Thursday, April 26, 2007

FIELD ROAST FOLKS: Marlene's Market & Deli



Being a child of the 80's and living in Federal Way doesn't lend itself to the holistic living example that is popping up all over these days. To me, Marlene's Market & Deli is an icon of that seed in me that has grown and so have they! Marlene Beadle started the store in 1976 and they have since spread into the old two story REI building in Gateway Center. They have also opened the Tacoma store off 38th near the mall. Both stores are beautiful and filled with fantastic people that work with smiles on their faces.
I recently visited the store for their biannual Open House which spotlights products and thanks their customers by offering demos, a BBQ and lots of food on sale! I grilled up some sausages and talked to customers all day.
First I visited the Tacoma store where I was greeted and given a top notch spot by the registers at the built in demo counter. My neighbor was a small business pesto maker and we quickly made friends tried combining our wares together, deciding that his sundried tomato pesto was a lovely match for our Smoked Apple Sage Sausage.
Then I was off to the Federal Way store for the rest of the afternoon. There I was greeted and asked if I needed anything. Debbie, the coordinator for the store grabbed me ice and display product so that I wouldn't have to leave the heated grill unattended, which I appreciated ever so much! The samplings went well and it was satisfying to support such a great store for this kind of event. I am wetting my toes for many more like it, it is refreshing to be face to face instead of having a phone to my ear!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Get your Field Roast T-Shirt!



We just got in a new shipment of our sleek and stylie Field Roast T-shirts. Our shirts are printed right here in the historic Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, thanks to our friend Mike. They are classic black and boast the company's logo on the front with a list of our grain meat flavors on the back, very much your run-of-the-mill concert t-shirt except without the sweat, beer and flame marks left by waving your lighter around.

Our shirts are available online via our website (URL to come) using Pay pal or you can send us a check. We have all kinds of sizes, including some for young kids.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Eat More Kale

That's right....it's not just about Field Roast! Kale is good too! Some people at Bastyr University of Naturopathic Medicine made some EAT MORE KALE t-shirts....and it's been all the rave in Seattle. I've worn the t-shirt when I'm out on the road and around Seattle....and what a magnet it is for like minded Kale Eaters! It's kinda like when having a baby in your arms; everyone feels comfortable coming up and "cooing" the child and talking to you. I Love Kale!

A Vermont based artist named Bo, evidently, is the originator of the EAT MORE KALE phenom..selling t-shirts and other EAT MORE KALE stuff from his website at www.vermontprints.com. Check it out!

I was in a natural food grocery store in Dallas a few weeks ago, back in the deli kitchen and some people were cooking up A WHOLE BUNCH OF KALE....suffice to say that I tore off my chef jacket to reveal my Kale Shirt....

My dear mother, who lives in England, told me that Kale was for Cows....! Nay, I say (sorry mum). It's good eating....

When I worked in the restaurant trade in NYC in the late 1980's (Good Enough to Eat, 82nd and Amsterdam, nr Zabars but now most their most excellenancies Chef Ann Nickinson and Lisa Hall are doing Kitchenette) we used to blacken the kale and served it slightly charred, yum....
That's what we did yesterday, cept this kale (which we rescued from a Sysco Food show) was super fibrous, large and beautifully coloured; purply, green...I cooked it, charred it..but it still was underdone....delicious! Chef Holtz is going to cook some up today for lunch....predictions, a little softer, more vinegary...a little juicy.

Talk about Flesh of the Earth!

EAT MORE KALE!

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Our Blessed Wheat......

Just thought I'd weigh in on the recent mishap regarding the poisoned wheat gluten that came from China that got mixed up in pet food across the country.


We embrace our wheat culture, our millennia old tradition of using grains as a staple. Wheat is intrinsic to what we do here at the Field Roast Grain Meat Company; it provides substance, form and lots of delicious protein to our grain meats. Occasionally someone will ask me if we could make a wheat free grain meat and the answer is always no...not how we do it anyway. There is no ingredient that we know of that has the power and qualities that wheat does.

The tainted wheat that made its way into the pet food came from China and was poisoned with an outside ingredient; Melamine. The melamine was surreptitiously added to the wheat gluten to artificially increase its protein levels.

We buy our wheat from the most local supplier that we can find; Permolex in Red Deer, Alberta. They do not sell any wheat, nor have they ever, to Menu Foods, the company that has had the issues. The wheat that they use to make our flour is all grown in Alberta, Canada. Hard white winter wheat!

Ethanol and Wheat.....the cool thing about our supplier in Red Deer is that once they rinse the starch out of the wheat, they use it to make Ethanol! There is a whole “green” connection to what we are doing here at Field Roast. Plant-based proteins and bio fuel; being made from one continuous process.

Flesh of the Earth, power to feed our bodies and to fuel our transportation needs in a clean, green and sustainable way! What a great connection!