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Hispanics suffer more hunger than any other group in the US and on June 2, 2012, a group of over 100 gathered in Eugene, Oregon to celebrate services that have helped Hispanic families feed themselves. University of Oregon graduate student Chris Roddy and filmmaker, highlights three projects of Huerto de la Familia/The Family Garden: organic family gardens, the Small Farmers Project, and the Micro Enterprise Project. 
The idea of using the fat from locally sourced meat animals is new to me, as it would be to others who have grown up buying shrink-wrapped meats. Even buying from a local farm doesn’t mean you’ll see the whole animal, so when the butcher who processed our last hog asked, “Do you want the fat?” I said yes before thinking about it. 
Imagine a big room full of tables, each covered with samples of apples, pears, and grapes ready for you to taste. Best to bring a note pad and paper if you want to remember the ones you REALLY liked, because after tasting dozens of delicious fruit it will be hard to recollect which was which. 
Fruit harvest is in full swing now and from what I’ve learned, you can pickle almost any of them. My grandmother would be proud of me, to see me putting by some fresh cherries, pickled for winter enjoyment! 
“Taste our meats?” was an invitation I gladly accepted. I was at the Milwaukie Farmers Market, being offered locally made sausages. Sous chef Colin Stafford of Olympic Provisions was staffing the booth and as I tasted the sausages I was hooked. 
Tom Winterrowd, who farms near Canby, Oregon, said that the minute he saw the announcement for the hog head cooking class he knew he’d be in it. Portland Meat Collective recently offered the class, bringing in Ben Meyer, the chef at Grain and Gristle Restaurant as the instructor. 
Andrew Kimbrell is one of five attorneys who form the Center for Food Safety. Kimbrell, a bioethicist and author, was named one of the 100 leading visionaries by Utne Reader and his work focuses on legal battles to keep our food safe. 
Are you a seed saver and/or food grower? A new, one-person seed company has just been announced and it offers some fascinating items. The company is called Fertile Valley Seeds and it is Carol Deppe’s way of offering her innovative seed breeding work to gardeners, especially those in the Northwest. Her crop breeding techniques are in the public domain, rather than owned by a profit-making corporation 
Locally grown beans and grains have returned to the Willamette Valley, expanding local options with nutritious, storable foods that were used for centuries to get through the winter. Calypso Beans Locally grown beans and grains have returned to the Willamette Valley, expanding local options with nutritious, storable foods that were used for centuries to get through the winter. Jeff Broadie and Kasey White of Lonesome Whistle Farm even offer a “Bean CSA.” 
One of every three mouthfuls of food and drink has required the work of a pollinator, a designation that includes social bees, solitary bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, moths, and beetles, and these invertebrates are in trouble. |
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