Mark and [...]]]> There are over four dozen roads and streets in Bucks County with the word “mill” in their names: Mill Creek, Mill Pond, Mill Valley, Millbrook and Mill Road (over two dozen alone) to name a few. But in fact there haven’t been any active grain mills in the county for decades. Until now.

Mark and Fran Fischer’s house sits next to a mill on property bought by Mark’s grandfather in 1947. His grandfather’s dream was always to restore the mill, originally built in 1730, to working order. He never achieved this in his lifetime but he did collect – and probably saved from oblivion – mill parts from all over the county. Walking through the mill with Fischer feels a little like walking through the Mercer Museum. Mill stones – and they are big and heavy – lean up against the walls, some as big as four feet in diameter. Portable mills, so called because the cast iron machines are smaller than the larger, water-powered mills, are scattered throughout the building along with other parts, ready for use in the water-powered mill. Most date back to the late 1800’s.

Now it’s Fischer’s dream to restore the mill. He’s already producing stone ground whole wheat flour and cornmeal using two portable mills set up in his barn under the name Castle Valley Mill. There the wheat is first separated from the chaff – the dry, scaly protective casing around the grain seed – cleaned, and prepared for grinding. (Yes, that indeed is where the expression comes from.) Then using large, thick mill stones the grain is ground. The mill stones sit horizontally in a cast iron casing almost resting on each other, with only a paper thin clearance between them. In fact, if the stones are too close, you can smell it, says Fischer. Hence the expression, “keeping your nose to the grindstone.” The stones have furrows and lands, deep rows in their surface that have to be dressed, or sharpened by hand. One mill grinds whole wheat, the other grinds corn, and produces both cornmeal and coarser grain for grits and polenta.

The mill sits next to the Neshaminy Creek not far from Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township. It was last in use as a water-powered mill in 1922 but became obsolete when steam engines took over powering mills. The modern grain mill was born but the unique taste and nutrition of stone ground grain was the victim, says Fischer. With industrialization came the goal of creating fine white flour. Unfortunately that process uses too much heat and the vitamins are literally cooked out of the grain. This is why all supermarket flour is “enriched” with vitamins and the desire for “white” flour is why bleaching is often used.

Fast forward to September 2010. Fischer sold his business in the aviation industry and, due to a non-compete agreement, found himself with some time on his hands. After attending a workshop in millwork, he set himself to refurbishing several portable mills, from the inside out. Looking up the original patent applications from the mid- to late-1800’s, he tore apart the mills, cleaned and sandblasted the cast iron and put them back together. The mills are now powered by a 10 horsepower engine and produce whole wheat flour, cornmeal and grits/polenta, all from locally grown wheat and corn. The wheat makes great flour for pastry and the grits, well, Fischer says he has Southerners as customers who send it back home to grateful family members.

I had to taste it for myself, of course. Fran Fischer handed me a two pound bag of Castle Valley Mill’s whole wheat flour and said, “It makes the best pancakes. Really.” I was dubious. Whole wheat pancakes? But I love big fluffy buttermilk pancakes, I whined. But I made the pancakes, using the recipe provided by the Fischers, tied to the cloth flour bag. After setting them down on the table, I discovered we were out of maple syrup. We improvised, eating some plain with butter and some with jam. I’m glad we were out of syrup because we were really able to taste the pancakes. What emerged was tremendous taste and texture. Complex taste. It made us realize that most pancakes are really just a bland platform (or excuse) for lots of butter and syrup. So this is what freshly ground flour tastes like, I thought. And what “stone ground” really means. It’s not just a marketing tactic. And along with taste comes quality and nutrition – “real food,” says Fischer.

Fischer plans to have the water-powered mill up and running by this spring. As for grinding organic and non-GMO (genetically modified) grains, he’s still looking for a good local source, preferring to buy local over organic. If he can find it, he’ll set up a separate mill for the organic flour.

