Friday, August 06, 2004
Saturday Picnic
We are having a "company" picnic at the ranch where Manager hopes to
be buying her beeves for the pies and soups in the Cracked Cauldron.
It is not a potluck, but we've been asked to supply the bread. It's
a barbecue, so we're bringing the Mediterannean Olive Bread, made
into dinner sized rolls, and a complementary flavored herb butter.
Since this is outdoors, and August [1], we will freeze the butter
before driving the hour and some away to the ranch.
There will be approximately 50 people there. Several of them have
offered testimonials, and hopefully Manager will garner a few more
with this bread.
Plus, Manager will get to see the ranch and cows before purchasing
any beef.
Later this month, I think, although it might not be until Spetember,
we'll be traveling to the dairy farm where we'll be getting our milk,
cream, butter, buttermilk, and fresh cheeses. Down the road a piece
is the chicken farm where we'll be getting our eggs, and a little
further out is the mill from where we'll be getting our hard red
winter wheat flour.
Going north from there is the Piedmont Herb Farm, and east from here
is the Shawnee Herb Farm. We can get a large portion of our herb
needs from them.
Near Tulsa, we found a man who raises the most marvelous mushrooms, a
large variety of really yummy-looking ones - and this from someone
who dislikes mushrooms!
It feels a bit deceptive to be courting suppliers when we don't yet
have the loan to pay them for their produce or a place - but those 2
items should be coming in the next couple of weeks. Very quickly thereafter, we'll need to start ordering all kinds of things. Granted foodstuffs won't be ordered until October, but it still helps to know who our suppliers will be, get to know them, get to know where they work. As much as possible, we want to keep our suppliers local.
[1] Depending on which weather service you check, we have between a 10 and 50% chance of rain tomorrow. Here. In August, supposedly the second of our three drought months. We're not supposed to get rain from the 4th of July until the State Fair opens the last week of September.
