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GET $20/20 VISION

Get $20/20 VISION…

…and not just by eating carrots

EAT HEALTHIER AND SAVE $20!
When new members sign up, if they tell us you referred them, we’ll add $20 to your Seasonal Roots account. And we’ll give them a $20 credit, too!

Feel free to tell your friends and family about this easy way to save money, eat healthier, and support local farmers at the same time. Local food is healthier because it’s fresher, so it has more nutrients!

We love saving you money on your local food orders, so there’s no limit to $20/20. Every time a new member joins and mentions your name, we’ll put $20 in your account and theirs… to thank you for spreading the word!

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ home-delivered farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

INTRODUCING THE FARM AT RED HILL

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / March 19, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-03-20 FINAL-1

farm at red hill ginger turmeric

Ginger and turmeric

They’re good for your health and this local family farm


By the Seasonal Roots Veggie Fairy Team:

Ginger and turmeric are both ancient spices known for fighting inflammation and boosting your immune system. Ginger is also an old-time remedy for nausea. Best of all, they do it all with amazing flavor — from ginger’s spicy sweetness with lemon undertones, to turmeric’s gentle notes of lemony mint.

ginger turmeric health benefits

The ginger puree and turmeric puree in our home-delivered farmers market is great in smoothies! And it’s grown by Wendy and Richard on the Farm at Red Hill outside Charlottesville, Va. The husband-and-wife team make a variety of artisan foods to jazz up any meal, and it’s all fresh, with no preservatives, no added sugar, and gluten free.

According to Wendy, they got their start making local artisan food thanks to a bumper crop of tomatoes.

VEGGIE FAIRY:

Have you always been farmers?

WENDY:

Nope, electrical contractors! But 12 years ago when our two kids were little we were looking for something that would be more conducive to family life. We had five acres, and luckily Richard is very handy and an electrician. We bought all our equipment at auction or on eBay, built four greenhouses, and started growing all sorts of vegetables.

farm at red hill

I’m not a farmer and neither is Richard, but we’ve learned so much — we literally knew nothing. We’ve learned that the number of mistakes you can make is just incredible! We also learned that if you show up good things happen. We started selling what we were growing in the Charlottesvile farmers market. And we had great success! Until the middle of summer when everyone and their grandmother is growing tomatoes. We wound up feeding a lot of ours to our chickens. They were happy but we weren’t making any money.

farm at red hill all-natural salsa

VEGGIE FAIRY:

Oh no! How’d you stay in business?

WENDY:

Well, Richard started making salsa and gazpacho. We were growing sorrel, too, which is a lemon flavored herb, and a friend bought it to make hummus instead of using lemon juice. That inspired us to start making hummus. One thing led to another. We started making jam because our whole farm is a no-spray zone. We didn’t want to send the kids out to pick things for dinner and then have to warn them to put on gloves just to go in the greenhouse or the orchard. But no-spray means we have delicious but ugly peaches that no one would buy. So we made jam. That was really popular. Pretty soon, the artisan foods we were making got to be more popular than the fruits and vegetables we were growing.

farm at red hill all-natural tzatziki

The English Cucumbers were the reason for our tzatziki and gazpacho. The ginger and turmeric are our newest crops and they inspired us to do the fresh grated vacuum packed items along with the jam. The trick was learning how to make everything in a way that it would have a long enough life without using preservatives, since we’re all-natural.

VEGGIE FAIRY:

What do you use instead of preservatives?

WENDY:

Shutting out the air by vacuum packing is one way. Also, lemon is a natural preservative. Of course that makes things sour, so to counteract that in the salsa we add carrots, which are naturally sweet. We don’t add sugar to anything. You look at salsas in the grocery store and even a lot of the all-natural ones still put sugar in there. Even if they call it stevia or agave, it’s still a form of sugar.

farm at red hill all-natural local food

VEGGIE FAIRY:

Do you still make it all yourselves?

WENDY:

We’ve grown so much we’re able to employ other people, too, to help us make and distribute everything. We’re providing jobs for eight people right here in our community.

the farm at red hill

VEGGIE FAIRY:

So did farming turn out to be good for your family life?

WENDY:

Oh, the kids were mortified when we started out. They didn’t want to be farmers! But now, twelve years later, they like to say their parents have a farm. Now it’s a status thing. But it’s more than that. When our daughter was applying to colleges, for her essay she wrote, “What does a teenage girl and a rooster have in common? The answer is absolutely nothing.” She wrote about how she was tortured and mortified to be the child of a farmer. But in the end, she wrote, “I can’t believe that ten years later, I can now see that when life gives you tomatoes, you can make salsa!”

*

Check out Wendy and Richard’s ginger puree, turmeric puree, jam, hummus, tzatziki, and more in the Extras section of our home-delivered farmers market. You can also visit the Farm at Red Hill on Facebook.