You can buy the flour at The Larder and the Market at Del Val, both in Doylestown. You can also buy the flour direct online. The cost is $6 for a 2 lb. bag. Once the water-powered mill is running, Fischer will be able to buy the grain in larger quantities which may bring his costs down. This winter he’ll also be working on a wholesale business, reaching out to restaurants, bakeries and food professionals.

In the meantime, go buy some Castle Valley Mill whole wheat or cornmeal, and see what freshly ground flour tastes like.

Click on a photo to see it larger. All photos are by L. Goldman.

1. Welcome Stockton Market!

Lower Makefield farmer Sandy Guzikowski has been watching the past few years to see what vegetables and fruit are available from our local farmers during the winter months. She’s counted over 30 types of produce. Surprised? And it’s not [...]]]> If you thought winter approaching meant giving up local produce, eggs, cheese and more, you’re mistaken.

Lower Makefield farmer Sandy Guzikowski has been watching the past few years to see what vegetables and fruit are available from our local farmers during the winter months. She’s counted over 30 types of produce. Surprised? And it’s not just root vegetables that are turning up. Many greens, especially those raised in hoop houses continue into the early months of winter.

Guzikowski decided to start Endless Bounty, a food buying club for those of us craving local goods long after most farmers’ markets have closed for the season. “It’s for people who really like a variety of vegetables and know what to do with greens and root vegetables,” says Guzikowski. It’s also for people who want to “support local agriculture and see it expand into year round production.” Year round production? Yes, that’s what many see as the future of agriculture even in colder climes like ours. Hoop houses and greenhouses are making season extension – extending later and beginning earlier – a reality for Bucks County. Guzikowski hopes her buying club will eventually extend into the spring months. For now, it will begin in late November and reach until mid-January.

The Endless Bounty buying club will also emphasize providing organic and free range food products and will work with a network of farms that grow food this way to bring members a variety of the highest quality items available.

It all starts with a member’s commitment of $250 which translates into 8-10 weeks of produce and other goods. Then each week an email goes out with products that are available that week and members respond with their preferences. Pick up is at Guzikowski’s farm in Yardley. As opposed to a CSA (community supported agriculture farm), where members buy a share and get what is available, Endless Bounty’s members will have more flexibility in choosing their product. They don’t even have to pick up each week. They can skip a week and use that “credit” the following week.

And the choices are many. Guzikowski expects the following vegetables and fruit to be available from over a dozen local farms: Onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, daikon, radishes, turnips, rutabagas, beets, lettuce, bok choy, micro greens, kale, collards, chard, spinach, tatsoi, mustard greens, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, winter squashes, cranberries, wheat berries, apples, Asian pears, fennel, mushrooms, and eggs. If enough members are interested, she’ll also arrange for artisan bread or cheese to be available.

Interested? Here’s how you can sign up. Email Guzikowski at sandygfarm@gmail.com. She will email you information and a form to complete. Pick up will be at 1205 Big Oak Road in Yardley.

So don’t fret about winter’s arrival. Help yourself to locally grown produce and help local farmers expand their growing season.

Matt is the operations manager for Suburban Organics, an Ottsville business that delivers 100% certified organic produce weekly to people’s door steps. It’s a year round business with nearly 1000 customers [...]]]> Matt Flood wants to make it easy for you to eat organic food. In fact, he’ll bring it to your front door.

Matt is the operations manager for Suburban Organics, an Ottsville business that delivers 100% certified organic produce weekly to people’s door steps. It’s a year round business with nearly 1000 customers from the Delaware Valley, the Lehigh Valley, all of New Jersey and northern Delaware. During the local growing season 95% of their produce comes from within 100 miles of Bucks County, including many local farms. In the winter, the organic produce comes from the West Coast and beyond. If buying 100% organic is your priority, it doesn’t get any easier – or cost effective-because their prices are competitive with stores like Whole Foods.

