If you haven’t looked at selling online before, it may feel daunting to jump into it in the middle of this crisis.  The Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network developed a good list of questions to ask when you’re choosing which service to work with:

• How long has your online sales platform been in use?
• How many farmers are you currently working with?
• What will it cost my farm to use your platform? What is your fee structure?
• I’m ready to start selling products right now. What does it take to get started? Is there a wait because of the current increase in demand for online sales platform services?
• How will your online sales platform integrate with my current website?
• What is the process for entering the products that I have to sell?
• How do I update my product list and pricing?
• Will I be able to set inventory limits so that I don’t oversell products?
• How does the customer interface work? Is your platform easy to use on a Smartphone?
• How do customers pay for products?
• Are credit and debit card fees charged to customers?
• Can customers pay by check or cash on delivery?
• Can customers pay with EBT?
• Is there a way for me offer customers discounts, coupons, and promotions?
• How long does it take for customer payments to deposit into my farm’s bank account?
• How is sales tax handled on your platform?
• Is it possible to integrate your platform with my accounting software?
• Is it possible to create pack lists directly from your sales platform? How about labels?
• Does your platform offer any suggestions for delivery routes based on orders?
• What kind of IT support does your company provide?
• How is my farm’s sales data used and/or shared?
• What happens to my farm’s sales data if I stop using your platform?
• What other features does your platform offer that I should know about?

Below is a list of Texas farmers’ markets that are currently open, followed by a list of Texas farms that are taking new customers.  This list is based on information provided by the markets and farms, and we cannot guarantee accuracy.  If you know of additional markets or farms that should be added, please let us know so we can add them to this list. Email Teresa@healthyfoodsystems.org with updates.

AUSTIN

Texas Farmers Markets: Lakeline location open Saturdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., 11200 Lakeline Mall Dr, Cedar Park, TX 78613; Mueller location open Sundays 10 a.m.- 2p.m., 4209 Airport Blvd. Austin, TX 78722. Both operating under new safety guidelines: http://texasfarmersmarket.org/texas-farmers-markets-covid-19/. Vendors are taking pre-sales with pre-payment: Link for Lakeline sales; link for Mueller sales.

FLOWER MOUND

Four Seasons/Flower Mound Farmers Market: Saturdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Parker Square, 1500 Cross Timbers Rd. Status could change. Check website.

FRIENDSWOOD

Bay Area Farmers Market: Operating as drive-thru market only; Sundays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Baybrook Mall. To be re-evaluated on a week-to-week basis.

HOUSTON

Central City Co-Op: Wednesdays, 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m., 2515 Waugh Dr. Day passes for non-members are $7. Online also available at www.centralcityco-op.com

LONGVIEW

Historic Longview Farmers Market: Opening suspended until May 9.

McKINNEY

Market at Chestnut Square: Closed Saturday, March 21; tentatively scheduled to open Saturday, April 4. 4315 S. Chestnut St. Will implement curbside pickup if necessary by then. Have also just launched an online shopping platform at www.chestnutsquare.org/virtual-farmers-market.

PLANO

Red Tent Market: Saturdays and Sundays, The Shops at Willow Bend, 6121 Park Blvd. at Dallas North Tollway, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

RICHARDSON

Four Seasons/Richardson Farmers Market: Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2  p.m., 101 S. Coit. Status could change. Check website.

SAN ANTONIO

Pearl Farmers Market: Market has moved totally to online sales with curbside pickup every Friday, 3-7 p.m. until restrictions are lifted. 312 Pearl Pkwy. Place orders at PearlFarmersMarketCurbside.com.

Huebner Oaks Farmers Market: Saturdays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., 11745 West Interstate 10. Status could change. Check website.

VICTORIA

Victoria Farmers Market: Open Saturdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Pattie Dodson Public Health Center, 2805 N Navarro St.

WATAUGA

Four Seasons/Watauga Farmers Market: Open Sundays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., 7600 Denton Highway. Status could change. Check website.

