked. Not organic but no hormones or antibiotics and animal welfare certified, no crates. Ingredients pork, water, salt, black pepper, turbinado sugar, garlic powder, ground coriander, ground cumin seed, onion powder, ground sage leaves, ground allspice, celery powder, sea salt.

TENDERLOIN: We've never gotten this before.  This is a boneless tenderloin, kind of a fancy cut, tender and slice-able ( and more like a roast rather than slow-cooked to shred like the butts are)

Boneless center cut pork chop

PORK CHOPS From their web site: American Homesteads All-Natural Hampshire Boneless Center-Cut Loin Pork Chops features a single eye muscle with the smaller side belly strap muscle removed. The uniform and closely trimmed fat cover coupled with our All-Natural attributes and Hampshire breed quality provides you with the extra inter-muscular marbling to give you your own "Prime Type" chop at Home. Each chop is hand cut at a uniform 3/4" inch thick for consistent cooking and sealed in a durable freezer bag. 6-7 oz each

Since their web site says each chop is around 6 oz and our price list says each package is 28 ounces, I'm guessing there's 4 chops in each package.  It's $7.50 per pound, but you'd be buying the package, so it'll be around $13. 

No need to order bacon, I already have some coming in for October 7th, and I'll just automatically order bacon once a month after that.

Greatful harvest stew beef: We've been ordering this semi-regularly for years.  A few of us agreed that we like it better than White Oak's stew beef, so I'm sticking with it.  

Grape Leaves?! And look at me getting all crazy again, adding weird stuff to the form that's always been there, just deciding to throw it on.  GRAPE LEAVES???  Yep.  Oasis grape leaves, a 14 oz container, looks like it has about 14 prepared grape leaf rolls in there.  Grape Leaves, Brown Rice, Diced Tomatoes, Onion, Parsley, Chickpeas, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Sea Salt, Allspice, Black Pepper.

Our list has TONS of prepared foods like this, by the way.  Like, in bulk, or in these little containers - if you ever have a party and want 4 lbs of quinoa tabbouli or thai noodles, come talk to me, I'll get you a list.  This is where UF gets all those packages of deli items they sell in their convenience stores - dumplings, burritos, baba ganoush - all kids of stuff.

I'm not going to list the fage cups on the preorder form any more, but they are always available, so just write me a note if you ever want me to order a case for you.

Okay, all done.  Go place your order before noon tomorrow, and remember that we won't see each other after this until October 7th.  So get all the eggs and chevre and ice cream you need for the next two weeks now.

CLICK HERE FOR ORDER FORM.

Friday 9/13

Purity Farms ghee, 13 oz jar.  Organic, from pastured cows.  The cheapest I've ever found this ghee is from vitacost. This is a little cheaper than that, plus of course no shipping.  This is not the small jar, but the sort of medium-sized one.










Taste Nirvana Thai Tea: We've been doing this buying club for over 3 years now, and though there are some things that have been on the price list all that time, I've never put them on the order form.  I dunno, there's just some weird stuff on there.  But today, on a whim, I'm putting on "Taste Nirvana Creamy Thai Tea".  Never had it.  But I was sort of window shopping in the tea aisle yesterday, saw some cardamom flavored tea, wanted it, but I have a thing for teas and have too many at home.  I didn't get it. But maybe that's why this jumped out at me.  The ingredients are "thai tea (water and thai tea), cane sugar, and whole milk powder".  I'll keep them cold so you can have it on the drive back home.

Cindy's buttermilk ranch dressing.  I put the big bottles on the form not too long ago, but we didn't make the case.  Now I'm completely out, and the thing is, I send salads in the kids' lunches a lot.  I assumed these would be an expensive way to buy the dressing, but per oz the difference isn't huge (with the cups we'll get 20 ounces for $6, with the bottles we were getting 32 oz for $6).  Sorry, earth, but I like these little cups more than I like washing dressing out of little tupperware containers.  Must be refrigerated.  It's a preorder, so it won't be in til next week.

Eberly CONVENTIONAL chicken breasts: This is fairly new.  I like Eberly because they are truly free range, and organic, so that's almost always the brand I get for our chicken.  They have a conventional line as well, called "Levi Eberly".  The organic is nearly $10/lb, and this is a bit cheaper, so I thought some of you might prefer the nonorganic.  I imagine it's a lot like what you'd get from Laughing Chicken Farms, free range but not fed organic feed.  If there's interest I'll alternate between the organic and the non-organic.  HERE is something they sent a while back, and if you scroll to page 7 you can read more about the nonorganic line (they refer to it as RWA, I don't know what that stands for.  Edit: It's Raised Without Antibiotics.)

I think everything else is pretty straightforward. We only have the bacon coming in, no other preorders (except your fage, Kathy G), which makes it more difficult to meet our minimum.  So there's kind of a lot of stuff on there today, hoping to make it to that minimum amount!

Email me if there's anything you want me to add.
Go order HERE, before noon tomorrow.

Friday 9/6

TURKEY ORDERING IS COMING UP.  I know, it seems crazy.  But the deadline for ordering our Thanksgiving turkeys is October 4th, so I'll send some info out on our options, including local ones, in a week or so.  

"Biodynamic" green grapes. Seedless.
 Grapes are packed in earth-friendly paper tote bags, each holding approximately 2+ lbs. There are 7 totes to a case – approximately 17 lbs per case. To ensure high quality, all of our grapes are picked to order and immediately shipped out in refrigerated trucks.

Seasonal Availability: August – September

Bok Choy: These will be regular bok choy, not the "baby" heads we got last week.  Per pound, these are cheaper than the baby heads from last week, and I enjoyed those a heck of a lot (with the mushrooms).  I really don't know what "2 lbs" will look like.  One big head?  Two?  I don't know, this will be our first time getting this, and I may have to figure out the per-head price and then dole them out accordingly when they arrive, but the per-pound price will remain the same.  HERE is a discussion of bok choy from one of my favorite food blogs.  (My kids like miso soup, which is SO EASY since I found an msg-free miso paste with the dashi already in it, and they'll eat bok choy in that. Which is why the green onions are also on the order form!)

Pears from Social Enterprise.  I'm double checking the price, because that just seems crazy low. The other pears on the list are 2-3x that price.  I remember these from last year.  They were always fantastic.  I remember that Fresh Market carried them, too.  The company is interesting: The company imports fair trade and organic fruit (specifically blueberries, apples, pears, and pineapples) from Latin American producers who are paid a fair wage and receive training on how to convert their farming techniques to organic.  The company has an office in Argentina which manages these producer relationships and an office in Brooklyn which works with the buyers.

Organic Prairie Summer Sausage.  I'm getting this because it seems great for camping and trips to the pool and packing into lunches.  CLICK HERE to read about it and see the ingredients and read reviews and such. No markup at all on this, as it seemed expensive enough as it was.

MARY's organic free range turkey bone-in breasts.  I'm getting the "small" ones, which should be between 4 and 7 pounds each (our whole chickens have been around 3 lbs each for comparison, so this would be like 2 whole chickens, but all white meat, fewer bones).  At $6/lb, that'll be $24-$42.  These are bone-in (so there's stock afterwards), and, I think, skin-on.  It's from the same farm we got our heritage turkeys from last Thanksgiving.    More on them HERE.

CLICK HERE TO GO order, before noon Saturday. 

Julia again.  Getting violent with a turkey carcass.