Cruise Old Mission

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

By Christiana Schmitz with permission of MyNorth.com

A lovely, languid drive along Old Mission Peninsula; the hilly green finger of land that divides the east and west sides of Grand Traverse Bay;is the perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon. From the base of the peninsula, follow Garfield Road north out of Traverse City, then head left on M-37, also known as Center Road. Brake for the tasting rooms of the half-dozen Old Mission wineries to pick up a bottle of vino for dinner, then swing by Fox Valley Gardens Farm Market (231-883-8337) for in-season fruits and veggies as well as honey, fresh cut flowers and maps of the peninsula. Cut across Wilson Road and cruise the coast, turning right on Nelson Road for a captivating detour: latticework branches intertwine overhead, shading a sun-speckled lane that skirts one of the peninsula’s many orchards. This hidden two-track will bring you back to M-37, and a left leads you to Peninsula Market (14111 Center Rd., 231-223-9500) for picnic provisions like sandwiches and cold almond cherry chicken salad.

Follow the signs to the eclectic Old Mission General Store (18250 Old Mission Rd., 231-223-4310), where shafts of sunlight illuminate a happy clutter of penny candy, coon caps, antiques, toys and more. Ask owner Jim Richards about the history of this store: the first outpost between Detroit and the Straits of Mackinac. Nab a few more goodies for your picnic, then head north to Lighthouse Park at the very tip of the peninsula. Here’s the spot for a sweet sunset picnic: beach access, a lovely lighthouse and curling sand paths calling you to the water. Make your way to the old metal swing set nestled in the sand, take a seat and let the swing’s soft creaking fold into the sound of the evening waves.

MyNorth.com, the vacation site of the North, is refreshed daily by the staff of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine. Deborah Wyatt Fellows is editor-in-chief.

The Omnivore's Detroit: How to Find Kinder, Gentler Meat

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:00:00 GMT

A New Yorker cartoon shows two sharks in the water. One has a foot dangling from his jaws. "I'm eating more locals," reads the caption.

When it comes to eating, lots of Detroiters are going local, too. Yet, while veggies are in abundance much of the year (OK, unless you totally love root vegetables, maybe not so much right now), what about meat? After all, this is not just the vegetarian's dilemma; it's the metro Detroit omnivore's puzzle, too.

The good news: It's actually quite easy to consume locally grown meat, raised on small farms and often in methods that would make folks like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan smile.

More good news: Local farmers say they are seeing an increase in demand for meat and eggs grown locally, and especially those raised with more natural, eco-friendly methods.

What's it matter?

There are many good reasons to seek out producers of local food, and not all of them suggest you wear cork sandals, eat buckwheat, or have named one of your children after an act of nature.

In fact, some of the best reasons sound almost -- gasp -- fiscally conservative.

Maybe you want to support the local economy and Michigan farmers. The "buy local" movement tells us that if we spent $10 a week on Michigan products, the state economy would gain $36 million every week. If the real payoff is even half that, that's still not too shabby.

And maybe you want to decrease the country's reliance on petroleum. If your blueberries have to get a passport stamp before hitting your cereal bowl, it's obvious the energy cost of that meal is significantly more than eating berries grown down the road. (Maybe it's time to think about the real cost of eating fresh blueberries in Michigan in January, but I digress.)

There are other reasons, too, that skeptics may find too granola-ish to consider, but basically boil down to this: Is there a better way than a food system that is so automated and impersonal it's nearly impossible to trace the origins of the sandwich you ate for lunch back to the field where it grew?

But that brings us back to our dilemma: What's a girl who likes a perfectly grilled steak now and then or her eggs with a side of bacon once in a while to do?

All around Detroit, thankfully, we have many options for eating locally produced meat. Your best bet? Find a farmer. How? Easy: a farmer's market or the Internet.

Online bounty

Flash back to a few days before Thanksgiving. A local woman -- let's call her Clare Ramsey -- decides she wants a locally raised, free range, happy turkey on her table. Eastern Market Saturday has passed, and may not have helped, so she turns to Google. She finds far more producers of turkey within 100 miles of the Motor City than she's ever imagined.

And many farms actually have Web sites. (Those of you who knew this already, sorry, but it was news to a city kid who can't come up with answers to her young daughter's questions about agriculture, like, "Do chickens eat flies?")

Getting back to that turkey: She likes the sunny, bucolic farm pictures posted by Sunshine Meadows Farm in Ortonville in northern Oakland County. It's a small family farm. She thinks she sees the animals smiling. The problem: The turkeys have been reserved since October. No dice.

She finds the same "try us next October" response at several other farms, including Harnois Farms near Pinckney, where John Harnois lets his turkeys roam around the wooded farm until the big day gets near.

She ultimately finds a turkey, this one raised at Roeske Farms in Hartland, about an hour northwest of Detroit, near M-59 and US 23. Patricia Roeske's farm is blanketed in snow, and in cold months when the local farmer's market is closed, the family runs a store out of a huge unheated garage attached to her house, complete with industrial walk-in coolers to keep the meat fresh.

Patricia hasn't always been a free-range hog and turkey farmer. It just kind of happened. It's actually such a beautiful supply and demand story it'd make an Econ 101 a little misty eyed. "We had a lot of people requesting some of our meat, because that's how we always raise our meat for ourselves," she says. Then Hartland started a farmer's market, and the Roeskes, whose kids are big into 4-H, decided they could make this into a business. "We've got the property, and we're already doing a few, so we thought we might as well do more. It just got little a bit bigger," she says.

The turkey was huge -- over 19 pounds – and cost about $50 -- maybe about twice as much as an average store-bought one, but not too much more than an "organic" or "free-range" bird at a fancy grocery store. The results were divine, and the fresh bird had less icky gooiness than a previously frozen fowl. Clare slept well that night.

