The Farmplate Blog

Fishing and Dining on the Battenkill
FarmPlate Apr 23, 2010 Restaurant Beat 0 comments
When planning your getaway to a picturesque Vermont inn this spring, you might want to pack a nice shirt to wear to dinner, a great book to read by the fire and a camera to take pictures of the gorgeous setting. When your destination is the West Mountain Inn in Arlington, you'd also better pack your fly rod and Woolly Bugger Streamer. This inn is on the shores of the famed Battenkill and it's trout season. The Battenkill is reputed to be one of the most technically challenging fly-fishing streams in the country. The late John Atherton, a Vermont artist, author and master fly-tyer, described the Battenkill in his 1951 classic The Fly and the Fish as "the most difficult of rivers and yet the...
Rhubarb Coffee Cake
FarmPlate Apr 21, 2010 Recipes 2 comments
by Vivian Stuck King Arthur's white whole-wheat flour ups the dietary fiber content yet still produces a tender crumb in this easy coffee cake. If you don't have any on hand, substitute all-purpose flour, not regular whole-wheat flour. Sliced rhubarb freezes well so you can enjoy this coffee cake all year long. 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter 1 ½ cups sugar 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour 1 cup King Arthur white whole-wheat flour 1 teaspoon baking soda Pinch of salt 1 cup sour cream or buttermilk 2 ½ cups diced rhubarb Topping ½ cup sugar ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour a 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Cream...
Rhubarb Traditions
Susan Stuck Apr 21, 2010 Real Food 3 comments
When foodies think about spring they tend to get all misty-eyed over fiddleheads or ramps or the first tiny peas. For me, it's rhubarb. I love how rhubarb stalks squeak when you pull them from the base of the plant. I love crunching away on a stalk, wincing at its tartness. I love the way slow-cooked rhubarb over vanilla ice cream wraps up a great meal. After apple or cherry, rhubarb might be the world's best-loved pie. If you love rhubarb's sweet-tart bite, you must try it in coffee cake. My mother, a Minnesota native, always bakes this unusual and delicious coffee cake with the first rhubarb of the season. For some patrons at Mirabelles in Burlington, Vermont, rhubarb coffee cake has...
Goldman Prize Goes to Anti-CAFO Family Farmer
FarmPlate Apr 20, 2010 News 0 comments
Lynn Henning, a 52-year-old family farmer from Clayton, Michigan, has been recognized as the North American winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work tracking the effects of factory farm pollution in rural Michigan. The Goldman Environmental Prize honors grassroots environmentalists and is annually awarded to six recipients, one from each inhabited continent. The prestigious award is often regarded as the Nobel Prize for environmental work. In the late 1990s, CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) started opening near the Henning Farm in rural Michigan. Twelve ended up within a ten-mile radius of her small farm, where Henning has lived and farmed with her husband and...
Crop Mobbing: A First Attempt At Urban Farming
Emily Morgan Apr 16, 2010 Farmer Beat 3 comments
I was a little nervous about what my Sunday afternoon would be like when I got a message on Facebook that included the instructions, "Eat a big breakfast, this ain't your 9 to 5 desk job! We'll be doing physical labor!"  I was gearing up for my first ever Crop Mob--a volunteer phenomenon that took off in the New York City area after a New York Times magazine article about the initiative ran in late February. The concept, as detailed on the Crop Mob website, is simple: “Crop mob is primarily a group of young, landless and wannabe farmers who come together to build and empower communities by working side by side. Crop mob is also a group of experienced farmers and gardeners willing to...