Bloomingdale Farmers Market!

Dear BFM fans,

At long last and much awaited, our new producers! Cheese at the market at last!

From Pennsylvania: Keswick Creamery and Painted Hand Farm, From Loudoun County: Greenstone Fields Farm in Loudoun County, From 9th Street NW : Chez Hareg Pastries of Chez Hareg on 9th Street.

So, come out and make these new producers feel really welcome at BFM!

Yes, it's true. We are GROWING: CHEESE AND YOGURT and Veal and Mushrooms and Flowers and Beef and EGGS ARRIVE THIS WEEK AT Bloomingdale Farmers Market! RAIN or SHINE! I repeat, Rain or Shine! Rain or Shine. So if it is raining, just bring your umbrellas. It is dry under the tents and in the BBC.

To celebrate our new producers, we are having a special event:

FREE COOKING SCHOOL Raffle Tickets to All Shoppers Chef Susan Watterson, co-owner of the hot new Cooking School on 14th Street, CulinAerie, We will raffle off ONE FREE CULINAERIE COOKING CLASS FOR TWO and you can use it for any class you want in the next 12 months. IF you shop at BFM, you will get a free raffle ticket from every producer you shop with . So, you have lots of chances to win! She will also be doing a Cooking Demo (see below)

http://www.culinaerie.com/



What's new:

Robin's favorite yogurt from Keswick
11 different hard cheese-- handmade cheddars and fetas and Wallabies and Vermeer
Fresh farmers cheese (Quark)
Fresh Ricotta and Italian Style Vachino Bianca
Blue Cheese
Fresh Bovre soft cheese
Feta and marinated feta in olive oil with peppercorns, a bay leaf and garlic.
Fresh Cream Cheese with herbs
Keswick's own Chocolate pudding, created for Melanie's daughter, Maddy
HUMANELY raised veal chops, scallopini and ground
Shitake Mushrooms
French classic cookies, biscotti, pies and cakes
TASTE FREE Samples of every single cheese at the stand.

Keswick Creamery is a grass-based Pennsylvania dairy farm, a family farm since the 1970s, although Melanie's family have been farmers since the 1800s. The 40 registered Jersey cows eat grass all summer, spring and Fall-- long grass that has never seen a pesticide or fertilizer. Hay in the winter. Of course Keswick does not use antibiotics or hormones, pesticides or fertilizers. Their cheesemaker, Melanie Dietrich-Cochran, has been making cheeses since 2001. She has 40 Registered Jersey cows, the gold standard of dairy cows and they are munching grass and converting it into rich Jersey milk. It has been a closed herd for 25 years which means that the cows are healthy because they are all born on the farm and watched carefully from birth.

They make a nice range of aged raw milk cheeses (aged for at least 60 days) and pasteurized fresh cheeses.

Painted Hand Farm: Running the Keswick stand at BFM will be Sandy Miller, a former California chef and former Food writer for the LA Times. She not only works for Keswick Creamery, but she has her own Painted Hand Farm and she will be bringing her own humanely raised Veal-- Sandy started to raise veal because she did not like the inhumane way calves were raised : talk to her about the way she raises hers! Try her chops, scallopini and ground meat. She will also bring a small quantity of her free- range eggs so come early for those.

Where's the BEEF? It is finally here at BFM at Truck Patch! Steaks, roasts, ground beef. Raised on grass, finished on grass with a choice of grain if the cows want to eat a little as well.

Chez Hareg Pastries: Fabulous classic French cookies, biscotti, pies and cakes plus a whole line of Vegan sweets are Hareg's specialties. She has been written up by the Washingtonian, the Washington Post and a lot of blogs. We are very excited to have her join us for the rest of the season to take NanBon's place. (Aisha has been ill and had to drop out for the rest of the season)

Greenstone Fields Farm: MUSHROOMS and beautiful flowers! Barbara and Dennis raise mushrooms and grow spectacular lilies! I tasted their shitake mushrooms for the first time on Wednesday and they were wonderful. Not available at any other market in DC. A BFM exclusive.


FREE COOKING DEMO: Chef Susan Watterson, co-owner of the hot new CULINAERIE Cooking School on 14th Street, CulinAerie http://www.culinaerie.com/ at the market on Sunday Oct 26th.

Susan has spent the past sixteen years as a cook, chef, and culinary educator. Upon graduation she worked at Old Angler's Inn, a popular Potomac, MD restaurant, and then became Managing Director of L'Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda for two years. Returning to the kitchen, Susan was the catering director of Fresh Start Catering, a division of DC Central Kitchen and then earned acclaim as the executive chef of Café Bethesda, maintaining the restaurant's standing as one of Washingtonian's "One Hundred Very Best" during her tenure of three years. She was most recently a full-time instructor for technique courses at L'Academie, including the popular Fundamental Culinary Techniques and Culinary Skills Lab courses. Susan searches out authentic cooking techniques on her many travels around the globe and serves on L'Academie de Cuisine's Advisory Board.

Plus our *old favorites* --all the great breads at Panorama, the wonderful apples and ciders and fruit sauces and preserves at Reid, the terrific range of vegetables at Garner and Truck Patch. And Truck Patch's pastured pork chops, roasts, bacon, sausages.

Now you can make a truly great meat loaf with ground pork and beef from Truck Patch and ground veal from Painted Hand Farm. Wow. Or a steak smothered in mushrooms from the market.

Or stuffed mushroom caps with Keswick Cheese. Yum.

Robin, Ted, Ben, Jess