sprinklefingers

oh my sweet, sweet lord. is there anything better than a giant jar of farmer’s market honey?

wait. don’t answer that. i know there is. there are actually plenty of things better. but, for some reason, this year is the year of honey for me. my weekly (sometimes tri-weekly) trip to the farmer’s market always involves tasting at least two types of honey - which then invariably leads to me lugging a quart or so of the sweet nectar back to my car.

it all sounds so cool & local doesn’t it? me buying honey made by local bees, sold by local beekeepers at the local farmer’s market. oooh! how so very now!

until you fast forward to my house and see that i’ve had to clear out a cupboard to store the giant jars of honey i continually buy. it’s kind of disturbing. i mean, i think i have just over 2 gallons of honey in my kitchen as i type this. that’s insane. do you know how long it’s going to take this family to use that much honey?

i spent about 20 minutes of this weekend figuring out what i could do with our surplus. and two ideas came to mind. [which means if i spend even longer thinking/researching what to do with the honey, i’ll come up with more ideas…right?]

first, back in the olden days, didn’t people preserve nuts & fruit in honey? well, that’s what i plan to investigate (future post coming soon!)

next, what if i taught myself to make yogurt and used honey to sweeten it?

done! i’ve used up one whole jar simply by thinking of what to do with all that honey! only like 8 more to go!

now i just have to teach myself how to make yogurt. if you’ll excuse me, i have some bacteria to investigate.

on opening weekend of the beaverton farmer’s market, i fell in love all over again with dried cranberries. the booth was simple - dried cranberries and bottles of cranberry juice. two guys behind the table looking somewhat out of place (like they’d be more comfortable out in a bog than hobnobbing with your typical farmer’s market shopper.) and some pretty great branding - great packaging, stunning signage…and, when it comes to food, it’s no secret i’ll try anything that has better-than-usual packaging.

so, i asked a few questions - cranberries in oregon? you bottle this yourself? you dry the cranberries? where? how? you guys own the place? your last name is vincent?

i walked away with a bag of dried cranberries and a bottle of the. best. cranberry. juice. you’ll. ever. taste. the kid and i ate the bag of cranberries (the entire thing) that afternoon. ‘even better than raisins,’ is how my little one described them.

such delicious cranberries made me curious. i started doing a bit of research. it seems the vincent family has a long, long history of cranberry farming…and, in true oregonian style, broke their ties with mega-corporate ocean spray so that they could make a go at cranberry farming alone thus increasing their profits and sorting out ways to become organic. no longer selling their luscious cranberries to ocean spray, they went about bottling their own juice and creating crazy good dried cranberries all on their own.

leaving behind the comfort of corporate support is a HUGE DEAL, people. owning and operating a profitable small family farm is also a huge deal. the vincent’s invested their life savings into making this work - and i feel it’s our duty to support them. and when you taste their cranberries, i know you’ll agree.

vincent family cranberry juices & dried berries can be found here:

• New Seasons Market – all stores in the Portland metro area
• Hillsboro Farmers Market – Saturdays from 8am to 2pm in downtown Hillsboro
• Orenco Farmers Market – Sundays from 10am to 2pm at Orenco Station in Hillsboro
• Beaverton Farmers Market – Saturdays from 8:30am to 1:30 downtown near the Beaverton Library

for more information on the vincent family & their bog, check here.
for an interesting story on how they broke ties with ocean spray, check here.