Alice Park’s article, What’s Lurking in Your Meat and Poultry? Probably Staph, published in Time Magazine reports on a study that shows the presence of a new multi-drug resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus. This Bacteria is reportedly not even monitored by the US Department of Agriculture as it has not been previously known as a food born pathogen. Researchers conclude that the cause of this now drug resistant bacteria is the overuse of antibiotics particularly to increase production yields. Take a moment to read this article and give yourself a pat on the back for using Broadview Ranch and our naturally raised meats. http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/15/whats-lurking-in-your-meat-and-poultry-probably-staph/

Country Folks Magazine recently published an article on Broadview Ranch. Check out the article and the good folks at Country Folks by following the link below:

Broadview Ranch loosens reins on Mother Nature

Some of you that are interested in fine foods and local production might be interested in an up coming documentary on PBS.  Vintage: The Winemaker’s Year is a documentary about Virginia wines that airs Tuesday, October 5 at 8 pm and Thursday, October 7 at 9:30 pm on WCVE PBS.  Give it a look if it sounds interesting.  Below is the teaser:

“Vintage: The Winemaker’s Year” is a feature-length documentary exploring the rapid growth of the wine industry in Virginia and its increasing impact on the state’s cultural, social, and economic landscape. The film premieres on the Community Idea Stations in coordination with Virginia Wine Month.Filmed and presented in high definition widescreen format, the narrative of the film is comprised of two intertwining strands- the story of the wine industry’s rise from humble beginnings and the tale of the creation of the state’s 2008 vintage. Vintage is an observational style documentary with the players and places of the Monticello Wine Region in Central Virginia serving as its main characters.

The film examines the factors that make Virginia unique amongst the wine producing regions of the United States and explores why two hundred years after Thomas Jefferson’s failure to cultivate grapes at Monticello the region is finally flourishing as a producer of quality wines.

The directory is a comprehensive list of local food suppliers. It was a project of Virginia Tech’s VT Earthworks program and the Virginia Cooperative Extension, To see the electronic version go to http://www.roanokevalleylocavore.com/2010FoodDirectory-LR.pdf

We are excited to announce that we have two interns working with us this summer, Hannah Dubit and David Tilson.  Mind you, interns are not a new phenomenon on the farm, in fact, my grandfather and his friend Roger Mudd were some of the first interns back when Broadview was a dude ranch run by my Great-Grandad Tex Tilson.  Even Josh and I spent a summer working on the farm together a few years back.

Hannah Dubit

Hannah hails from right down the road and has been a frequent guest at our pond parties.  She is a rising senior at Mary Baldwin College and is interested in learning the business of farming and managing large livestock.  Hannah once had an egg business of her own and is experienced in animal husbandry.

David Tilson

David lives on the farm and is the son of Alan Tilson.  He has been working his whole life around the farm but this is the first time we are paying him.  David has been working mainly with the chickens before and after school.  Now that he can work full time over the summer we are looking to get him more involved with the cattle and pigs.

I was cruising eatwild.com this evening and came upon this cookbook. Haven’t read it yet but it certainly looks interesting. For most folks the most challenging aspect of switching to naturally raised products is learning how to cook meats with less fat. This cookbook seems to offer some direction on doing just that and so I’ve ordered a copy for the farm, stay tuned for the results.

One of our wedding gifts was The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook. It is a fantastic cookbook because before each recipe they detail all the different preparation methods that were tested in order to come up with the final recipe. This past Christmas I cooked a fresh Broadview ham for my family and while it was delicious, there was definitely room for improvement in the preparation method. Last night I was reading through the America’s Test Kitchen section on fresh hams and they brilliantly detailed the exact brining, baking and carving techniques to achieve the perfect roasted fresh ham. Every detail of the cooking process and been tested and the findings outlined in a few pages followed by a recipe for the perfect roasted fresh ham. I couldn’t find a free version of the recipe on their website so I decided not to post it for fear of copyright infringement but if you would like to join me in serving a perfectly prepared ham a your next family gathering you can find the recipe either in the book – which I highly recommend – or here on their website with subscription.

For any of you that haven’t seen this fascinating series about chef Jamie Oliver and his effort to change the broken eating habits of America, I highly recommend it. It is truly sad to see the detrimental effects that a broken food culture can have on health, education and communities. Its a six episode series available to watch on Hulu. http://www.hulu.com/jamie-olivers-food-revolution

The most emailed article on the Wall Street Journal’s website today was How to get the best steak. This is a great article outlining the development of industrial beef and the associated loss of flavor. The solution as presented by the article is of course well raised grass fed beef. Fascinating and informative read.

I ran across two bad ideas in my travels on the internet this week.  The first is genetically modifying pigs to produce less sulfur in their excrement.  There are plenty of red flags around GMO’s but the real question  is why are we raising these animals in such a way that their waste is problem instead of a boon.  We are excited enough about our pig excrement that the location of the next pig paddock and subsequent fertilizer drop is carefully planned to spread the wealth. This effort shows backwards thinking on so many levels.

The second article is about McDonalds Opposing Cage-free Eggs.  The request was for 5% of McDonald’s eggs to come from cage free hens.  These birds are still raised in confinement and never see the light of day but they have slightly more space.  I think the Onion put it best when they quipped “Five percent would have been perfect, as I tend to get a guilty conscience with every 20th Egg McMuffin.”