What a cool experience…ten folks crazy about pork, all sitting around a table in one of Charlotte’s premier restaurants, sniffing, chewing, oohing and aahhing as we evaluated samples from two different breeds of hog.

We invited chefs, farmers and journalists of the highest caliber to help us consider the many nuances of pork so we could get feedback to help us continually improve our product. Chef Mark Hibbs from Ratcliffe on the Green was a gracious host, preparing samples from several different cuts. Chef Paul Verica from The Club at Longview and Chef Paul Malcolm from Johnson & Wales University provided their expertise from the vantage of the culinary professional. Our fellow farmer and inspiration, Dean Mullis from Laughing Owl Farm was there too, adding his feedback to the conversation.

Dedicated journalists Kathleen Purvis (Charlotte Observer) and Kim Wiley (Charlotte Taste Magazine) have spent their careers considering the many aspects of good food, and their comments were most welcome and helpful. Not only was the pork spectacular, the process of gathering as a community to ponder improvement was great fun.

We sincerely thank these dedicated folks for offering their time and opinions to assist us in our decisionmaking. It was a terrific and useful way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Whether you farming for a living or just like growing your own food, we have a way for you to get scrumptious stuff from a shady spot. You don’t need fabulous soil, fertilizers, herbicides, or even a hoe!!! Come to our workshop on Saturday, February 16 and learn how to cultivate the delicious and useful shiitake mushroom. Go to Upcoming Events for more information.

As the trend toward locally produced food continues to gain steam, we encourage you to ask your favorite restaurateurs to join in! And even if the menu says they use “local” stuff, it’s a good idea to ask more questions: “which farms?”, and “what does ‘local’ mean to them?”…some places think that anything in the western hemisphere counts as “locally grown”. Do they buy directly from farmers or from a local broker that gets their food from everywhere (including Canada and South America)? Do they buy only a tiny portion of a given product from local farms and fill in the rest with stuff from a distributor? These distinctions are important, and it’s crucial that restaurants and stores know we are paying attention in order for our local economy and local farms to thrive. It’s sad that we can’t just take labels at face value, but the reality is that we can’t. We have to take our shopping to the next level of investigating to keep the marketplace honest. Knowing who grows your food is the first step to demystifying it.

We welcome 2008 with great anticipation of another year building community around amazing food. Here are a few things to put on your “to-do” list for the first quarter of this year:

1. come to the Farmers’ Markets - fresh & local food is available in winter too!!!

2. attend our shiitake mushroom inoculation workshop on February 16

3. enroll in the course “Sustainable Vegetable Production” sponsored by Lincoln county cooperative extension (Saturdays in January)

4. Join CFSA (Carolina Farm Stewardship Association), and attend our first meeting of the year on February 7

5. If you haven’t already, sign up for our e-mail newsletter…we’ll use it to keep you abreast of more fun and useful stuff as the year rolls along.

We are up to some pretty neat stuff this year - it’s going to be another fun one. We hope that for you it is richly blessed, healthy and prosperous!