By Pamela Walker, author of “Growing Good Things to Eat in Texas”

My mother and grandmother made corn bread from scratch. The dry ingredients were approximately a cup and a half of cornmeal (yellow or white), about a half teaspoon of baking soda, and a pinch of salt, all mixed together with a wooden spoon. Wet ingredients were a cup or so of buttermilk, one egg, and a couple of teaspoons of warm bacon grease. When they were out of buttermilk, which wasn’t often, they substituted whole milk and stirred in a teaspoon of cider vinegar to sour it. They beat the egg with a fork into the milk, added the bacon grease – which they’d set to heating in a cast iron skillet on the stovetop, the gas burner at medium to medium-high heat – and then combined the liquid and dry ingredients into a batter.

Once the bacon grease got good and hot but not too hot, not smoking, they poured the batter into the skillet and browned the bottom, knowing always just how long it would take to brown but not burn. Then they set the skillet in a pre-heated oven of about 475 degrees, and let it bake for maybe 10 minutes, until the top turned slightly golden brown. The bacon grease lent a nice hint of fat to the flavor, and the brown bottom made the taste more robust and the texture less uniform than had it not been browned.

We ate corn bread often, especially with mustard and collard greens and black-eyed peas in the summer and with pinto, navy, and lima beans all year round.  And at Thanksgiving and Christmas, cornbread was the basis of our stuffing for the turkey.

Depending on the size of the turkey, my mother and grandmother made a quantity of corn bread in their usual way and boiled the turkey giblets – the heart, liver, gizzard, but also the neck – until they were tender. Then they pulled the thin strips of meat from the neck and chopped it and the giblets into small pieces and reserved most, but not all, of the broth and chopped meat for giblet gravy. What they didn’t reserve for the gravy, they mixed with crumbled cornbread, seasoned it with salt and pepper and sage – lots of sage – and stuffed it into the turkey just before roasting.

While I was growing up, sometimes the stuffing smelled and tasted too sagey, and it was always mushy, but as with many other things in my family, I took it as a given, as something that was part of the fabric of the universe. Corn bread was made with corn meal. Stuffing was made with corn bread and giblets, loaded with sage, and was mushy, always and everywhere.

That stuffing didn’t have to include sage and that corn bread might include even a little wheat flour didn’t enter my consciousness until I was in my early twenties.  Born in Texas, as were my mother and grandmother and most people in our family, I learned from my Ohio born and bred mother-in-law that corn bread could include a third to a half as much wheat flour as corn meal and also include sugar! And, just as shocking, I learned that stuffing might be made with dried cubes of white bread and its crust, seasoned with salt, pepper, tarragon, parsley, and chopped celery, and without any sage at all!

I was actually relieved to learn that it was perfectly acceptable to make corn bread with a small amount of wheat flour, which, for purposes of leavening, meant using a little baking powder along with baking soda. No longer did I have to fail at trying to make corn bread the way my mother and grandmother did. In my hands, their ingredients and methods produced a flat, dry, dense round. So I began adding flour and baking powder to the corn meal and baking soda, and otherwise keeping to my mother and grandmother’s ways. As for adding sugar?  That was, and remains, a bridge too far.

Nor could I reconcile myself, in my own kitchen, to white bread stuffing, and yet I wanted to depart from the sagey mush I’d grown up with. I consulted James Beard’s cookbooks, among many others, and found in James Beard’s American Cookery what became a mainstay for the 40 years I lived in Houston – corn bread stuffing with oysters; oysters from Galveston Bay. My two sons grew up on this stuffing, and the older one has long made it in his own home for the holidays.

Now that I live in Santa Fe, where really good, fresh seafood is hard to come by, I forgo the oysters. Instead, I substitute green-chile pork sausage available at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market from a local rancher who raises pigs and cattle for meat. The market is also the source of the heritage breed turkey I roast.

Below is the James Beard recipe I use. If you are lucky enough to get good oysters, substitute a pint of them with their liquor for the sausage. Sometimes instead of onions, I use shallots, or a combination of onions and shallots, which are abundant at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market most of the year. And instead of Madeira, I use a port from La Chiripada in Dixon, N.M.

Oh, and I omit the sage entirely.

Corn Bread Stuffing from James Beard’s American Cookery

• tablespoons butter
• 1 ½ cups finely chopped onions
• 1 pound well-seasoned sausage meat
• The liver of the turkey, finely chopped
• About 8 cups coarsely crumbled corn bread
• ½ to 2 teaspoons salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• ½ teaspoon sage
• ¼ cup finely chopped parsley
• ½ cup Madeira

Saute the onions in the butter in a large skillet until they are just pale gold. Remove to a mixing bowl. Add the sausage to the skillet, break it up with a fork, and let it cook several minutes over medium heat. When it is lightly browned, add the chopped liver. Brown it for 2 to 3 minutes with the sausage meat, and add it to the onions in the bowl. Add the corn bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and the rest of the seasonings. Mix well with your hands and add the Madeira. Taste for seasoning and stuff the bird.

