Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Be Green in Bryan - Local food feature (including me)

A couple weeks ago, I did an interview with the city of Bryan's "Be Green in Bryan" team. The resulting video just came out today and is being featured on the TV show "Bryan Living and Learning" on both local channels 8 and 16 (see schedule here). As well as on the web (watch the video in the player here).

The "Be Green in Bryan" segment highlights our local farmers' market, the Brazos Locavores, and the Village Cafe.

Go check it out!

7 comments:

Chile said...

Great piece, Heather. I love that ya'll are getting the word out!

hmd said...

Chile - Thanks! It turned out really great and hopefully we'll get a few more customers out of it. I've already had a farm contact me about hosting a Locavore trip :)

Holly said...

great video! and i saw my mom!

Sam said...

Great video! I was glad to see the Village Cafe as well. Sounds like a great little community you've got going there.

hmd said...

Holly - Yeah, it was fun to pick everyone out of the crowd. My brother-in-law was in it too :)

Beany - We're certainly getting there. It's VERY exciting!

Unknown said...

Great video. I think I saw you that morning!
It may be important to emphasize the communication that the market enables. I noticed a comment in the video about all of our market's food being grown locally, which is not true.
What is true, is that the people are very nice and will tell you where it they come from.
At a minimum, we can learn what doesn't grow locally, and either change our diet to include less, or come to terms with the sources that are available.

The example I have is grains. I have not yet seen any Texas grains at the market, even though there is often whole wheat flour available. It is purchased from ConAgra, grown in the midwest. Grains are difficult to grow in our region, from what I understand. In the conversation I had with that farmer, she indicated that there was a farm in north Texas that she may be able to get flour from in the future.

I remember you got rice from a place in Houston, can you share with us some of your sources for flours and other grains?

Thanks, and keep up all this great work!

hmd said...

Chris - A distinction should be made, yes. All the fruits and veggies must come from local sources (per the market regulations). For the processed foods, you have to ask. Some of the jams, salsas, etc use local produce, but it's best to ask.

And although the wheat in the past has come from other states (although milled locally), all the wheat flour sold (starting 2 weeks ago) is locally grown. I worked out a deal with a wheat farmer in Rosebud TX (that was the one she was telling you about) and he supplied 100 pounds of wheat berries to the vendor who sells the wheat flour (milled at her home).

The company I use for rice is called Rice Select. They sell all over the country, but it's a smaller company and all the rice is grown in Alvin, TX. Plus, when I emailed them to ask questions about buying their bulk rice, they responded almost immediately. I was really impressed with how quickly the responded to customer queries. A sign they really do care.

Be sure to stop by the info booth on Saturday and say hi, if you're there! I always love to meet another locavore!