I get to spend almost all of my work life speaking with interesting people, learning things I never knew, finding people what they want and opening boxes that make every day feel like Christmas. This week I went to a local Food Summit and spent some quality time with several of my producers over glasses of very local wine and beer. I won a gift basket from one of my neighbouring local food stores and met a woman considering opening a similar store in another Grey-Bruce community. I met new vegetable producers, talked over the kitchen for our new store with a Public Health rep, and bought new products for the store. Life is good!

This week we've added two new maple products. We have granulated maple sugar in a shaker container from Boddy's Sugar Bushes in Walkerton. Try it on your morning toast or cereal, or use it in baking. Uncle Richard has a delicious maple dressing made with maple syrup, raspberry wine vinegar, mustard and garlic.

The dairy department has a new double cream brie from Harmony Organics. We also have cottage cheese from Organic Meadows and of course Axel's delicious pecorino and feta, and Katie's goat chevre plain or with dill or garlic flowers. We have lamb shanks or elk osso bucco for the slow cooker, and GrassRoots Organics ground beef is on special this week - four one pound packages for $12.

For those who are looking for alternatives to meat and dairy, we have vanilla almond milk and unsweetened soy milk. Tofu and new seasoned tofu bites are in the cooler. (Soon we'll have tofu made locally from local organic soy beans.) Tempeh is in the big freezer. Did you know that peas, beans, chickpeas and lentils belong to the agricultural family known as pulses? We have a good variety, including French lentils, but if you have a favourite that you don't see on the shelf, or you'd like to buy them in a larger or smaller quantity, we'd be happy to oblige.

This week we have lots of variety in Maria's noodles both wheat and spelt and gluten-free types like buckwheat, green lentil or chickpea flours. Make a sauce of Marketside's sundried tomato pate and Trudy's roasted red peppers or our olive oil, crumbled smoked trout and a little grated peppercorn pecorino.

We sampled Laura's fig orange jam in the store last week and emptied the shelf, but it's full again this week. So far we've been able to find at least one producer for every kind of jam or spread that customers have requested, but we're up to the challenge if you're still looking for your favourite.

If you're under the weather, not only can we supply the chicken soup, tea and honey, but we can deliver it too. Just call if you need that service.

The design for the new store will include a kitchen for community kitchens, cooking classes and demonstrations, "Farmer's Favourites" and some small-scale food processing. We're looking for equipment, muscle and moral support, so talk to me if you're excited about the possibilities.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open Thursday and Friday from 10 until 7 and Saturday from 10 until 4 at
972 1st Avenue West (at least until late January). You can reach us at 519-370-2333 or aroundsoundfood@gmail.com.

See you soon.
Anne

wwww.aroundthesoundfood.com

When I was little, my parents always held a party on the night the clocks changed in the fall. They called it "The Brown October Ale Party" and I'll bet the extra hour of sleep the following morning was a welcome treat. Remember to "fall back" yourself this Saturday night. Maybe make it an excuse for some entertaining.

If it's a dinner party, there are some gorgeous venison roasts in the freezer from Shalom Farm. We have loin lamb chops or a bone-in leg from Forsyth Lamb, or a full rack of lamb from Twin Creeks. There is fresh local garlic in the back room, mint or rosemary jelly from Laura, and horseradish in the fridge. We still have whole chickens, turkeys and ducks too and delicious cranberry condiments.

If it's more a beer and munchies affair, you could take a drive down for some of the local brews like McLean's or Hockley Valley, and put out some bowls of the great flavours of Hardbite Potato Chips like Wild Onion and Yogurt. Hardbite is a Canadian success story and soooo good. You can read more about the quality of the product and see their Dragon's Den video on their website at www.homegrownfoods.com. Que Pasa tortilla chips are great too - I like the unsalted version with one of our flavourful salsas - Trudy's salsa verde or Ken's Chili Salsa (yes, it's back in and I bought two cases this time). By the way, I know that neither of these chips is a local product, but we have all the ingredients right in Grey-Bruce and then we'd have more material for local bio-diesel!

For family meals, Brenda has brought in some more soup. She'll be making a few of her specialties every week - lamb dizi, beef barley, chicken vegetable, and more. She's also brought in a new individual pie with ground chicken and cajun spice - just enough heat to make it interesting.

Even if it's an hour late and a little lighter, morning will come and the weather is right for some hot cereals. Organic oats and multiflake cereal from GrassRoots are on the shelf, as are four local cereal blends from Windy Hill - Flaxseed Porridge, 12 Grain, Cremo and Early Rise. The coffee shelves are full of Kemble Mountain Roastery and Back Eddie's blends and look for Cocoa Camino's fair trade hot chocolate in milk or dark chocolate.

