We love stopping at farm markets when we travel, especially in northwestern Michigan where it seems possible to find a farmers market going nearly every day of the week during the summer.
Northwest Michigan has a particularly nice glove-box sized local food and farm guide called Taste the Local Difference. It features a list of farm markets in the area, as well as information about U-pick farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organizations, wineries, breweries, restaurants and stores featuring local products, and more.
You can find the annual guide in tourist centers, libraries, markets and stores around an 8-county region in northern Michigan (I picked mine up from a rack at the group's presenting sponsor, Crystal Mountain Resort).
You can also download it as a PDF from the Taste the Local Difference site, although I prefer to view it online because the PDF version lacks hot links that would make searching through the virtual booklet easier.
Taste the Local Difference is a project of the Michigan Land Use Institute aimed at building markets for products from farmers in Michigan's northwestern Lower Peninsula, connecting them to shoppers, grocers, restaurants and other food businesses.
The group urges supporters to pledge to spend at least $10 each week on locally grown and produced foods, saying that if everyone did so that the region's economy would grow by nearly $5 million a year.
The Michigan Land Use Institute estimates that more than 70 percent of the farms participating in their local food marketing campaigns report sales increases due to the program.
The local food movement can also have other benefits like healthier meals for kids as a result of farm-to-school food initiatives in concert with environmental improvements as a result of accompanying green-energy and clean-water initiatives.
This region of the state seemed to embrace efforts to promote local food producers quite early, promoting the support of local farmers as one of the best way to support the region's economy. It's always been fun to see how our favorite "Up North" restaurants spotlighted local foods in their menus, and I remember seeing the region's restaurants highlighting their use of local foods much earlier than I remember seeing the same emphasis elsewhere in the state.
Check out the Taste the Local Difference site for suggestions about how to best use local food year round and some great recipes featuring local ingredients, including a few from Chef Darren Hawley of the Crystal Mountain Resort at Thompsonville, Michigan.
It was a special pleasure to sit down with Chef Hawley late last summer and talk about the benefits of using local food and the resort's long-term commitment to working with local farmers. Check out my interview with him here.
As much fun as it is to browse the Taste the Local Difference web site, I still find the hard copy of the guide particularly handy in helping to local farmers markets while I'm on the road.
We visited the Grow Benzie and Crystal Mountain farm markets after spotting them in our guide.
Grow Benzie purchased a 3.7-acre site in Benzonia to use as a community farmstead and a training center to help in bolstering the local economy in 2008. Grow Benzie established their farmers market in 2009. The group offered 25 garden plots and greenhouse space for lease to interested members of the community this year and opens its weekly farmers market this summer for the third season in a row on M-115 between Beulah-Benzonia and Frankfort.
This small market offered a great opportunity to talk with the local farmers as we shopped and selected some raspberry jam to take home with us.
This year, the Grow Benzie Farmers Market runs 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. each Monday from June 18 through mid-September. New this year at the market will be music from local performers.
We also visited the market a Crystal Mountain last summer. We spotted our raspberry jam farmer again at this market, and this time he had blueberry jam (which also ended up going home with us!).
Crystal's market takes place in one of the parking lots near a ski hill from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. each Friday, starting this year on June 15 and running through Labor Day weekend in early September.
Thanks to Brian Lawson, Director of Public Relations at Crystal Mountain Resort, for hosting us for lunch at Crystal's Thistle Pub & Grille and arranging an interview with Chef Hawley for me.
© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved
