July 23 Meeting Minutes

Attendance: Laurie Furch, Nicole Montesano, Mick Cowles, Patty Munday, Susan Ruggles, Lucy Falcy, Judy Herubin

I. Potluck- Decided to skip the August Potluck and planned a ‘Soup & Salad’ themed potluck at Valley Creek (Herubin) Farm (8910 SW River Bend Road) at 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 21st. As always, bring a dish and/or beverage…relax and enjoy.

II. August 2nd Preservation Class at Library. N.R. has been given a press release, we are in the ‘activities’ section. We are all looking forward to it.

Lucy will start collecting handouts from all events to have on record for future events, grant applications, etc. If you have handouts from past events (including potluck postcards, etc.) please get them to me. I am downtown approximately 45 hours a week.

III. Blog. We want to start thinking about making this more interactive and available. Please, everyone…please google “slow food yamhill county” in your spare time. The more time it is googled, the sooner it will make it to the first page. We discussed various avenues for updating/maintaining the site as a website instead of a blog. The Kullas are using ‘go blogger’ and we are also interested in getting a kid or two from MACA to have our website be their ‘project’. Suggestions?

IV. www.localfresh.net . While the ‘Availability’ Committee had grand intentions of getting all of the farms, etc. in Yamhill County online, Brian S. was concurrently working on a website to do just that. We have given him all of the information that we have at this point and we are hoping to build up this resource together. Go check it out.

V. Yamhill County Cultural Coalition Grant. www.yamhillcountyculture.org There is an opportunity to get an undisclosed small amount of money for a project that works to serve the goals of the coalition (which I cannot cut and paste here for some reason). We brainstormed and came up with the following opportunities:
§ Most Likely: A ‘tour of farms’ for sometime in the Fall ’09. The tour might look a lot like what Culpeper Farm has done (See www.culpeperag.org/farmtour2007 ). We need to look up what publishing costs for pamphlets would be/decide how many/etc. for the application. That would probably be all that we ask money for. The rest will be organizational/design work. Thoughts? The Chamber does a slightly similar project but only every other year with one agribusiness and only with Chamber members.
§ Second Most Likely: Get a few farms to agree to host some elementary school kids for a ‘day on the farm(s)’ either in the spring with cheese/wool/eggs or in the fall with the usual. We would be asking money for bus drivers. Cooperation would need to happen with the schools and we would need to be more sensitive to the potential participation of non-MAC school kids (we got in a bit of trouble for excluding last time)
§ Pressure Canning Kitchen…apparently the kitchen at the YC Fair Grounds is already available.
§ Partner with historical society to get ‘preserving’ resources.
§ Develop a book of ‘Old-Time’ Stories. This would involve contacting owners of Yamhill County’s older/heritage farms and talking to them. Do they have anything special on site? Do they want to share a story of something that happened at Grandma’s wedding when the bull got loose? Costs would be for publication/travel. Of course, this is likely a more likely project for the YCCC but who knows, we might partner up.
I am going to flush out the first idea to present/have the application materials ready for our next meeting on August 13th. (Application has to be postmarked by Sept. 15th)

VI. Upcoming Events:

Thursday Afternoons in August/September. Cooking with Judi on the mezzanine. valleycreekfarm@gmail.com

Saturday August 2, 9-3. The Home Orchard Society’s Potluck and Fruit Tasting 19600 Mollala Ave Oregon City. Free. http://calendar.oregonstate.edu/event/20324

Saturday, August 9. 10-3. Yamhill County Harvest Fest 2008. See attached brochure or download one at www.yamhillcountyhistory.org . Old time oat harvesting, hay rides, vintage farm equipment, etc.

September 13, October 11. One Green World Nursery Harvest Festival and Tasting. Try a wide variety of fruits from plants that they sell. 28696 S. Cramer Rd Mollala, Or 1-877-353-4028 www.onegreenworld.com

October 10-12; 17-19 Portland Nursery Apple Tasting (MANY Varieties, Cider, etc.) Free. 5050 SE Stark Portland

If anyone thinks of any additional events, please let us know.