Plans proceed for the new store location, and Captain Dunn's house, our present location, is for sale by its owner. It has a newly-renovated apartment upstairs with big bright windows overlooking the river.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open Thursday and Friday from 10 until 7 and Saturday from 10 until 4 at 972 1st Avenue West. Give us a call at 370-2333 if you want us to put something put aside. If you catch a bug and need delivery, we can make that happen too.
See you soon.
Anne

www.aroundthesoundfood.com

Sometimes I want everything to stay the same, and sometimes I can hardly wait for an exciting change. I'm likely not alone.

This weekend my family is moving house, but we’re taking along all our favourite comforts. This week we also committed to a new location for Around the Sound for the new year when the 9th Street bridge and intersection will be under construction. We’ll have all the things you’ve come to enjoy at Around the Sound and room for new delights and adventures. I look forward to your ideas for the new space.

This week we have lots of food for these cool damp evenings. Brenda has brought more of her delicious pies for you to bake yourself – chicken, lamb and the tortieres are back. Sara’s Incredible Edibles brings us family-size meat and seafood pies, lasagnes – meat, chicken or vegetable – and three flavours of quiche. In smaller sizes, we have Brenda’s pie “pods” in flavours like Taco Beef, Cajun Pork and Tortiere. Axel has small lamb pies with curry or peas and Sara has seafood, chicken and chicken shepherd’s pies.

The cheese fridge will be full this week. We’ll have all your Millbank favourites, from curds to organic cheddar with sundried tomatoes. Katie’s chevre is here – plain or with dill or garlic flowers. And Axel has a new labneh – a Lebanese sheep’s yogurt-based cheese with coriander and chile. Try it as a dip or on roasted vegetables.

Get your local garlic and find a cool dry place to store it before it's all gone.

Rachel is bringing a new treat this week – look in the fridge for her cheesecake pops! And keep a bag of New Moon cookies on hand – maybe the Mokas or Goldies – to go with a cup of Joanne’s locally blended tea.

The changing weather has inspired Aiyana from Eternal Bee to look after you with a new body lotion and lip balm, and Angela from Nature’s Gold invites you to try her natural moisturizing and healing salves. And be prepared for the sneeze season with a box of Cascades tissues, made with high recycled content.

And one last word on change…..Saturday is the International Day of Action on Climate Change and I invite you to join local student climate activist David Lawless and the Nagata Shachu Taiko Japanese Drumming Ensemble as they drum in the day at 4:30 at New Life Brethren Church in Collingwood. Those under 35 who attend the event will be gifted with a ticket to the 7:30 concert of the Taiko drummers. More details at www.georgianbayearthdays.org. This weekend is also the Go Green at Saugeen Environmental Forum in Port Elgin. More information at www.communityfoundationgreybruce.com. Tickets at Around the Sound.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open Thursday and Friday from 10 until 7 and Saturday 10 until 4 at 972 1st Avenue West. You can reach us by phone at 519-370-2333 or by email at aroundsoundfood@gmail.com.

See you soon!
Anne
aroundthesoundfood.com

As soon as I've written you, new things arrive!

This morning we'll have beautiful Coronation grapes from Niagara - and we have access to larger quantities if you're looking to juice.

Kelsey is back from an inspiring, enlightening conference in New York and her fresh bread will be on the rack this morning.

And Trudy has packed a peck of pickled peppers - hot and roasted red - and they are on the shelf beside the plums.

See you soon.
Anne
Around the Sound Local Food Market
972 1st Avenue West, Owen Sound
519-370-2333
aroundsoundfood@gmail.com

The hot turkey sandwiches are over at our house, but today we ate the first bowl of turkey soup...mmmmm. The Amish Country noodles made with Grassroots spelt really hold up in a bowl of soup. They are great under a sauce too - fresh tomato, or maybe a stroganoff made with the Organic Meadow sour cream.
We have tortillas in the freezer for wraps or Marjenny's wheat-free crepes for my favourite left-over turkey recipe.

Have a warm dinner ready when you get home in the chilly dusk. Lamb shanks, elk osso bucco, stewing beef or pork roasts are all great in the crock pot. Sausages are a quick alternative - we have lots of delicious variations in elk, venison and pork and now Axel's new rosemary or hint of mint lamb sausages.

Look for Joy's roasted garlic. You can keep it in your freezer for a quick addition to your favourite recipe.

Apples from Soundview Orchard are still varied and plentiful, and we have all the ingredients for a great crisp for dessert - oats, sugar, butter, flour and cinnamon. As always, you don't have to bake. Rachel is bringing tarts with a sugar cookie-type base, pastry cream and fresh fruit, and Trudy promises we won't run out of your favourite cranberry oat cookies. Thanks to both of these great bakers for crowning our Thanksgiving dinner so deliciously!

