November means that the prep must have already started for the Thanksgiving Holiday. That is a crazy week for us as you can imagine, but it doesn’t have to be for you. We will not have any turkeys this year, But we will have everything else that you will need. And as we do every year, we will have the box contents available the week before earlier than normal so you can plan your feast better.
As far as deliveries that week, we will be business as usual except for the Thursday and Friday routes. Nobody wants their food after Thanksgiving. So we will be delivering the normal Friday ABQ routes that week on Tuesday for the week, and we are trying to move the Whole Foods Thursday pick-up to another day. Stay tuned, but otherwise, plan for a normal week.
Last bit of housekeeping is a heads up on some new products. Bacon. Everyone’s favorite, or close to everyone. The bacon from our pigs in the South Valley sells out in literally hours. We cannot keep it around. So we have been looking for a provider of bacon under the condition that the animals are taken care of as well as we take care of our pigs. And I think that we have found a great fit in the Niman Ranch collaborative of small farmers. So I am happy to be bringing in their bacon as well as some deli meats that we have been missing here. Check the web site.
I was talking with our citrus grower in Arizona this week and he said that they are hopefully a week away from diving into the grapefruit harvest and 2 weeks away from the Navel orange start. I don’t know if I am going through menopause or what, but I am really craving the start of citrus this year more than I have in the past. We are very fortunate to have such great Organic citrus options so close to home here in the Southwest.
Everyone always talks about California or Florida citrus and leave out our great neighbor to the west in the citrus discussion. Much of that is due to marketing. Many AZ citrus producers have been consolidated to the point that it is really challenging to find mom n pop growers. They consolidate and head to the juicing barn. So finding our amigos at Patagonia Orchards has been a huge benefit for our members over the last 5 years. Anyway, look for citrus to start here soon and run into May of next year.
Lastly, a thought on some articles that I have seen popping up recently which have rated various cities around the country for being the best for foodies. ABQ falling squarely in the middle of the list. Pretty anemic.
Now I know that these various magazines just need to sell copies so they use these “Best of..” issues to get people like me to buy up and read up. Which I fell for it and read them. But while I was reading them, hoping to see NM high up on the lists, it hit me that it doesn’t really matter where the heck we fall on some arbitrary list. What matters in the foodscape of our cities, towns, or pueblos are choices. Do we have healthy food choices that surround us, or are we stuck grocery shopping at a convenience store?
So this list didn’t matter to me, because I know that I eat and have access to some of the most amazing food that anyone could get anywhere in the world. I mean 4th St in ABQ has better Mexican food choices on one street than most states probably have.
I wake up to breads that were baked for me the night before. Have a choice between local raw milk and local milk that comes from ½ mile from our farm. Eat apples that were picked just a few days before they get to you. Enjoy pork from animals that I have seen as babies all the way through their final sacrifice. And graze on produce that is almost as fresh as having a garden in your backyard.
The point is that there are people out there eating as well as we get to eat, but not many more who eat better. I love traveling to try fun flavors and new execution of preparing foods. But when you boil it down, no one is using better quality products anywhere in this country than we are able to bring to you on a weekly basis. And that fact will not hit any magazine my friends. It’s just the truth.
Farmer Monte