Of Frozen Caches and Hoarded Stashes

The dead of winter in northern Virginia is a trying time for a farmers' market junkie and would-be locavore. Sporadic, forlorn holiday markets yield very little in the way of unspoiled spoils. The ground outside is frozen solid, the squirrels struggling to unearth their autumn stashes.

In the morning all the water buckets are topped with crusts of ice so solid, the goats holler at the kitchen door and refuse to get on with their day till I wake up. They know if they bleat loud and long enough I will bring them fresh buckets filled with steaming water so they can have their morning drink. They need a hot beverage to start off their day just like I do, especially when all of nature seems to be one gigantic freezer.


Freezer...hmm, wait a moment....Freezer! Now is the perfect time to toddle over to my freezer and haul out some of the local products I squirrelled away for these lean months. That would definitely cheer up me and my table.

There are two farmers markets I visit regularly in season, mainly because they are within a 12-mile radius of my farmette-the Purcellville Farmers Market and the Clarke County (Berryville) one. Often I will buy extra, especially of livestock products, to freeze for later use. So, when I when I dug through my freezer, I found several wonderful products from local producers that I can now use in hearty winter meals from breakfast, to lunch, to dinner!

In upcoming posts, I’ll explore some of the products I have stored away from the vendors in Purcellville, talk about some of the goodies from Berryville in Clarke County, and discuss some of the winter outlets for many local foods.