By Kelly Adams of Adams Blackland Prairie Farm

Our holiday traditions change yearly because I get bored and can’t do anything the same way more than three times, but usually Thanksgiving means turkey and dressing with the usual sides … just with some twist: we had Cajun Thanksgiving once with Spicy Turkey and seafood stuffing, Gumbo, Corn Maquechou, Etouffee of vegetables, and fried marshmallow-stuffed sweet potatoes. Another year we used Early American techniques like baking the pumpkin whole with spices in the cavity. (For more history on pumpkin pie, check out this interesting article from manyeats.com.)

Growing up, my mom always cooked a beef roast as well as turkey, and of course, mashed potatoes in addition to sweet potatoes, and I did this a couple of times early on when I wasn’t actually in charge of the menu. The first Thanksgiving meal I cooked came my sophomore year in college when my brother announced he’d Invited everyone to his house – two doors down from mine … and I’d be cooking! He didn’t actually do anything. My mom took me shopping, and his girlfriend cleaned and did the table. That went on for a couple of years, and he added Christmas in to boot.

To escape this ritual, my husband and I went to New Orleans for Thanksgiving in 1989. I had Crawfish Etouffee and he had Stuffed Red Fish with sweet potatoes – a lovely dish that I was envious of until I tasted mine and realized one could experience heaven in a restaurant.  It was bright orange and smooth – the consistency of a thick bisque and served  with an inverted timbale of white rice in the center; nothing very visually impressive compared to the plate of Red Fish, but the taste was better than any I’ve ever had since. I was truly thankful.

In ’90 we were in California on our honeymoon and stopped at my sister’s-in law for Thanksgiving. Her husband kept saying he wanted tea-smoked duck, but all he had was a 20 lb. raw turkey sitting forlornly in an empty kitchen; someone had to do something.  I’d have happily gone out for Chinese in the Bay Area!

Since then, I’ve cooked here on the farm every year except one. Our first child was 8 months old, and both sets of grandparents wanted us to visit so we went out of town instead. This had worked before when we went to New Orleans. Unfortunately, all we had the time or energy for was a trip to Tyler, Texas, where we found a Blackeyed Pea restaurant open – no plan; we just fled with the excuse of wanting to see the Christmas lights at the Rose Garden. We remember it fondly.

Our second child was born two days after Thanksgiving ’95. We stayed home and no one came, but we still had a tableful of food. There is a photo of me in my tent top sitting in front of it all. She was born two days later, and we had plenty of leftovers.

My daughters and I figure we cooked eight holiday meals on hot plates after our cooktop went out in 2004. Due more to an excess of farm work and pickiness than to procrastination, it was 2009 before we replaced it. That fall was the wettest on record, and we could do no farm work, so there was finally time to put in a stove: gas with closed burners and continuous grates. Straight from hot plates to stainless steel! When we first got it, we had to get used to cooking more than one thing at a time. Our technique needed tweeking, too: with a hot plate you start water boiling for supper in mid-afternoon.

The girls took over most of the cooking as the years went by, holidays included, and they have the same restlessness as me about changing the menu –  we get a lot of French recipes, especially at Christmas, but they are planning macarons for Thanksgiving this year. I asked if they’d be pumpkin and pecan; they’ll be lemon-raspberry.

A Local Thanksgiving

Before the word “Locavore” was coined, if a travesty can be coined, we had a Home-Grown Thanksgiving. The idea came when we bought some wine from a West Texas vineyard – we’d grow everything or get it from the people who did … or do without. Like all great ideas, this just popped into my head, and I didn’t have the sense to forget it. My husband just smiled and said it sounded good, probably thinking since it was July, it wouldn’t bear fruit.

I had the commitment of a true believer and wrongly assumed everyone else would be more than happy to just show up and eat as usual. At first everyone did say it was a fine idea, but then some questioned that this surely couldn’t include foregoing cranberry!