Trudy has also brought us back our local peaches and plums, some beautifully canned and some made into "Around the Sound Autumn Glory Fruit Spread". I hope this is the beginning of many more delights from the local garden available to Owen Sounders all year round.

Please welcome Kelda back to Around the Sound. She packed her bags in Calgary and is here to stay in Owen Sound and help us at the store. I might be willing to share her a little if someone is looking for that kind of intelligent dream employee who follows directions and takes initiative and doesn't stop until the job is done.

Around the Sound is open Thursday and Friday from
10 until 7 and Saturday 10 until 4 at 972 1st Avenue West (one block north of the library where the Great Annual Book Sale starts next Thursday!)
Please feel free to call us at 519-370-2333 or email at aroundsoundfood@gmail.com.

See you soon.
Anne

www.aroundthesoundfood.com

I am tempted to wish for a genetic modification for turkeys that would make them more like...well, Rubbermaid totes. Turkeys are distinctly difficult to stack or store.

But all will be forgiven on Sunday when we take that first gravy-laden mouthful.

Again, thanks to Sean McGivern and Jim Porteous for providing us with those turkeys, and the bakers of the Big Dipper in Paisley for meeting the demand for fresh bread in Owen Sound that Kelsey has created!

If you're going elsewhere for your Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps you'd like to take along some locally made cherry jam or Autumn Blossom honey as a hostess gift. If you're sleeping over, perhaps you could make the omelettes on Monday and let the hosts sleep in. Try a nip of green chile chutney or Ken's Super Sauce in the eggs or some of Trudy's peppy salsa on the side.

The recent rain and patchy frost have brought some of our farmers' crops to an end. (We still need to talk about local cold storage, flash freezing and canning so we can enjoy our neighbours' produce all year long. Remind me after Thanksgiving.) I encourage you to shop at your local farmers' market and use the Grey Bruce Agiculture and Culinary map, available free at Around the Sound, to get as broad a range of the farm-fresh produce as you can while it's still in season.

Of course there will be some of Trudy's homemade pies this weekend, along with some other exciting desserts from Theo and Rachel. Remember that we have gluten-free baked goods too, and some lighter choices.

Remember the granola bars, lemonade, apples and pears for the hike you're taking to walk off dinner.

If someone else is doing the cooking, they'll likely get the leftovers, so you better stock up on Brenda's pies, pods and soups and you'll be just as well fed without the work.

Around the Sound will be open Thursday and Friday 10 until 7 and Saturday 10 until 4.

Around the Sound Local Food Market
972 1st Avenue West
www.aroundthesoundfood.com
519-370-2333

Many thanks to Sharon and Glenn from the Big Dipper in Paisley for stepping in to bring you fresh local bread for the Thanksgiving weekend. We'll have it for you at Around the Sound by 10 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Look at www.bigdipper.net for the delicious varieties they make.

A last reminder that if you still want a local turkey, they will be available by pre-order only on Thursday from 5 until 7. (some flexibility there) They are approximately 20 pounds each - free-range and fed a healthier diet than most of us!
Send an email or give us a call to pre-order. I will be in Toronto today at a food event sponsored by Friends of the Greenbelt, but I will be calling Wednesday to confirm every order.

Look for your regular newsletter Wednesday.

Anne
Around the Sound Local Food Market
aroundsoundfood@gmail.com
519-370-2333

I just had to tell you....Rocky Raccoon Cafe will be serving Brunch Around the Sound on Sundays from 11 to 3 beginning this week for the month of October. Featuring freshly made crepes, the buffet brunch will offer the best local, seasonal foods. Thank you Robin!

More delights arrived since I wrote on Wednesday -
four fresh heritage lettuces, French filet green beans, spaghetti squash, sweet peaches, and beautiful beets.

Fresh creamed honey in glass jars (an Around the Sound-inspired debut product of Chatsworth Honey!)

Brenda's chicken noodle soup.

Fresh apple pies.

Fairtrade organic hot chocolate, milk and dark.

Organic Meadow sour cream.

JustUs milk chocolate bars

And our very first Around the Sound exclusive products - made by Laura of Cottage Country North from the fruit of Silver Dollar Orchard - plum and peach chutneys, plum jam, spicy peach barbecue sauce. And an original - spiced Stanley plums - eat them as an accompaniment to meat dishes, then save the liquid and reduce it for a delicious glaze!

See you soon Around the Sound.
Anne

If you're like me you always plan to shop ahead for Thanksgiving. If you're not like me, you actually do it.