Suburban Organics is an example of the growth of unique distribution channels for getting local, high quality produce into consumers’ hands. Other channels include ones you are probably familiar with first hand: farmers’ markets and farm stands, community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms, winter CSAs, like Winter Sun Farms and door-to-door delivery services, like Suburban Organics. It’s all part of a growing regional food supply system that gets stronger every year.

When you join Suburban Organics you have many choices. You can have a weekly share, or one that comes every other week (good for small households). Then you choose the size of the box you wish to receive. “Little” boxes cost $25/week, small boxes are $39, medium boxes are $46 and a large mixed produce box costs $54. Boxes can be all vegetable, all fruit or mixed produce. To give you an idea of how much you get, here’s this week’s “little” box contents: garlic (2), Bartlett pears (2), cucumber (1), baby peeled carrots (1), Yukon Gold potatoes (1.5 lb.), romaine lettuce (1), bananas (4), navel oranges (2) and Fuji apples (2). And that’s the “little” box.

Each box ranges in the number of fruit types and vegetables varieties: the “little” box comes with 4-5 fruit types and 4-5 veggie varieties, and the large box with 7-9 fruit types and 8-10 veggie varieties. The amount of each item in the assortment depends on the size of your order. They have a great website that will even help you figure out which box size is right for your needs.

Every Friday customers receive an email with the menu, or box contents, for the coming week. You can make up to five substitutions for the order any time up to 8 am on the day before your delivery. Deliveries are Tuesdays through Fridays and are scheduled by geographical area. You don’t even have to be home to receive the box. Many customers put a cooler outside for the delivery. What’s also nice is that the service can be put on hold at any time and there is no commitment. They typically see a drop in orders during the summer months when customers go to CSAs and farmers’ markets, but a turn up in orders in the fall and winter months. Suburban Organics also offers a “co-op” option. Get four or more people together to place orders at one location – say at an office – and you’ll get a discount for everyone.

Suburban Organics began back in 1997 as a New Jersey company and was bought by its current owner, David Gersenson, in August 2010. Matt Flood, the operations manager and “Produce Guru,” and Chuck Minguez, the office manager and Customer Service “master”, spoke to me about the company. Though they were originally based in Moorestown, NJ, they moved to Ottsville in October 2010 and now employ thirteen including packers and drivers. Matt says a typical day at their warehouse begins at 4:30 am when packing of that day’s deliveries starts. By 6:00 am the first driver has pulled up for his delivery boxes and every 15 minutes after that another driver loads up for his route. Drivers will return to the warehouse by 4:30 or 5 pm, some from as far away as northern New Jersey. Produce is delivered to the warehouse every Monday and Wednesday so it’s fresh when it goes into the boxes, which by the way, are made from sustainably forested cardboard.

Right now the company is going through an organic certification of their own. Even though all of their food is organic, they decided to go the extra mile and become an organic “processor.” After this process is complete, there are big plans to expand their offerings into other organic food, like dry and canned goods. They already sell coffee from Homestead Coffee Roasters in Upper Black Eddy and Next organic dark chocolate. They also have plans to increase the number of local farms to source their produce. Currently Blooming Glen Farm in Perkasie, Barefoot Gardens in Doylestown and Blue Moon Acres in Buckingham all supply them with high quality vegetables. For a list of farms, far and wide, that they source from, see the “Meet Our Farmers” page on their website.

They also believe that education is part of the service they provide. Recipes are included with each Friday’s email. An interesting variety of produce is offered, not just the basics. The “Learn” section of their website gives background information on all things organic, including Ten Reasons to Choose Organic. In their own words,

The ‘Learn’ section of our site is to provoke everyone to think a bit about what’s going on here on earth. We want you to question where your food comes from and how it’s grown. We want to share how economically and emotionally good it is to support your neighbors. We want you to know why eating Brussels sprouts is good for your health and how to cook them to taste good on your palate. We want people to care and to help make every day better.

You can learn more about Suburban Organics at their website or give Chuck a call at 484.833.1100 to ask any questions. He’d love to hear from you.