That’s what tradition is – not family and feasting, going home and gathering and being thankful – but the framework, the tableau that outlines the event. It is what we are used to – a habit. Apparently, without cranberry, Thanksgiving cannot be! No alternatives would suffice: grape and green tomato chutney, corn chutney, grape sauce – nothing.  It was as if I’d suggested having popcorn and toast.

Opting not to drive to the Northern Tier of states to find a cranberry bog, I acquiesced and moved on – on to Ambrosia. Pronounced with a very long “O,” and you might as well add “MG” behind that. Nothing says holidays like tiny canned oranges! My mom always brought the Ambrosia (looong O) to Thanksgiving and Christmas; surely the most versatile of dishes, she’d have three customized containers: one with everything, marshmallows included, one without coconut, and one without marshmallows. Pecans were in there sometimes, too.  This was her contribution, and she took it seriously and even made sure to find unsweetened coconut, for which I was grateful because I like Ambrosia and this is the only way I can eat it. But it is not possible to source these ingredients locally – no coconut trees nearby, and I know no Mandarin orange farmers.

Without this then, what would she bring? I had to give in and churlishly put it and the cranberry in small containers to the back of the buffet, keeping a glancing eye on anyone who reached for these.

We didn’t grow a turkey that year, and local heritage turkeys were not as plentiful as they are now, but we had our chickens in the freezer – two lovely big roosters would work just fine. There was some blowback on this, but I held firm and promised turkey for Christmas.

I was able to source almost everything: honey, wheat, vegetables, nuts, dairy, and eggs from our farm but no dent corn, only sweet, so no corn meal. I guess I still feel like I shouldn’t have, but I bought corn meal with the excuse that I grew corn … just not the right kind. I didn’t tell anyone.

A friend had grown onions on his farm, so the only thing missing from a standard dressing was celery. We had apples and peaches from orchards in East Texas and Arkansas.

It was great. There were still green tomatoes on the vines for relish, and we had giant curved butternut squashes that are called Tahitian Squash or Pennsylvania Pumpkins. Butternuts make a superior pie because the flesh isn’t as juicy, meaning you don’t have to cook a gallon of water out first to make the filling like you do with pumpkin – just cut in two lengthwise, remove the seeds (soak overnight in saltwater then dry for “pumpkin seeds”) and bake sliced-side down on an oiled rimmed pan until roasted. The squash will be very soft and the juices that cook out will blacken around it; this caramelization will add a lot of flavor.

Our Meal

Roasted Homegrown Chickens
Cornbread “Cheat” Dressing sans celery
Green Tomato Relish
Grape Sauce
Sliced Peaches (from the freezer)
Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Squash and Corn Casserole (again, from the freezer)
Whole Wheat Rolls
Homemade Butter
Pecan and Faux Pumpkin (butternut) Pies

This Thanksgiving we have a new member of our family; a daughter-in-law who loves all things Japanese; I’m sure I could figure out how to work cranberry and Mandarin oranges into Sushi. That and the macarons should round out our tradition of a Changeable Feast!

BY JENNIE HOLT*

When I think back to childhood, I don’t have many moments where I remember sitting in a classroom completely engrossed in what the teacher was saying. I do remember field trips however, every one of them. I also remember recess and lunch. What was being served in the school cafeteria could make or break your day. There was no salad bar, and there were no fresh apples either.

I grew up in rural Missouri in an area heavily populated by farmers and rows of cornfields as far as your eye could see. My favorite early school memory was in 2nd grade when my teacher decided to participate in the school-wide production of “healthy eating.”

I am sure many of you remember the ‘good ol’ Basic Four Food Groups. We were to dress up as our favorite fruit or vegetable, strut across stage, and say a few words (in character, of course). I am the child of two artists, so the mundane was never an option for me. My vegetable was to be the cinnamon stick. My costume, I made myself. My father helped me gather materials, and soon enough I was wrapped in a noodle of tempura brown painted cardboard. There were holes for my arms to stick out and my legs stuck out underneath like a frightened chicken. When it became time to walk across the stage, I was unafraid and strutted to the center declaring, “I am spicy!”

I tell this story because I think that it is very telling that growing up in such a heavily populated farming community, I was unclear about fruits or vegetables outside of potatoes, carrots, corn, and apples. The story makes me smile, while at the same time I cannot help but think there are so many children in our communities who do not have a rich food vocabulary. Many of these children do not know what an eggplant or acorn squash is. They do not understand where their food comes from outside of the grocery store or the significance that making good food choices will have on their lives down the road.