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pasture-raised dairy, eggs, and meat, plus wholesome artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

Virginia local food

SHARE VIRGINIA LOCAL FOOD LOVE

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / March 13, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-03-13 FINAL-1

ORGANIC vs SUSTAINABLE vs LOCAL … Which is best?

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / March 5, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-03-06 FINAL-1

organic vs sustainable vs local

Organic vs sustainable vs local — which is best?

Organic vs sustainable vs local — which is best?


By the Seasonal Roots Veggie Fairy Team:

We get this question pretty much daily: “So are your farms Certified Organic?” When people ask that, we totally get where they’re coming from. We all just want to eat nutritious, safe, non-toxic, eco-friendly food, but it’s not like any of us have the time to research every item we buy. So the government’s “Certified Organic” label has become a convenient shortcut to eating healthy without harming the planet.

If only it were true.

Organic vs sustainable vs local… how do you decide which is best? Here at Seasonal Roots, we’re more concerned about sustainable and local than organic, so we don’t require our local farmers to be Certified Organic. Here’s why:

1. We partner with local farmers.

Many of them are multi-generational. That means they care for their land, crops, and animals with the next generation in mind. They use sustainable practices like rotating their crops to avoid sucking all the nutrients out of the soil. The vast majority of our farmers don’t spray, either, because that would jeopardize the integrity of their land. If they do spray, it’s minimal and only as required. One of our sustainable farmers has a friend who runs a Certified Organic farm not far from him. One year, our sustainable farmer sprayed his yellow squash one time all season because it was necessary. His Certified Organic friend, on the other hand, sprayed his squash on a weekly schedule using a spray approved by the USDA. Our farmer isn’t considered Certified Organic, but his weekly spraying friend is allowed to use that title.

2. “Organic” doesn’t equal “locally grown”.

In fact, it may even be grown in a foreign country and shipped to the U.S. The result? A bigger carbon footprint. That’s not eco-friendly. There’s also no guarantee that the food was produced under ideal conditions for farmers, laborers, or livestock, and an organic label has nothing to do with food safety.

3. The best way to know if your food is nutritional, eco-friendly, and safe is to know your farmer.

That’s not possible for most of us as individuals. But when we come together as a group like Seasonal Roots, that’s exactly what we do. We know our farmers. We talk with them, visit their farms, and develop relationships with them. We share their stories with you so you can know them too, even if you don’t have time to go visit them yourself. It’s not quite as easy as the “Certified Organic” shortcut, but it’s a lot easier than trying to do it all by yourself.

4. Most nutrients begin to degrade from the moment produce is harvested.

The sooner it gets to you the better. Also, many studies have shown that fruit that’s picked closer to the peak of ripeness (rather than being picked green and ripening on the shelf or by being gassed) is more nutritious than fruit that’s picked before or after peak, whether it’s organic or not. This is why we hustle to get your produce to you as soon as possible after harvesting, and why being local helps — it doesn’t have to travel very far. Much of the food in grocery stores has traveled thousands of miles and many days to get there, losing nutrients every hour of the way.

5. There’s no standard definition for “local”.

Our standard is within about 150 miles of our delivery areas in Virginia. So most of our local partners are in Virginia, and a few are in southern Pennsylvania or eastern North Carolina. To maintain a healthy variety of options during the winter, we partner with sustainable farmers in Florida. We call that produce “regional” because it can get to us within a day of harvest without resorting to flying. Members who prefer to eat only what’s in season locally can opt out of our winter-time regional offerings.

We support our local farmers because we know and trust them and their practices. They produce safe food for their families, our families. and your families. Wherever you may be, we hope you’ll join us in supporting your local farmers, too!

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS


Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, eggs, grass-fed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

Truly Scrumptious conveneint local food

THIS ARTISAN MAKES CONVENIENT LOCAL FOOD

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / February 27, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-02-27 FINAL-1

Truly Scrumptious convenient local food

This artisan makes convenient local food

You won’t find this “Truly Scrumptious” local food in the grocery store but it’s just as convenient

– By the Veggie Fairy Team

There’s more than one way to eat your local veggies — and you don’t necessarily have to go to the trouble of cooking them up yourself. That’s because local produce is also a big part of many of our locally made artisanal foods, like Truly Scrumptious in Richmond, Va.

Truly Scrumptious specializes in frozen, ready-to-heat prepared foods that are locally sourced whenever possible and bursting with flavor. Freezing freshly made, handmade food makes it convenient to serve, and also makes it more flavorful and nutritious than most other convenience foods. (For more on that, read our post on the benefits of freezing fresh food.)

For the inside scoop on convenient local food, we talked with Mela, the British chef who grew up on the west coast of Scotland and now makes Truly Scrumptious so scrumptious in Richmond, Va. And she’s too modest to tell you this part herself, so we will: Back when she lived in London, she worked for a company that held the Royal Warrant — catering events at Highgrove, Charles and Diana’s private residence, and Buckingham Palace garden parties. Cool beans!

Truly Scrumption convenient local food

VEGGIE FAIRY:

The flavors of everything you make really stand out! How do you do it?