Suburban Organics
8039 Easton Road
Ottsville, PA
484.833.1100
suburbanorganics.com

Suburban Organics is offering a discount of $10 off the first box for Bucks County Taste readers. Just put the code “BucksCountyTaste” in when you sign up for your first order here.

“We’d go out on a Sunday afternoon and couldn’t find a decent cup of coffee,” says Warren May, who with his wife, Karen, runs the small coffee business, The Coffee [...]]]> My coffee is roasted on a small Bucks County country road not half an hour from my house. I think that’s pretty cool.

“We’d go out on a Sunday afternoon and couldn’t find a decent cup of coffee,” says Warren May, who with his wife, Karen, runs the small coffee business, The Coffee Scoop, from their Pipersville home. Both Karen and Warren retired early from corporate jobs, he from 33 years at Merck, she from 23 years with Unisys. “Now what?” was the question. “We wanted to do something completely different,” explains Karen, “and we like good coffee.” In 2005 they entered the coffee roasting business.

There are a lot of things special about the Coffee Scoop but probably most significant is that they are only one of two 100% organic and fair trade coffee roasters in Pennsylvania. All the beans come from completely organic growers from all over the world. Each bag comes with a certificate with a serial number that matches the serial number on the 132 lb. bag of beans. If that sounds like a lot of paperwork, it’s only the beginning for a business that gets audited yearly for their organic status.

The day begins at 3 am for Warren as he walks out to the roasting shed on their property. He’ll spend the next four hours or more roasting beans. The roasting process seems simple but there are layers of skill and experience that go into it. First, Warren roasts a small 8 ounce batch in a roaster specially designed to sample roast. With every 3-5 degree increase, he pulls out a sample of the beans and sets them aside for tasting. When he is done, Karen will grind the beans and start the “cupping” process. After grinding, she pours hot water on the sample, pushes aside the surface layer and both tastes – really, slurps – and smells the coffee beneath, allowing it to coat the tongue.

“Coffee beans have natural sugars,” explains Warren, “the challenge of roasting is to caramelize – not burn – the sugars.” This is what Karen is looking for in the samples. Where does smooth become rough and bitter? At what temperature should Warren roast the rest of the bag? This profiling is done for each bag of beans from each country of origin. Because a bag from one grower will differ from another grower in the same country. And what customers have told the Mays they like most about their coffee are the taste and the freshness. That comes from the cupping process and packaging coffee hours after roasting.

After roasting the rest of the bag in small batches at the appropriate temperature, Warren carries the beans into their house for packaging. The old farm house has a large dining room that serves as a warehouse with a second small kitchen for weighing and packaging. This is truly a cottage industry! All has been approved by the Board of Health and the USDA organic certification inspectors.

Warren then spends the rest of his days delivering coffee to stores, restaurants and markets from the Lehigh Valley to South Jersey, including seven Whole Food Markets, where the Coffee Scoop is one of only a few 100% fair trade organic roasters (for a full list of retail locations see their website). The business actually began online and sales continue to grow from their website with shipments of coffee all over the country. Now you can find them at area farmers’ markets as well, like Wrightstown, Lower Makefield and Stockton.

What exactly does it mean to be “organic” and “fair trade”? Organic means no chemicals have been used in the growing process and usually that sustainable farming practices have been used instead. A fair trade symbol connotes certification by one of the national or international fair trade organizations. These entities work to ensure farmers get a fair price for their goods. Often they work to help farmers establish co-operatives where they are more likely to get fair pricing and treatment. Many fair trade organizations also help establish schools for both children and adults to teach literacy and agricultural practices, figuring the more one knows the stronger one’s trading position. They may even go so far as to establish medical clinics, teach practices to protect the environment and ensure safe working conditions. The Coffee Scoop is certified fair trade by Fair Trade USA, a national organization based in Oakland, CA.

