Roanoke Valley Locavore

Runner Bean

2010-09-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

Say what you want about the industrialized food production, but it's a total beast of a capitalist system. It moves food from all parts of the world to just about any corner of this country and at generally affordable prices. Of course us locavores don't think that's an altogether good thing and we will talk your ear off in a effort to promote local food production. But there's no denying that our current system produces a high volume of affordable calories, and that's what local food production has to compete with.

It's hard to say what percent of food bought and sold in the Roanoke Valley is locally produced. I'm going to take a WAG and say that's a tiny fraction of the total amount of food consumed. Right now, the local food market is patronized by a subset of people who are willing to forgo industrialized convenience for local quality. That's not a very high percentage of the local population either, but I think with education and increased interest, both markets and the number of people interested in local food is growing. This also been facilitated by the arrival of local farmer's markets. The two I visit regularly, West End and Grandin, have provided a level of convenience that make it far more likely that I'll spend my food dollars locally. But now there's another possibility: Runner Bean.

Runner Bean is Web based business that connects local food consumers with local food producers. God bless the internet! From your computer screen to your table. This site allows farmers to upload information about their food offerings, and consumers to place custom orders for delivery to one of four drop off locations. My drop off location is about a 1/2 mile from my house, so I've got a really good convenience factor in that regard. Since it's basically a database, shoppers can search by key word or category. The shopping window is from 1:00 pm on Sunday to 9:00pm on Tuesday. Deliveries come on Thursday. You can read about the whole delivery system on their homepage that I've linked above.

There is fee for using he service. You can read about pricing and decide it this is a system that works for you. Right now, the inventory of available food isn't that robust, but that can change over time as demand increases. I do see a host of farms listed that are also listed on the Roanoke Valley Locavore website and I'm going to provide a direct link to Runner Bean from the RVL directory. Anything to jump start a good idea. An even better way is to use the service and watch it grow.

Big Pine Trout Farm

2010-05-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

Enough of the technical stuff about posting and vendors. It's time to turn to the topic of food, particularly the awesomely delicious smoked trout I scored from the Grandin Community Market. Big Pine Trout Farm raises trout in cold water ponds on their farm in Craig County. I knew from their listing they often brought this stuff to the Grandin Market and I was intrigued to see what a local producer could do with it. I bought two fillets that were chilled and hermetically sealed. These attractive looking fish fillets were going to be the centerpiece of our early spring locavore dinner, alone with some asparagus from Good Food Good People and salad greens from Catawba Creek Farm.

Dinner was really easy. I opened the trout and, of course, had to taste' it immediately. It was expertly deboned and flaky. It also has great constitution of fish oils that I suppose are brimming with those "alpha 3 omega fatty acids" that are supposed to keep you arteries clear and your brain functioning. One taste and you could care less about other healthful benefits though. This fish is really, really good. Whatever smoke recipe they employ is just the right amount for this delicate fish. No bones. Flaky meat. This is seriously tasty like something I would expect to get in a high end meal in a fine dining environment. ( I even ate the skin, and I normally can't stand fish skin). It's rich. Each fillet was between 6 and eight ounces but it's such a rich taste that most people would find it difficult to eat more than a fillet. We paired it with some goat cheese ( which we didn't get locally) and the asparagus we roasted in olive with english walnuts. We also made a mint vinaigrette to go with the peppery greens we got from Catawba Farms.

This was an unexpectedly excellent locavore adventure. A creative cook can use this trout to go a long way on a dinner table. Anything you've been doing with smoked salmon would work just as well with this Big Pine trout. It's comparably priced, and, of course, it's provided locally.

2010-05-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

In early January of 2010, back when the region was covered in more snow than has been seen in a quite a while, a group of advocates gathered to begin to organize a local foods directory for the Roanoke Valley. The groups involved are Virginia Tech's Earthworks, Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, Local Roots, Eco-Friendly Foods and the Local Educational Agricultural Project (Leap). This project follows a successful printing of similar directory for the New River Valley, but also had plans to expand the directory Web. This blog entry is about the Web resources that have been created to support local agriculture then you've have received this email because of your connections to these resources.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last decade, you probably have noticed that the Web has become a very big deal. Aside from being an unlimited source of entertainment and social interaction, the Web has a few socially redeeming qualities, one of them being that it's a very cheap and effective way to connect people to products . It's another tool of good ole capitalism. While the aforementioned advocates for local food had done a bang up job of the traditional paper listing for the New River valley, they hadn't yet ventured into a Web directory. It turns out the I was particularly interested in developing such a directory and got hooked up with these people through a series of social coincidences. I knew just enough about Web pages to be dangerous, but had no desire to search high and low for vendors. The local food advocates groups already knew that, so stage was set for productive collaboration.

The Directory ( IF you would rather watch a 3 minute video, then click here .)

The first component of our Web presence is www.roanokevalleylocavore.com. This is our directory. It's purpose is to provide a free comprehensive listing to those looking for local products. We will list anyone producing, selling or cooking within 100 miles of the Roanoke Valley. Unlike a paper, a vendor can submit essentially as much info as they wish about their products or business by using an easy online submission form. The intent of this particular resource is to connect your average Roanoke valley citizen with with food resources they didn't know existed. As vendor, you can describe your product in as much detail as you wish. The directory is divided into several sub directories:

Farmer's Market
Produce, Flowers and Honey
Meat, Eggs and Dairy
Community Supported Agriculture
Restaurants, Baking and Catering
Wine,Ale, Cider and Mead

When a vendor submits their listing we place the entry into the category or categories that fit the best. If they vendor provides services that run across categories, we list them in both categories. (Web space is very cheap!).

Since the online submission form was made public around the first of February, over 100 entries have been submitted in all different categories. We list ANY information you send to us and provide communication links directly to your business including links to web resources you own, email addresses you submit or any blogs or social media pages you have.

Social Media (Facebook) (Here's a quick video about our Facebook Page)

The Roanoke Valley Locavore is also on Facebook. If the Web directory is about relatively static information, Facebook is about what's happening in real time. Facebook connects people socially but only allows small bits of information at one time. For instance, back when we were only getting a submission a week, it was easy to announce to our Facebook friends that we had a new RVL member. If you already have a Facebook page and want to become friends with our RVL page, please do so. Our updates become your updates. You see what we have to offer. This is the synergistic part of social media. It grows on it's own as people with mutual interests share relevant information.

If you don't have Facebook account we can and will post announcements for you on our page. Just email me with your brief announcement (Can't be more than 450 words) and we'll put it on our page.

The Blogoshpere (You can see a quick video about blogging here!)

If Facebook is the social media that only provides a little to say, then our Blog is it's long winded older uncle. If you are unfamiliar with a Blog, it's a space in which one can write an unlimited amount on a topic and practically anyone else can respond similarly. Blogs give you plenty of space to express an opinion and to have others express their opinions. Our blog gives each vendor a chance to describe in detail where and what you are bringing to a market. It gives members of the community an opportunity to testify about the wonderful quality of product they receive. Our blog is a moderated blog. Comments have to approved before they go up because it's a totally open communication space. Anyone can post so it's important read things before they go public.

Of all the Web resources provided, a blog can provide the best and most complete insight of your business. Advertisers will charge a pretty penny to put a testimonial ad together for your business. Once a blog gets popular, you have the ability to communicate anything you want to a large number of people. If you already have a blog, then make sure we know about it and we'll certainly provide a link to it in our directory. Of course, you are reading this article in our blog right now.

Welcome to the Roanoke Valley Locavore Blog site.

2010-02-05T14:03:00.001-08:00

What's going on in the roanoke valley locavore arena?