MELA:

I don’t make the typical soups you find in the grocery store. Having traveled a lot in the Far East I like my food to have big flavor. I’m inspired by Indian, Thai, and Morroccan flavors and then I make it my own — so it’s always full flavored but not too spicy. I use local produce whenever it’s available, and that’s going to taste so much better, too. Plus you know where it comes from, how they grow it, that it’s fresh picked. Then freezing it gives me the ability to offer a much greater variety. Everything’s been tested, so I know it will be fine when it’s reheated.

Truly Scrumption convenient local food

VEGGIE FAIRY:

Did you go to culinary school to learn all this?

MELA:

Actually my degree was in engineering! But what I really loved to do was cook, so I was always cooking for the guys in the class and on field trips. Then I came to the U.S. on a work exchange program. I wound up working for top notch restaurants in Colorado and on Martha’s Vineyard, where I met my husband Robert, and my love of food took over.

VEGGIE FAIRY:

So how did you wind up Virginia?

MELA:

Robert is from Roanoke and he wanted to come back to Virginia. So I moved to Richmond without having ever visited it. Turns out I’m very happy here! Once my children were a little older, I started Truly Scrumptious in 2007, and I focused on serving businesses and private entertaining. Then in 2010 the farmers market scene in Richmond exploded. I noticed the quality and variety of produce I could pick up in the markets and I knew I could use it as the basis for prepared ready-to-eat foods. One of the family farmers I work with is G Flores Produce, on Virginia’s Northern Neck.

(FAIRY NOTE: The Flores family has been part of our home-delivered farmers market almost since the beginning! That’s their produce below, which went into Mela’s Roasted Virginia Winter Vegetable Bisque, available in the market this weekend.)

G Flores Produce convenient local food

VEGGIE FAIRY:

Do you have a set menu?

MELA:

No, that’s the best part. Everything’s seasonal. I create different entrees to utilize what’s being harvested. It’s creative and exciting to be doing something new all the time. One week one of the local farmers had beautiful bok choy, so I turned that into a delicious bok choy and mushroom soup. I want to let that local produce shine. That’s the most important thing.

VEGGIE FAIRY:

What’s been the biggest challenge?

MELA:

Applying to the health department and the agriculture and consumer services department for a license seemed scary. It’s intimidating as a person who doesn’t have a big team of business advisors. But once I did it, it turned out it was straight forward and easy and gave me a sense of satisfaction of having done it myself. Then there were the logistics of figuring out the best place to sell what I was making and a place to make it. You have to have an inspected kitchen. I’m lucky enough to use a lovely large commercial kitchen in Bon Air United Methodist Church. They let me rent the kitchen and I cater activities for the church like Wednesday night dinners. I’ve been working out of that kitchen for 12 years now. So creating it all from the ground up by myself and then seeing it take off has been the biggest challenge but also very satisfying.

VEGGIE FAIRY:

So you’re running a business and also doing the sourcing and cooking. How do you get it all done?

MELA:

Robert helps at in-person farmers markets. Our son Jack, who’s 21, handles deliveries. And our daughter Molly, who’s 17, is my righthand lady. If I need cupcakes decorated, she’s on it. She’s also a good calming influence for me! I count on the farmers, too. I love meeting and getting to know local farmers and seeing them week by week. They’ll ask me if I want such and such… It’s all very rewarding. I’m so lucky to be involved in something I enjoy 100%. It’s my interest, not just my job.

Truly Scrumptious convenient local food

VEGGIE FAIRY:

For some of us, cooking is a chore. What is it about cooking for others that you enjoy so much?

MELA:

For me, it’s providing families with something that’s nutritious, flavorful, locally sourced, and convenient. I love knowing that people really appreciate being able to have my home-cooked food in the freezer to pull out, heat up, and then sit down and eat a scrumptious meal. Some of my customers buy five soups and take that to work each day instead of buying fast food for lunch. It’s gratifying to know I’m making life easier for other people with food that’s locally sourced, locally handmade, and nutritious. I do try to make it as healthy as I can. I use high quality olive oil, spices, and a lot of my soups are vegan. Not because they have to be but because the recipes lend themselves to using coconut or almond milk.

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You can find Mela’s convenient local food in the Extras section of our home-delivered farmers market. You can also visit Truly Scrumptious on Facebook, or check out the Truly Scrumptious website.

ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pasture-raised dairy, eggs, and meat, plus wholesome artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.

how to shop home delivered farmers market

HOW TO SHOP THE HOME DELIVERED FARMERS MARKET

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / February 20, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

How to shop

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-02-20 FINAL-1

Harmony Hill Farm grassfed beef

HERE’S WHY GRASSFED BEEF IS WORTH THE MONEY

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / February 13, 2019

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

Here's why grassfed beef is worth the money

Read the newsletter below, or view this issue as a printable PDF with clickable links.

newsletter 2019-02-13 FINAL-1