Let's start with appetizers - Winston's smoked salmon with capers perhaps. Or goat chevre, plain or with garlic flowers on little slices of rustic Italian baguette - maybe a little of Laura's apricot red pepper jelly on top. Marketside's flatbreads and pates - shitake mushroom, whitefish or sundried tomato.

The kids might prefer some of the Que Pasa tortilla chips with any one of our six locally-made salsas. Or Hardbite Smoking Barbecue Potato chips.

Now the main course. There are still turkeys available - please order ahead for pick up Thursday between 5 and 7.
Look for local cranberry condiments - Windy Hill's Cranberry Wine jelly or a cranberry relish. Carrots, beets, potatoes, squash and things I don't even know about yet will be in from the garden just ahead of the frost.

Finch Haven's sparkling apple ciders - plain or with cranberry or raspberry - make a refreshing accompaniment to a holiday meal.

Stock up on Kelsey's bread this week - remember she leaves to speak at a conference in New York next Wednesday. We will have bread next week though - if you haven't tasted Michael Schmidt's bread, you are in for a treat.

All the supplies are in for your own baking - organic butter and sugar, flour, oats, raisins, apples and pears. If you'd prefer someone else do the work, we'll take orders for pies, and Margaret has made some gluten-free fresh pumpkin pies. Your people aren't pie people? Then you need one of Theo's Belgian chocolate brownies or white chocolate blondies.

Remember the coffee - Karen is now bringing Sailor's Brew and the Ultimate as well as a milder Mexican and Natalie's favourite decaf.

When you take a break from all your preparations, put your feet up and enjoy a cup of China Rose or Belgian Chocolate Rooibos or any of the delicious teas Joanne has blended at Back to Basics. Perfect with one of New Moon Kitchen's Ginger Snappers, Mokas or Goldies.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open Thursday and Friday 10 until 7 and Saturday 10 until 4 (and occasionally by pure luck if you catch me puttering on other days).
We're at 972 1st Avenue West in Owen Sound and we'd be happy to hear from you at 519-370-2333.

www.aroundthesoundfood.com

See you soon.
Anne

That's what Robin from Rocky Raccoon Cafe said to call it, but I think the title needs a little work.

Robin is coming over to Around the Sound Saturday about 11 a.m. to recreate the dish he made for Feast of Fields this year from our delicious local food. And you'll save the $100 ticket price because this taste will be on us!

The store is still full of apples, peaches, pears and plums, and a few baskets of the delicious Coronation grapes featured on the front page of today's Life section in the Sun Times. Why does the recipe feature grapes and asparagus when they are at least two months apart? Perhaps the author was smart enough to freeze some "sparrow-grass" at its peak.
Remember to get some peaches, plums and tomatoes into jars or the freezer before they're all gone.

Thanksgiving is approaching, and I'm still working out the logistics of turkeys. Most of them are 20 pounds and will be $3.75 per pound. We have two producers - Jim Porteous of Grey Maple Farm and Sean McGivern from GrassRoots Organics.

Exciting news - our illustrious bread-baker Kelsey has been invited to speak at a conference in New York. Bad news is, it's on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend! Three possibilities - one: stock your freezer now! two: order some par-baked bread at Around the Sound that you can finish off yourself and fill your house with delicious fresh bread aroma three: I'm working on some additional (non-Kelsey, likely wheat) bread for that weekend.

If you're making apple pies to get ready for Thanksgiving, Ida Reds are a good choice - they hold their shape when baked. Feel free to ask for a taste of any apple you'd like so you can buy your favourite. And of course we have pies ready to bake from Soundview Orchards, including diabetic pies, and wheat-free pies from Mar-Jenny's, so no one need do without.

Top it with some Mapleton's Organic ice cream, or for a light dessert, try Fieldberry organic sorbet - "100% pleasure and 0% guilt" from Mother Hen, a family-owned Canadian company.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, by 4 p.m. Thursday, we will have bacon in the store again. If a pig were made entirely of sides, we'd have had some before now. Look for sausages too - garlic and plain from Gord Brown's farm and Italian and honey garlic from GrassRoots.
Thin-cut pastured pork schnitzel from Twin Creeks is another breakfast or supper alternative, or try elk or lamb sausage.

Thanks again to those who donated zucchinis to the Relay for Life. Pictures of the resulting sculptures (only one of which was ...well...anatomical) will be forthcoming soon.

Around the Sound Local Food Market is open 10 until 7 Thursday and Friday and Saturday 10 until 4 at 972 1st Avenue West.

Call us at 519-370-2333 if you need anything special.
www.aroundthesoundfood.com

Note: if you notice any missing "u" s in this newsletter it's because my "u" key is sticking. Does anyone know how to fix that on a laptop? Any other typos are strictly because I type with one finger.

See you soon.
Anne