Fresh & News March 11th

Our mission at Foragers is to continually source out (forage) foods from the best growers, processors and cheesemakers from Huron County and beyond. In this spirit of striving to source the best, Forager Foods is pleased to announce the acquisition of Olliffe Fine Meats of Toronto.

Olliffe is Toronto’s premiere butcher, caterer and prepared food provider located on Yonge Street bordering Rosedale at Summerhill. Stay tuned, in future newsletters we will discuss how Olliffe and Forager Foods will be working together to continually deliver the best Ontario has to offer. Be sure to stop in this weekend to either shop and say hello to Sam Gundy (at Foragers) or Ben Gundy (at Olliffe).

Glengarry Fine Cheese
Foragers has taken a supply of a pasteurized cows milk cheese called Big Brother from Ontario’s newest fromagerie located in Lancaster, Ontario.

Big Brother is a semi-firm washed rind cheese that has a very distinctive mineral flavour. Its crumbly texture is betrayed by a creamy and sweet mouth feel. Savoury and slightly salty, Big Brother would be well served with a selection of stone fruits and honey from Ferguson Apiaries available at Foragers of course!

Sausage of The Week
This week we are really experimenting with your palates. If the blueberry/maple and the lamb/mint/stilton was not enough (as it clearly wasn’t since we sold 50lb in 12 hours last weekend) then how about this weeks feature; Asian Style Red Chili and Cilantro Pork Sausage. With a little heat inherent, during recipe testing these sausages were an excellent accompaniment with rice or rice noodles and asian vegetables.

Monforte Dairy

Below is a Letter From Monforte Dairy, March 4, 2009

To Monforte’s business partners,

Thanks so much for supporting Monforte Dairy. You’ve been such an important part of our success. By now you may have heard a lot of rumours.

But here’s the inside story. We are taking a breather – the French say “réculer pour mieux sauter”—gather yourself for the next leap forward.

That’s exactly what we’re doing in 2009. We’re taking a breather, to focus on an immense new enterprise. We’ are building a new dairy – we haven’t signed the deal yet, so I can’t say more right now – and we’re going to micro-finance the new dairy on the principle of Community Shared Agriculture.

Our customers will become our investors. We’re calling it Monforte Renaissance 2010.
The goal is to create a sustainable micro-producer/dairy, with a school for cheese making and new local products to complement our cheeses, beginning with new production launching in January 2010. While that means there’s no cheese this year, each and every farmer shepherd who’s supplied Monforte with milk has committed to supplying the new dairy.

We have a new website at www.monfortedairy.com that details all the changes going on, tracks the funds raised, and announces the events we’re hosting and participating in.

This move has gained serious momentum both through the media and by word of mouth. We’d love to build on that, by linking to your website, offering you beautiful Monforte Renaissance 2010 postcards for takeaway, and easy-to-read info on our CSA model. Let us know how you’d prefer to help.

If we’re successful – and we’re confident we will be – we’re hoping this model will be repeated again and again, creating a new food culture in Ontario.
I’m truly excited about Monforte’s next stage and I’m looking forward to your support – no one knows our strengths and weaknesses better than you do.
With warmest regards,

Ruth Klahsen
Monforte Dairy Company
519.272.2193 work/home
519.721.8162 mobile
www.monfortedairy.com
twitter.com/monfortemo

Keep Foraging,

Sam, Sara, Bill, Jeremy, Ben & James
www.foragerfoods.ca