San Juan Island Food Co-op

NEWSLETTER: September 1, 2010

LARD AND TALLOW: When I picked up my quarter hog from Jim Scribner today, he gave me a box of lard which I’ll render to use for pie crust and biscuits (as well as for just greasing the skillet). Old-fashioned pie crust is made with half butter and half good quality lard from healthy pigs, at a ratio of one cup fat to two cups flour. I’ll also combine some lard with a tub of various fats I’ve saved to make soap. Jim invites you soap makers, candle makers, or old-fashioned pie crust bakers to stop by in the next week or two when he’ll be butchering hogs and beef; there’ll be a lot of tallow and lard to give away. What a way to be self-sufficient with local materials! Homemade soap with all the glycerin is good for skin, it can be grated and used for laundry (safer for septic tanks and the environment than commercial soaps and detergents), and it can be dissolved to spray on aphid-infested plants. Jim’s in the phone book, and his shop is at the corner of Cattle Point and Madden. (Catchy opening topic, huh!)

WHOLESALE ORDERS: Anna and Ellie were distraught Monday because of all the unidentified orders in the UNFI “basket.” Numerous people must have put things in there and forgotten to send the email confirmation for their orders—they will be disappointed today when their items are not on the truck. Please honor the protocol!

FRUIT: We got lots more nectarines yesterday, this time in returnable lugs. Maria said we co-op people are so good about bringing back the boxes and their liners that she’d like to try bypassing such wasteful packaging and offer the fruit in lugs—which really, really, really must be returned to the co-op so she can pick some cherries for us next year! She brought some apples and plums as well.

DRIED FRUIT: Maria also brought a few gallon bags of nectarines she cut and dried herself by hand. She gave me a sample and they are very, very nice—a perfect stand-in for the popular dried mango slices from Thailand, and they don’t have to travel so far. Later in the fall she will bring personally prepared dried apples. Trade the bargain price of the fresh fruit you enjoy this week against the cost of the labor intensive hand cutting, drying, packaging of your premium quality dried fruit that you can save for the later season; support our farmers.

PICKUPS: My body will be happy because I finally have an offer of muscles to pick up the milk—hurrah! But nobody stepped up to fetch the cranberry juice in Seattle, so I prevailed upon a woman I know who commutes to her job in Mt. Vernon and she brought it to her office yesterday. She knows someone who might ferry it across to us tomorrow. Arranging this hitchhiking takes finesse!

LAST DAY TO VOTE: Today the voting ends and the co-op’s new home will soon be revealed—well, not that soon, so don’t hold your breath or anything. All the ballots have to be verified as having been cast by current members of record, only one vote per household. Before they can be checked the list has to be updated to make sure all new members are included on our database. And the Board itself will vote a week from now on September 8. Please stand by….

NEWSLETTER: August 25, 2010

VOTE! Ballots and a box will be in the co-op starting today, and you can vote on which site you prefer for the co-op’s new home until September 1. You must sign your ballot so the Board can verify that only one vote is cast per household and that only up-to-date co-op households of record are voting. If you are away you may request a ballot by emailing sanjuancoop@gmail.com. Be sure to print your ballot, sign it, and mail it to San Juan Island Food Co-op, 50 Malcolm St., F. H. The outcome of the vote will be posted as soon as possible after the Board has met on September 8.

FRUIT: I have ordered eight more boxes of those wonderful nectarines that vanished so fast last week. They should arrive today during the UNFI delivery circus.

VINCENT CRANBERRIES: Members have inquired about production practices of the farmers who bring us their juice and dried cranberries from the Oregon coast. I have posted Tim Vincent’s excellent reply to my queries on our website’s Forum page under “Food Awareness.” He’s coming to Seattle this weekend and I’ve asked him to bring us six more cases of juice. He’ll leave them at a friend’s house on Queen Anne Hill, so they will need to hitch a ride to our co-op. If you are going to Seattle soon and can volunteer, my phone number is 370-5430.

BAGS: Shoppers are sad to use plastic bags. Anna is looking into acceptable alternatives for wrapping the produce which suffers terribly if unprotected, and she has ordered paper bags for your purchases from the gravity dispensers. They cost a few cents per bag which you will add to your receipt; the amount will be posted. Please tuck your empty paper bags into your shopping tote to reuse for future purchases! (Anna, by the way, is obsessively crocheting expandable shopping totes for everyone with her immense stash of yarn. The first one came out the shape and size of a fat six pound salmon. Stand by.)

WHOLESALE ORDERS: Anna wants to be sure wholesale orders are submitted correctly—habits are getting sloppy and that makes it hard for her and Ellie, she says. Here’s a refresher on what must be included in your email order confirmation:
1. Description of the product(s)
2. Five digit product number(s)
3. How many of each item ordered
4. Price of each item, plus tax if applicable
5. Total price of all items ordered
6. Total you owe including the 5% markup

That’s all for now!

- e.

NEWSLETTER: August 18, 2010

FRESH: As I was picking up Waldron produce at the dock Tuesday morning I reflected on how delicious the greens are from that soil. In particular, I appreciate the fresh sweet flavor of Asian greens—gai lon, sensopai, you cai, and of course bok choy and napa. If you haven’t tried them please do before the season’s over. I like them lightly braised either in sesame oil and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds or in a mixture of coconut oil and butter with garlic. Of course they’re perfect in a stir-fry. I’ll order a little extra for this week.

