Resourcing

Buying local can be such a loosely used term.  After all there are local grocery stores and food brokers that stimulate the economy by hiring locally.  So if we buy our ingredients from them we are buying locally right?  Shopping locally and shopping fresh are not one and the same.  How fresh can an apple that is imported and then driven across country to your local retailer possibly be?

Resourcing for us means to find new sources for our fresh (and pantry) ingredients.  This will definitely require a change in your flavor palette...for the better.  Visit your local farmers' market and taste a strawberry for the first time. Free of pesticides and age you will taste the rose bouquet of the naturally sweetened strawberry.

If you are fortunate enough to live in North East Ohio you have so many options to eat and purchase local seasonal foods.  Basic baking ingredients (milk, eggs, flour, and even sugar) can be found at The Coit Farmer's Market, Tremont Farmers Market, Downtown Farmers Market, North Union Farmers Market, Fresh Fork. The list goes on and on.  In our recipes and blog we will be sure to share with you want market and farmer we used for each recipe.

I know what you are thinking: Madagascar Vanilla surely is not local.  This is where we begin to resource from locally and independently owned purveyors.  Although we purchase our fresh herbs from local farmers like Rainbow Farms, we do stop in at Urban Herbs located in the West Side Market to gather our spices, salts, and vanilla.

What about sugar?  We recently found some at the market.  As it becomes more available we will use it in our products.  For now we use unbleached sugar and when possible sugar cane.  MMM sugar cane.  If you are looking for a Christmas gift for me I will take a sugar cane press. CHEESE!

For some time now you are probably accustomed to bright sugary sweets.  Don't be alarmed when you see naturally flavored and colored confections.  Taste the flavor and you will be hooked.  Through roasting, pureeing, caramelizing, and balancing of flavors  we know how to bring out the best in our sweets.

Butter is better and for our vegan friends we will happily use olive oil, but you won't find any chemically processed margarine here.

We use unbleached flours (Stutzman Farms offers cornmeal and wheat flour) and for our gluten free friends we have access to local pecan flour! Allergic to nuts?  That's okay our flourless chocolate cake will make you forget all about that.

... Chocolate... She is my best friend.  She and cream and some others are part of the 25% of our ingredient list that are local.  But how can we deny them?  Instead we enhance them with local berries, dipped apples, goat cheese cheesecake, local milk for gelato.  Mouth Watering I must go bake!

See you at the market,
Olivia Rose