Tomato festival
Aug. 28th, 2006 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidYesterday I went to the tomato festival at Red Fire Farm. It rained again, but I had fun anyway.
We went first into the main barn, where we saw everything for sale at the farm stand, and the hundreds of heads of garlic hung up to dry for later. There were tables set up for other groups, including people promoting local agriculture and a couple of local food companies. There was a salsa table (three grades of heat), someone with a huge variety of pickles, another with goat cheese, and a dairy. High Lawn Farm has been in operation for over a century, using only Jersey cows (which apparently has 20% more calcium and 17% more protein than other breeds), and uses no hormones. They were the only one of the tables with a hechsher, and the milk is yummy; I ended up getting a quart of chocolate milk (I can't remember the last time I got dairy milk for home.). There was another table, with emu products, most of which werre lotions and hand creams and such. Apparently emu have a layer of fat along their backs, so when they're processed, there's a lot that isn't used for food. There were also some blown-out emu egg shells, which looked rather like large avocados.
We listened for a while to a great fiddler and banjo/guitar/lute player, both obviously having a good time. The music was catchy, and I imagined the country dances that would be appropriate, but I didn't join the little girl who couldn't resist dancing. If there had been space for it, perhaps... Maybe next year it will be fine and there will be someone teaching dances :-).
I hadn't brought real rain gear, nor a change of clothes, so I elected not to go for a hayride in the rain. And I didn't have the chance to pick vegetables/herbs as part of my farm share, either. Next yearin Jerusalem I hope it will be clear weather.
It kept on raining, so we waited for a lull in the downpour before venturing out to the tent with the tomato tasting. There were perhaps thirty or forty kinds of tomatoes to taste. I tried many of them; I didn't take notes, so it was hard to compare the variety of flavors. I had some favorites. Sungolds, of course. Also Federle tomatoes, which have a wonderfully concentrated flavor, plus little liquid and few seeds; they're designed to be a good sauce tomato. As last year, I still like the Striped German tomato, which, like other non-red tomatoes, have less acid, but still a nice flavor and good texture. And I liked the William's [something] tomatoes (I couldn't find an image to link to, but they're tiny red tomatoes, about the size of two large cultivated blueberries together), which was the first time I'd seen them. So small, so sweet, yet very tomato. Another of the small kind, Favorita tomatoes were also good, but a little too sweet without enough tomato flavor. Not that I'd turn them down over a supermarket tomato, any day.
I mostly bought tomatoes (surprise!), despite all the other lovely vegetables calling out, like the pink potatoes that wanted to be ginger, and the purple carrots, and watermelon, which were far less appealing than they otherwise would have been because of the wet, chilly weather. I'm still hoping I get one Wednesday, though...
We went first into the main barn, where we saw everything for sale at the farm stand, and the hundreds of heads of garlic hung up to dry for later. There were tables set up for other groups, including people promoting local agriculture and a couple of local food companies. There was a salsa table (three grades of heat), someone with a huge variety of pickles, another with goat cheese, and a dairy. High Lawn Farm has been in operation for over a century, using only Jersey cows (which apparently has 20% more calcium and 17% more protein than other breeds), and uses no hormones. They were the only one of the tables with a hechsher, and the milk is yummy; I ended up getting a quart of chocolate milk (I can't remember the last time I got dairy milk for home.). There was another table, with emu products, most of which werre lotions and hand creams and such. Apparently emu have a layer of fat along their backs, so when they're processed, there's a lot that isn't used for food. There were also some blown-out emu egg shells, which looked rather like large avocados.
We listened for a while to a great fiddler and banjo/guitar/lute player, both obviously having a good time. The music was catchy, and I imagined the country dances that would be appropriate, but I didn't join the little girl who couldn't resist dancing. If there had been space for it, perhaps... Maybe next year it will be fine and there will be someone teaching dances :-).
I hadn't brought real rain gear, nor a change of clothes, so I elected not to go for a hayride in the rain. And I didn't have the chance to pick vegetables/herbs as part of my farm share, either. Next year
It kept on raining, so we waited for a lull in the downpour before venturing out to the tent with the tomato tasting. There were perhaps thirty or forty kinds of tomatoes to taste. I tried many of them; I didn't take notes, so it was hard to compare the variety of flavors. I had some favorites. Sungolds, of course. Also Federle tomatoes, which have a wonderfully concentrated flavor, plus little liquid and few seeds; they're designed to be a good sauce tomato. As last year, I still like the Striped German tomato, which, like other non-red tomatoes, have less acid, but still a nice flavor and good texture. And I liked the William's [something] tomatoes (I couldn't find an image to link to, but they're tiny red tomatoes, about the size of two large cultivated blueberries together), which was the first time I'd seen them. So small, so sweet, yet very tomato. Another of the small kind, Favorita tomatoes were also good, but a little too sweet without enough tomato flavor. Not that I'd turn them down over a supermarket tomato, any day.
I mostly bought tomatoes (surprise!), despite all the other lovely vegetables calling out, like the pink potatoes that wanted to be ginger, and the purple carrots, and watermelon, which were far less appealing than they otherwise would have been because of the wet, chilly weather. I'm still hoping I get one Wednesday, though...
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Date: 2006-08-29 02:00 am (UTC)(and boo for soaking rain...)
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Date: 2006-08-29 04:00 pm (UTC)And, well, though the rain was darned inconvenient, at least I wasn't out biking in it... and before last weekend we'd been having a dry summer, so it's probably a good thing in the long run...