Farm Bulletin: A Tour and a Sale!

Exciting news arrives from contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm…he's written a book! Scroll to the bottom to get your prepublication discount.

Next Sunday, the 24th of June, we will open the farm to visitors from 3:00  to 5:30 pm. It is our chance to show you all the food while it is still in the field, and engage in the longer conversations so difficult in the commercial venue of the Hillsdale Farmers' Market. It is a working farm, so sturdy shoes are recommended. Linda Colwell is helping us prepare a light and tasty snack.

This has been an extraordinary spring, and we looking forward to a wonderful summer season as a result. Of course, crap can happen, but it helps to enter the season on a good note. Corn and beans were planted about three weeks earlier than last year, and they are doing well. We will even have fresh shell beans this year, after two years of absence.

If you have a few drachmas restless in your pocket, we recommend a dinner at one of the nearby restaurants in Forest Grove, Newberg and McMinnville. There are more excellent choices each year. Our friend Henry Richmond is particularly keen on the Blue Goat down in Amity.

Now a word from our commercial sponsor:

Too often you have experienced the frustration of reading a Farm Bulletin from Ayers Creek, wading through the sloppily edited essays, impulsively grasping for a red pen. You want to pick up all the dropped articles, reunite the split infinitives, reign in those wayward prepositions, but you know it is a lost cause. Anthony puts the task off to the last minute and churns it out in an hour without any consideration for his readers. It is clear he could do with a bit of professional help.

New Society Publishers has come up with a solution. With the help of their professional staff and editors, they have cleaned up his writing, and even managed to find some people to say kind things about his work. Yes, there is a very modest cost for what is usually free, but New Society is confident that you will appreciate their efforts. The cornmeal cookie recipe you keep losing is in the book. There is the additional pleasure of knowing that you may have had polenta or a cookie made from one of kernels so fetchingly portrayed on the cover. Not often you can claim that distinction.

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Beautiful Corn

America’s Original Grain from Seed to Plate

By Anthony Boutard

Cultivated from sea level to mountaintop, from parched deserts to
 sodden rain forests, from the rocky Gaspé Peninsula to the plains of Argentina, corn is the grain of the Americas. In terms of culinary uses, it is amazingly diverse, reflecting the breathtaking variety of the continents and environments from which it evolved. The consummate immigrant, corn is grown extensively on every continent except Antarctica.

Market farmer and naturalist Anthony Boutard weaves together this unique plant’s contribution to our culture, its distinctive biology and the practical information needed to grow and enjoy it at home. Beautiful Corn advocates a return to the nourishing whole grain that built America, in place of today’s genetically modified crops processed by industrial agriculture into synthetic sweeteners and cheap meat. Come along on this lyrical and inspiring journey through the seasons, learning about growing and using corn in the traditional way.

Gardeners and market farmers can lead the way to a healthier country by restoring heritage corn varieties to our tables. An unabashed celebration of a much-maligned culinary treasure, Beautiful Corn will forever change the way you view this remarkable plant.

Click Here to get your 20% Prepublication Discount.

Offer valid until 7/20/12.