The T-day scramble also revealed this fabulous site -- Eatwild.com. It features all kinds of purveyors of grass-fed meat, many in this region. It's a great resource, especially if you can't for some reason go the super easy-peasy route for finding local meats: farmer's markets.

The markets

Todd Wickstrom, owner of Heritage Foods USA (a web site that supports small farms' products) and part owner of Corktown's new Mercury Coffee Bar, is as picky as it gets when he buys meat for his businesses and his home. His best suggestion for home chefs is to find a farmer, and visit the farm if possible, but at least talk to them at the market.

"People are dying to know the source of their food and where it comes from, and the farmer's market allows people to have a direct relationship with the people who are growing their food," Wickstrom says.

Detroiters are blessed with a farmer's market that's open year-round. And even on the coldest of cold January days, Eastern Market has many, many options for the discerning carnivore.

One eye-catching vendor is Johnny Gyergyov of J & M Farms in Allenton, MI, in northern Macomb County. He says he raises "happy hogs," and his signs portray cartoon swine looking quite chipper.

It turns out Gyergyov's another accidental farmer. A former autoworker and city kid, he had moved his family to the country in the '70s. They started raising animals -- just a few -- and then got "the farming bug." Gyergyov invites people to stop by the farm and see where the hogs grow. He keeps them free of antibiotics and hormones. He takes his meat to a USDA facility for processing. At Eastern Market, he sells other products like sausage, chickens and beef. The prices are competitive to what you'll find at a meat counter at the grocery store, and sometimes better.

At Eastern Market, you'll also find a great number of egg producers -- many of whom regulars may only know as the "bee guy" or the "potato guy." But don't be afraid to ask them how they raise their birds -- or their real names. And if the eggs look multicolored and multisized, that's a good thing, people.

A scan of other area farmers markets also shows some good producers (staunch Detroitists cover your ears). Royal Oak's Farmers Market, for instance, offers a handful of meat vendors.

Gary Otto hauls his free-range chickens from Middleville on the west side of the state about twice a month. He sells many different cuts, and even smoked chicken and a particularly tasty chicken breakfast sausage that beats out most pork versions I've sampled from local vendors.

Otto is a fourth generation poultry farmer. He used to run a more standard, tightly packed factory farm as a producer for a big U.S. company, but it never sat well with him. He says he won't go back to that type of production. "I decided if I was going to do this -- raise chickens -- I was going to do it differently," he says.

Elmer Miller also drives a ways to sell at the Royal Oak market. The farmer from Up North in Marion offers grass-fed beef -- something not easy to come by. (Most U.S. cattle is "grain-fed," meaning usually fed corn, which according to Pollan's book, is not the preferred bovine diet.)

Miller also sells pasture-raised chickens and "natural" pork. Asked what natural means, he says free of antibiotics and hormones, and with pigs given the freedom to do what pigs are meant to do -- wallow in the mud, move about as they please, etc. If you think this is what every pig gets to do, you might want to read the aforementioned book.

When cows, chickens and pigs are allowed to grow in a more natural setting, and given the freedom to exercise and move about, it "changes the flavor of the meat" for the better, Miller says. I believe the guy. He wears suspenders. I bought a big roast and it was great. I slept well that night, too. Some of his beef prices are higher than grocery store averages -- about $6 a pound for most cuts, including ground beef.

Miller says he sees more customers seeking out his products. "The public awareness of the food system has made people look around for better options," he says.

And in Detroit, options abound. Finding them is as easy as taking a few minutes, going to the Internet or market, finding a farmer, and asking a few questions. Oh, and if you are looking for a Thanksgiving turkey, it's probably not too early to get your order in.

Clare Pfeiffer Ramsey is editor of Model D. Send feedback here. If you have more tips on Michigan made food items, send those along too.

Photos:

Gaier Farms, based in Armada, MI, offers quite the variety.

Daniel Bucu is a second generation pig farmer. The Bucu's have been selling their meats in Eastern Market for over 45 years.

Brown eggs from J & M Farms in Allenton, MI

Turkeys - courtesy photo

Johnny Gyergyov of J & M Farms

Hog - courtesy photo

Unless noted, All photographs by Detroit Photographer Marvin Shaouni
Marvin Shaouni is the Managing Photographer for Metromode & Model D.

Story Courtesy of http://www.modeldmedia.com/

Grand Rapids Women's Chorus takes a Michigan Apple break on the front porch of Khardomah Lodge

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:02:30 GMT

The Michigan Apple Growers "Check In to Michigan Apples" campaign interested Khardomah Lodge management enough to purchase HoneyCrispe apples from the Grand Haven Farm Market and invite it's September 29-30 guests - the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus - to participate in this "guests eating Michigan Apples" photo op. The GRWC traditionally kicks off its season with a practice session/business meeting each year at Khardomah Lodge in Grand Haven, Michigan. GRWC Director, Lori Tennenhouse is 2nd from left in back row. Gayle Gerig, Khardomah Lodge Manager, took the photo "in celebration of apples, music, and guests who enjoy the lodge".

Comming back after 10 years

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:23:19 GMT

I came back to MI after 10 years of being away. What a great time! I saw the Tigers play, was able to walk through Ford Field, went to all the casino's. Also enjoyed the Farmer's market, eating in Greek Town....and just sight seeing downtown. I was just amazed how inviting, and clean the city has become. It was just a all around great time. I'm already making plans to come back.

Pure Michigan Travel - Farm Markets Highlights

Cruise Old Mission

The Omnivore's Detroit: How to Find Kinder, Gentler Meat

Grand Rapids Women's Chorus takes a Michigan Apple break on the front porch of Khardomah Lodge

Comming back after 10 years