VII. Administrative. We adopted the method of getting most agenda items done and out of the way by 6:00 p.m. That keeps things moving and leaves plenty of time for extra chatting afterwards. We are hoping to continue this trend and as meeting facilitator, I will personally do my best (LF). Also, we have a lot of people ‘signed up’ but not participating. We understand that it is a busy season and if you can’t make it to a few events, that is expected. However, if you are on our mailing list and you don’t plan on participating or if you would like to be on our ‘events’ email instead, please let us know.

Potluck Tomorrow!!

Our monthly potluck is tomorrow between 6:30pm and 9:30pm.

Bring a dish using local ingredients and/or a beverage produced locally.

Bring a recipe card with your recipe on it so it can be collected for our slow foods cookbook.

Come to: 1420 NE Johnstone Court
(McMinnville)
you can call for directions: (503) 472-5304

We had a lot of fun last time and are looking forward to seeing everyone again- hopefully some new faces as well. Lots of talk about cooking, local farms, favorite foods, and how no one wants to be an elitist "foodie" because being pelted with rotten fruit is no fun for anyone. Come and be mellow and enjoy food and camaraderie with other people who share your love of local traditions and tastes.

A few notes about current happenings:

1. The Oregon State University extension service's toll-free food safety/preservation hotline opened today. It will operate through Sept. 30, Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., except holidays. the number is 1-800-354-7319.

2. Fruithill in Yamhill will have picked, pitted pie cherries for sale beginning July 21. They sell buckets of 25 pounds cherries and 5 pounds sugar, for $50. For more information, call 503-662-3926, or email Lee@fruithillinc.com.

3. Kookoolan Farms in Yamhill is offering breadbaking and cheesemaking classes for $50 each. For more information, visit the website at www.kookoolanfarms.com.

July update

I'm sorry we've been so slow about getting this blog going -- I've fallen down a bit on the job. However, we've had some exciting events. We got our official confirmation from Slow Food USA. Laurie Furch and Red Fox Bakery donated bean seeds to local classes for children to plant. Katie and Casey Kulla of Oakhill Organics gave a wonderful talk on winter gardening on June 21 at the McMinnville library that was well attended. Next, Angelina Williamson hosted a potluck at her house, for people to get together and talk about local food issues. We continue to hear from people who attended one or both events and are interested in either joining us or working together in some way. 

 One of those is Brian Stahl, who, with his wife, Kathy,  is setting up a website where people can locate farmstands, u-pick farms, grocery stores and restaurants that offer local food, in the Yamhill County area -- a goal very similar to one of our own. 

 Brian attended our July 9 meeting (he very nearly found himself talking to himself; apparently most of us forgot to come, or had other commitments!) to talk about his plans.

He's got some great ideas, and will be setting up a link to our blog on the website. Once Local Fresh is up and running, we plan to offer a link to it from here, as well. More information as this develops.

 Brian is asking that SFYC help come up with some criteria for listing grocery stores and restaurants on the website. Is it enough that they serve local tomatoes in August, when they can get them? Do they need to have a more dedicated local foods focus? Are there other issues you're concerned about? Jot down some notes, and let's talk about it.

 Unfortunately, we've had to cancel the potluck that was scheduled for July 18. Nanette discovered she had a conflict, and wasn't able to host it after all. We're hoping to reschedule for August. 

 On August 2, we'll have the second in our series of library presentations on local food; a talk by Angelina and I on preserving techniques. It should be fun! We're planning to have some items available for tasting, and recipes.

 In September, Leslie Blanding will talk about how to convert lawn into vegetable garden -- fall is a great time to start this process, and she'll discuss how to create a new vegetable bed without breaking your back. 

 Happy July, and please be sure to join us for our July 23 meeting.

Nicole Montesano