The official deadline has passed, but we've extending it just a bit to make sure everyone's had a chance to get their registrations in for the 2007 Southern Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas.  The new (and final) deadline is February 5th.  

If you are a farm, business, or organization in Southern Wisconsin that is family or cooperatively owned and committed to sustainable agricultural practices, then the Atlas is a wonderful opportunity to promote your operation!

45,000 copies of the Atlas will be printed and distributed to consumers who are hungry to eat locally and sustainably.

The Atlas will be printed this spring and released starting on April 21st, at the first outdoor Dane County Farmers' Market.

Here's the link to the application.
Don't miss this opportunity!

You can see last year's 
on-line version of the Atlas here.

The Southern Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas is a collaborative project of:

REAP Food Group

UW Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems

Dane County Farmers’ Market

Friends of the Dane County Farmers’ Market

  
 This year's atlas is going to be bigger and better than ever thanks to our friends at Heartland Credit Union who are generously 
underwriting a major portion of the costs of 
the 2007 Southern Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas!

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Buy Fresh Buy Local Southern Wisconsin 
Prepares for Spring Launch

In the last REAP Reporter, we announced that Rachel Armstrong had just been hired to head up our new Buy Fresh Buy Local Campaign.  Since her hire, Rachel has spoken with dozens (maybe hundreds?!) of farmers and food buyers to learn about the many interwoven opportunities to connect local foods with restaurant and institutional cafeterias.  What we're learning is that there is great enthusiasm to grow these connections from all sectors.  Rachel's role will be part match-maker, part trouble-shooter and part PR firm.  

The visible expression of the Buy Fresh Buy Local Campaign will be come to life in the beautifully designed "Buy Fresh Buy Local - Southern Wisconsin" graphic label.  Our Southern Wisconsin label will join the suite of labels from other regional Buy Fresh Buy Local efforts participating in the Food Routes Network national campaign.

The label design features a view of a lovely Wisconsin farm setting (painted from a photo of Snug Haven Farm in Belleville!) The foreground represents the bounty and variety of agricultural products from Southern Wisconsin. The overall style evokes images and a color palette reminiscent of seed packages of the past. 

Soon, this beautiful label will begin to grace the doors of area restaurants, market stalls of partner farmers, local retail outlets and institutional cafeterias. 

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch 
Holiday Fundraiser, Madison, and Beyond

From the beginning of WHL in 2002, there have been many inquiries from around the state from schools wanting to learn more about the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch Project.  It's not surprising.  A desire to feed kids healthier fare at school  and reconnect kids to where there food comes from is an idea that's time has come.  

With a grant from the Blooming Prairie Foundation, we are now beginning to pursue state-wide farm to school outreach.  

What we've learned since we began 4 years ago, is that it takes a whole lot of commitment to overcome the enormous inherent financial and logistical challenges in our school cafeterias.  

We're delighted to be discovering great passion and commitment from school food service directors in various parts of the state for changing their lunchrooms toward healthier and more local choices.   Several new districts are eager to work with us to become emerging leaders of this movement. Look soon for stories from around the state about schools feeding kids delicious local foods and innovative food education to feed both their bodies and their minds.

Meanwhile back in Madison, kids continue to have many opportunities to engage in WHL's farm to school programming.  Our local snacks program continues to serve ~1500 students per week with a fresh local fruit or veggie snack. (Thank goodness for excellent winter storage techniques for apples and root veggies!)   And students in several elementary schools are experiencing various tasting lessons or inviting guest farmer-educators into their classrooms.  Come this spring, farm field trips will start up again as well.

In Sherman Middle School, in Madison, the CHOW program (Cooking Healthy Options in Wisconsin) continues to broaden the food knowledge and cooking skills of the 7th grade classes.  Under the excellent tutelage of chefs Tory Miller and Eva Ringstrom of L'Etoile Restaurant, these students are experiencing delicious local foods while learning important kitchen skills.  (See a recent Capital Times article on the CHOW program here.)  Thanks so much to chefs Tory and Eva for their amazing commitment of time of to this excellent "chef in the classroom" program!  And thanks also for generous financial support to the American Girl Fund for Children for support of this program.  

We hope you'll enjoy the recipe from a recent CHOW class as our featured recipe later in this newsletter.

Seasonal Recipe:  Fluffy Sweet Potato Pancakes

To make mashed sweet potatoes, boil them in a pot of water until they are soft or bake them in the oven like a baked potato.  Then mash them, put them in a blender or a food mill to make them smooth.  (About 1 medium sized sweet potato will produce 1 cup of mashed.)

In one bowl, mix together the “dry” ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

In a second bowl, mix together the “wet” ingredients: mashed sweet potato, milk, maple syrup, and egg yolks.

In a third bowl, use a whisk or electric beaters to whip the egg whites until they are very fluffy and foamy.

Mix the “dry” ingredients into the sweet potato mixture. 

Gently fold the whipped egg whites into the batter, taking care not to deflate the air bubbles.

 Preheat a pan or griddle to medium heat on the stove.

Add a little bit of butter or oil to the pan so that the pancakes won’t stick.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the hot pan.

It’s ready to flip when you see air bubbles rising to the surface of the pancake, and when the edges begin to look brown.   Flip the pancake, cook for twenty seconds to a minute on the second side, till cooked through and nicely brown.

Remove pancake from heat and repeat with the rest of the batter.