From the farmers the beans go to grower co-operatives. Distributors then buy directly from these co-operatives and the Coffee Scoop buys from a variety of distributors. Then, Warren drives to Bayonne, NJ – where the beans enter the country – every week or so to pick up the bags of coffee beans. With this supply chain, the Mays can know the provenance of each bag – from country of origin to the actual farmer.

The Coffee Scoop roasts beans from three parts of the world: Asia, Africa and the Americas. Each has a different taste profile. I learned that Asian coffee – from Sumatra, Papua New Guinea, Java, and India – tends to have low acidity (good for those of us with stomach issues) and are full-bodied, smooth and earthy. Coffee beans from Africa are the highest in acidity and come from Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda. They tend to be medium- to full-bodied, with “intense floral aroma and enticing fruity or winey flavors.” Finally the Americas, covering much of Central and South America, produce light to medium bodied coffees with “clean, lively flavors and crisp acidity.”

“There is as much variation in good coffee as in good wine,” says Warren, and I believe it after hearing the process they go through to ensure sweet, smooth coffee. Now I want to try all the roasts, from everywhere, and train my palate to also taste the differences. Maybe I’ll even cut down on the sugar and creamer, usually added by most coffee drinkers to offset bitterness. Dare I drink my coffee black? For sure I am approaching any coffee shop with a different attitude and awareness.

As Warren says, “I want people to enjoy their coffee.” And I agree. Life’s too short to drink bitter coffee.

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I tend to drive the same route to and from work everyday and, although there are a few ways I could get home that would take about the same time, for two years I’ve stuck to my routine. Then…there was a road closing. (A strange occurrence in Bucks County, right?) [...]]]> by guest blogger Elisabeth Villarroel,

I tend to drive the same route to and from work everyday and, although there are a few ways I could get home that would take about the same time, for two years I’ve stuck to my routine. Then…there was a road closing. (A strange occurrence in Bucks County, right?) So, I started trying new routes and, as I was driving on Jacksonville Rd., out of the corner of my eye I saw a sandwich board sign that read “Ivyland Country Store Now Open Saturdays.” I was intrigued because, due to the recent detours, I had just discovered the Ivyland borough and was quickly falling in love with their adorable little town and park.

Turns out I had passed the store before, but hadn’t noticed it. Nestled in a residential area, I was surprised to find a bustling deli. The menu is standard fare with a lot to choose from and quite a selection of prepared foods, most of which are homemade, and anything that isn’t, is delivered daily. The chicken salad (their secret recipe!) and seafood pasta are among their most popular specialties, as is the hand-carved turkey sandwich. A creature of habit (see previous paragraph), I, of course, haven’t moved past getting anything besides breakfast sandwiches and tater tots, because they are available all day and have become a part of our weekend routine.

Open for breakfast and lunch, the store gets most of its business from locals and the neighboring industrial park, which is evident if you stop by during the lunch rush on a weekday and see the party trays being assembled for company meetings.

Originally built in 1876, the building first served as a frame store and then as a dry goods store. Current owner, Jimmy Primodie, has been running the deli for more than 17 years and has kept the old-fashioned country store feeling alive—you can still buy penny candy, help out with a jigsaw puzzle, flip through the New York Times anthology, or chat with the friendly faces behind the counter and locals sipping coffee. The store’s roots in the community go beyond the history of the building; the deli is a presence in the borough, sponsoring the firefighters’ breakfasts as well as donating food to the Ivyland Peach Festival in August.

Although visiting the Ivyland Country Store feels like a blast from the past, they definitely have their heads in the present, with a presence on Facebook, where they announce daily specials, and a website that offers online ordering. Delivery is available as well at lunch time. This summer, the store began opening on Saturdays, which is a treat for those of us who can’t get there during the week and work (way) outside the delivery radius!

Ivyland Country Store
67 Gough Avenue
Ivyland, PA 18974
215.672.6739
Open: 7am-3pm Monday through Friday, 8am-2pm Saturday