FRUIT: Tomorrow I’m expecting six or eight boxes of nectarines and two boxes of apricots from our orchard connection in Orondo. If you read this before 7 p.m. and decide you want a box of nectarines for yourself, call me and right away I’ll convey the order to Marie who’s heading in our direction before dawn Thursday: 370-5430. Marie says they can beautifully: cut them in half and pack them in a quart jar, using half the sugar that you’d use for peaches. They look lovely through the glass with their red blushing skins; the flesh is firm and the skin peels right off if you you prefer to eat them naked.

SKAGIT WHOLESALE MARKET: I’m planning to order a few things for us that need to be picked up at the morning market behind the Skagit Co-op next Thursday, the 26th. I will order more pork products to replace the dwindling supply, some more Samish Bay cheese, and three flats of those wonderful mushrooms from Twin Sisters. If anyone happens to be going to Mt. Vernon that morning and would be able to pick the orders up before 10:30 a.m., saving me the trip, I could pay for the items in advance and you can do the schlepping, using the co-op’s ferry pass. The food needs to be kept cool, so it’s important to return on the 11:55 ferry if possible. See my phone number above.

RECEIPTS: You prob’ly noticed the receipts ran out a week and a half ago. I asked, but nobody volunteered to go to Printonyx and make copies—they just said “no”! I think Anna finally did it. It’s a pretty easy and unscheduled job if someone wants to take it on and earn volunteer hours. The engine of our little co-op is the volunteers—it wouldn’t be here without them!

BAGGERS NEEDED: I notice that almost all of the bulk items on the front rack are bagged by Geneva—every Thursday she spends hours back there at the table suited up in rubber gloves, scooping fruits and nuts, taping, weighing, pricing. Please help, especially if you are among those who ask us to get specific items to stock. All that’s needed is a food handler card from the Health Department.

VOTE: Remember to vote next week on our move. Paper ballots will be in the co-op from August 25 through September 1. Viewing of the sites will be Monday August 23 from 5 to 7. If you need to vote by mail, please request a ballot by email, then print it and mail it in time for the end of voting: (sanjuancoop@gmail.com). There will be great joy among us when we have a little more room to move around and don’t keep running out of staples and into each other!

Happy Fair time!

- Eleanor

NEWSLETTER: August 10, 2010

VOLUNTEERS: Perhaps you’ve noticed in the last few months we’ve been lucky to have more and more volunteers who contribute their time and skills to making our little co-op work—it’s like the little engine that could! And with this growth the board has engaged Tanja Williamson to serve as Volunteer Coordinator; I feel like a little kid on the first day of school waiting for the teacher to control the bedlam and issue directives—it’s going to be wonderful! And none too soon—our makeshift systems that worked well while we were not much more complicated than a large household are on the verge of meltdown. Her email: tanjawilliamson@mac.com

FUNNY LIKE US: The Twin Sisters Mushroom fellow checked out our website, found the newsletter, and this is what he said: “We clicked over to your Co-Op site, wow, you guys have really gone after it, what a tremendous collection of good energy! Thanks also for the kind words on the mushrooms at your site forum, it is always an unexpected but appreciated treat to hear compliments from our customers, it does wonders to farm morally! [sic—I think he meant morale?] We do our best to make sure you have the best and ongoing mushroom experience you can have.” Our new fungus friends in Acme, Washington, apologetically remarking “we hope to be more on the ball” business-wise, appear to be winging it like we do and I think they might be goofy enough that Anna and I will have to plan a field trip in the fall. Regarding our juice, I talked to Tim Vincent-the-cranberry-farmer on his cell phone as he was speeding toward Mt. Vernon two weeks ago with his wife and little daughter and our cranberry juice in his truck; he commented that they had just signed a contract with Whole Foods and Central Market and he and his wife were looking at each other and saying “what do we do now???” I reassured him there are lots of extra cranberries in Bandon they could get hold of, and he said “all our neighbors are watching to see how we do!” Yay for the farmers and the little guys!

CHANTERELLES: I just got word I can get some foraged fungi for us, maybe by the end of the week!

RECYCLE, REUSE: 1. This is a reminder to return empty Moss and Lacrover egg cartons and the little plastic berry cups with lids to be sent back to the farmers for reuse. They can be stacked on the top shelf beyond the freezer. 2. Please don’t borrow or dispose of the flattened waxed produce boxes in the back of the store; they go back to Waldron Island for more fresh produce. 3. And, while I’m thinking of it, where are all those milk bottles? They need to go back to the dairy for reuse—that’s the whole idea of glass, y’know, and it’s important to return them! Manufacturing more and more truckloads of bottles is probably more of a disaster than making and disposing of plastic and paper milk cartons, it seems to me.

MOVE: Be on the lookout for Arvid’s “Expansion Newsletter Volume 4.” The vote on the move will take place during the last week of August by paper ballot. Please try to view the two sites on August 23 from 5 to 7 p.m.

THANKS! I’ve been tied up with family these two weeks and volunteers have kindly picked up my fetching duties for me. Today I’ll skip the truck fun in order to go tide pooling at noon, but I know there’ll be many able hands and I won’t be missed. All these eager people who love our little co-op really make it go!

Signing off till next week—

- e.