Grass-fed beef, and free range eggs, organic verses non-organic, GMOs, and raw milk are all words that are common place to the local food enthusiast, but do our children know the meaning of the words? If they do not, then how can we expect them to have a clear understanding of why we as family farmers or consumers are working so hard to protect a healthy and productive food supply? They will not have the common sense to make good choices if they are not well informed and schooled about diversified farming systems.

I experienced this first-hand while working for a non-profit in Lincoln, Nebraska, called Community CROPS. I was the director of youth programs and ran the largest urban farm in the state connected to a school. The students and I ran a small farmers market, constructed hoop houses, and took numerous field trips to actual farms. Part of my job was to connect the classroom to the farm, and in doing so I was continually shocked at how little these kids knew about sustainable agriculture and healthy food systems.

I do not need to remind you that in Nebraska the football team is named the “Cornhuskers,” so farming is something that almost all people were connected to. Many of the middle school students spent their summers de-silking rows and rows of corn for farmers. They did not know however, where their food came from. They did not, for the most part, understand that a french fry came from a tuber, which grew underground. Understood is perhaps not the correct word to use, but they certainly did not make the connection.

Connecting farms to schools is another avenue that we, as farmers and consumers, can use to educate others about our cause. If we can create bridges between schools and farms, we can create awareness that begins in the classroom and branches out to families, furthering public education about healthy food systems. Those of you with school aged children know that you will be sent endless notes home over the course of a school year, why can’t some of these notes be entitled “Come meet your local farmer.” Host events where parents are invited to taste and experience food from a local farm, or a farmer reads a story to a class and then tells a story about their farm, bridging the gap between the students and the origin of their food.

We need to bridge those gaps more definitively between farms and schools so that our bodies benefit from education and not just our minds. A healthy mind and body cannot be achieved without healthy food.

If you are interested in increasing your child’s fruit and vegetable consumption, or expanding market opportunities for farmers, Farm to School is a win-win situation. Here is an excerpt from the National Farm to School Network:

Farm to School programs are based on the premise that students will choose to eat more healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, if they have positive experiences and relationships with the source of their food. These experiences (including school gardens, farm field trips, and cooking with local food) are not only critical components of obesity prevention strategies, but also important teaching tools that meaningfully engage students while building connections to agricultural heritage and rural communities. National Farm to School Network. (2011).

As parents, we want our children to have positive relationships with their foods and food sources, as well as more community education and involvement at a grass roots level. What excites me about farming education programs so much is that they create an ethics of earth stewardship connecting kids to soil and earth and growing food and fiber. As farmers, we want others to understand the importance of our role in healthy food systems.

Resources:

Here’s a link to the Texas Farm to School Network:
http://www.farmtoschool.org/our-network/Texas

Or checkout CAFF (Community Alliance with Family Farmers) which has manuals with information about hosting school visits:
http://caff.org/programs/farm-2-school/resources

CAFF’s Making the Farm Connection This manual is designed to help build farmer’s capacity to host school visits on their farms. It covers what to expect, how to run tours, information on insurance and connecting with schools

CAFF’s Farm to School Guide for Parents and Community MembersThis “how-to” guide to farm to school for parents and community members provides information, resources, and a step-by-step guide on how to start farm to school programs or plug into existing ones.

And, here is a list of 400 children’s books related to farming, gardening, and local food compiled by The Oregon Department of Education: BOOK LIST: 400 titles! Children’s books dealing with fruits, vegetables & gardening!
Updated 8/25/2014
http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=4206

References Cited:

National Farm to School Network. (2011). Statistics. www.farmtoschool.org

Klemmer, C.D., Waliczek, T.M. & Zajicek, J.M. (2005). Growing Minds: The Effect of a School Gardening Program on the Science

* Jennie Holt lives in Ackerly Texas on a cotton farm and is a teacher, and sustainable agriculture advocate. She is co-founder of the Texas based non-profit Eco-Stead, which is working to connect rural students to the foods we eat and grow while striving to raise food awareness and healthy living. A yoga teacher, and self- proclaimed homesteader she occupies much of her free time in the pursuit of greater flexibility and healthy living.