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As a veteran chef of 42 years in the food service industry, it is a bitter pill to pay for meals that can cost as much as $18-25 for lunch after drinks and a cookie are added. I noticed the trends of labor-saving foods expand across the industry and our region, which may seem like a cost-effective solution in a labor-shortage environment, but the added cost is passed onto the consumer. Slow cooking can be inexpensive, fast, and locally sourced. Time appears to be the magic ingredient that is assumed to be missing, that requires these processed foods to persist in our restaurants. It is an illusion to an old school chef, who is unwilling to sacrifice quality for convenience. What is lost is the history behind why we did this kind of cookery. When done properly, it is cost-effective and utilized every part of an animal, or scrap of vegetation/grain. Bones or a stewing hen, the trim from the preparation of roasts, and all the scrap pieces unfit for the sandwich went into the pot to season the broth/stock. All sauces, including jelly, came from this source, that weren't dressings, tomato, or cream sauces. The gelatin from the glace, the marrow from the bones into pates, and the reduction with wine into demiglace. Bakers utilized the spent grain from distilleries and gave their day-old breads for a reduced price to restaurants for croutons/breadcrumbs. The local vintners created the vinegars for salads, once the wine had turned. Dairies created their cheeses from the unsold or excess milk. The farmers created sausage from their excess. So, what changed? The waste from the kitchen after it had been picked clean may have gone to the hogs and dogs, but these days you'll find that among the ingredients listed in most processed meats, commercially available for both humans and dogs. Between the architectural changes within the tissue of raw poultry, that has been genetically modified, to the chemical processing to sanitize processed meats prior to shipping, none of this can be healthy for us, in the search of inexpensive protein sources. It is that demand that created the market, but it is up to us to halt the illusion and choose another way. Forty years ago, our kitchens had large stock pots yielding gallons of bone stocks for the purposes of being combined with just about every facet of food. Today we have soy-lecithin imbued salty version of these in every soup base, which are universally used to season in most kitchens. Asking a kitchen if they use soup base or concentrates is a direct relation to how far they are willing to go to moderate costs, reduce salt and processed foods, and shop locally for their sources. Most bones cost about $1/pound, and twenty pounds rendered over 48 hours and cooked with vegetables another 24 hours can provide enough bone stock for about 5 gallons of soup, stews, pot pie bases, or a heavy gallon of demiglace. Compare that to a quart of soup base for the same price, if not slightly more. If that is shipped to the back door of the restaurant, add another few dollars to that price. Farmer's markets often have higher prices, but there are substantial benefits to theses in the form of better flavor, less fat, more protein content due to stronger muscles, stronger flavors or more subtle in the case of local chevre cheeses, and it wasn't gassed for months in a warehouse to keep it fresh, frozen in a block, or shipped from across the globe. Buying local seafood may appear expensive, but when it's placed in chowder, stews, or smoked and added to pastas, it can be stretched and made more affordable. That's the gift of culinary arts education, experience with from scratch foods, and regular travel across the state and globe to acquire new skills. But one needn't travel far for quality goods. They are all around you, now, and in our market. We have a few choices for locally sourced meats and poultry nearby. Dozens of homestead operations offer local eggs, cheeses, jams, smoked meats, vegetables, fruits, poultry, pork, beef, and sheep/goat. NONE of the local purveyors who bring ready-made foods to the food service industry carry them. That's how and why we decided to start this market. Save a farm. Improve community health. Save money with a few extra minutes and a very large stock pot. Travel across the state and find the best it has to offer. Highlight how incredibly tasty our local food is compared to the American open market. Brand our state. Those are worthy of the extra time, and at times, the extra costs of locally sourced meals and products. Those farmers and store owners are often doing their craft as a second income, and dependent on it to make ends meet. We developed relationships over time, and they are now like family friends. They are experiencing unprecedented cost increases, loss of livestock due to predators and weather on a massive scale, and the traditional headaches that go along with farming. Covid was only survivable in my home due to Connelly Bros Dairy remaining open for ice cream. What's more, is they KNEW IT and couldn't keep it on the shelves for months. They are the base to our White Mountain Moose Pies, our frozen whoopie pie with vanilla custard inside. It is USDA pasteurized ice cream, though they also offer raw milk and raw milk products, which fed my family for decades. They are located on the Burton Highway just off Highway 101 in Temple. If you continue that way towards Wilton, you'll pass Nelson's Candies, open after 12pm and with limited hours. Here's the short list for Sunday drives: Blood Farm, Groton Hilltop Farm, Mason The Bakery Pepperell Connelly Bros Dairy, Temple Wilton-Temple Community Farm Nelson's Candies, Wilton Babel's Sugar Shack, Milford Sander's Seafood, Newcastle Rye Harbor Lobster Pound Swampscot Beverages (soda) Newfields Tamworth Distilling, Tamworth Rare Breed Coffee (Mondays, alas) Kimballs' Farm Hollis/Pepperell Lull Farm Hollis Brookdale Farm Hollis Fulchino's Vineyard, Hollis Trombly Garden, Milford Monadnock Oil & Vinegar, Amherst Woodman's Artisan Bakery (DAILY now) Narrow Pines Farm (Delivers, thanks you!) North Country Smokehouse, Claremont Wrap City Potato Chips, Derry SHOP LOCAL. SAVE THE FARMS. OR COME HERE. Chef Karen Calabro, Professional Chefs of New Hampshire, American Culinary Federation.

From Scratch Food is Affordable. No, really. It is.

As a veteran chef of 42 years in the food service industry, it is a bitter pill to pay for meals that can cost as much as $18-25 for...

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