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March 11, 2010
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Farm to table Some restaurants and home cooks are trying to embrace the locavore movement — but in a climate with a short growing season, can their needs be met? In Manchester, a group of concerned eaters is getting together to start a co-op in the vein of Concord’s Cooperative Market and the much lauded co-op in Lebanon. But the question of how to get local food on the table gets even more complicated when you’re not just shopping for your family’s dinner but for several days of dinners for an entire restaurant. Back to the land Just-picked produce tastes better, he said, and he’s looking forward to growing lettuce at the store and already has herbs started. Chefs might be more limited using what’s available locally, but small-batch producers keep quality high, Lewko said. “They have to be good ... they can’t afford a bad day,” Lewko said. It’s nice for California that they have so much produce, but “we’re in New Hampshire and should help each other the best we can,” he said. Keeping money circulating locally is a reason other chefs cited for buying local. “The more you can do for your neighbor.... It’s better for everybody all around,” Lewko said. Lewko and a few other chefs said they are used to doing business locally, but for some it’s a new focus. “What’s behind all this is it’s market-driven. People are starting to ask where their food comes from,” said Charlie Burke, president of the New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection. People want to know that food they’re eating was produced near their home, by real people, not mega-corporations, Burke said. In January, somewhere between 50 and 75 farmers, food producers, distributors, chefs and other interested parties reportedly met at Cotton Restaurant in Manchester for a New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection-related meeting to start figuring out ways to get more local products into Manchester restaurants. Organizing “Can we think of people busier than farmers and chefs? I’m not sure,” said Sara Zoe Patterson, coordinator for Seacoast Eat Local (www.seacoasteatlocal.org). These days, there are large corporate vendors, “box trucks,” which deliver everything from “lettuce to light bulbs,” Burke said. Many chefs are used to leaving a voicemail for their vendor with their list of what they need at the end of service, Patterson said. Plus, chefs and farmers have somewhat opposite schedules, making it hard to carve out a good time to call. It’s not always the most convenient on either the farm or restaurant side, but “I’m so glad there are so many willing to work it out,” she said. There are a lot of people who want to dine on these “delicious” foods cooked professionally, Patterson said. Seacoast Eat Local is a community group that works to connect people with locally grown foods, usually as an information conduit, Patterson said. “Once a connection is made, relationships take off, but we’re not a food broker,” Patterson said. Probably about 175 farms will be listed this year in Seacoast Harvest and Seacoastharvest.org, their print and online guide. The group calls each farm and asks if they sell to restaurants, so chefs know at least which are interested. Michael Dussault and George Bezanson are the executive chefs at Mint Bistro, 1105 Elm St. in Manchester (www.mintbistronh.com, 625-6468). Currently they use some cheeses from Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire through their regular vendors. “I’d like to use more local sustainable products, you know, it’s just tough,” Bezanson said. He was at the Cotton meeting and supports the idea of getting more local produce in, but wishes it were easier. “We [the Mint chefs] have so much to do, we’re always running around ... it’s so much more convenient for us to get products from two companies rather than five or six,” Bezanson said. A distributor for local farms would make things easier, but the more times a product changes hands, the pricier it can get, he said. “Other monster companies just really have it down,” Bezanson. They use Dole and Bailey, and Sysco. Sysco representatives are selling themselves all the time, whereas at Cotton, there were 50 people Bezanson had never seen before in his life, he said. Tom Puskarich of Z Food and Drink at 860 Elm St. in Manchester (629-9383, www.zfoodanddrink.com) said his sourcing problems come down to scale, especially with proteins — herds are small here. And New Hampshire has a short produce season, though “we get a great abundance when we have it,” Puskarich said. He’s been able to add local foods as specials or for special events. Puskarich likes to have the “ability to look my growers and producers in the eye … and get a sense of who they are,” what their practices and procedures are, he said. Growing up in the produce-heavy central valley of California, Puskarich “always had relationships with farmers,” he said. They were family friends, and his early food memories include going out into fields, or to dinner at farmers’ homes. It informs his work now, he said. Instigators Paige is known for incorporating local foods. He’s well-respected by other chefs, and used fresh produce from the Canterbury Shaker Village garden during his tenure running the former Creamery Restaurant there, Burke said. When Paige finished culinary school in 1984, “I really wanted to get understanding of where food came from,” he said. The Shakers worked to be self-sufficient and raised their own vegetables and meats the “old-fashioned way” without growth hormones or genetically engineered seeds, Paige said. When he opened Cotton, using local foods and working with local people who are passionate about their products “became a lifestyle choice,” Paige said. The New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection (www.nhfarmtorestaurant.com) has been in place since about 2004, although Paige said he and Gail McWilliam Jellie, director of the Division of Agricultural Development in the state’s Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food, tried to start something like that in the early 1990s, Paige said. The concept from the January meeting at Cotton is to try and put together some kind of pilot program for Manchester. McWilliam Jellie said Paige got a core group of restaurants in the city together interested in working together to purchase locally. With farms all over the state, there isn’t an easy way to aggregate the foods, McWilliam Jellie said. The Manchester initiative is probably unique right now and might serve as a model for other communities, she said. Paige thinks there’s good commitment from both sides, and everybody is working toward the common goal of getting New Hampshire products on New Hampshire restaurant menus. Paige said it’s amazing that right now in New Hampshire you can find venison, buffalo, beef, pork and chicken raised locally, and probably eight or 10 different kinds of cheeses, Paige said. Paige said putting these things on menus helps promote the farms and general awareness of what’s available. There are two local goat cheeses and three smokehouses, he said. These are usually family businesses, though, and producers are working so hard on products that a lot of them don’t have time to market or distribute. “That’s the hard part of this whole process. The average chef works 60 hours per week,” Paige said. They need sourcing simplified. And for a lot of businesses it comes down to money. When California broccoli floods the market, it can leave people with a choice of buying local for $4 per pound, or from California for $1.99 per pound. “A lot of the stuff is competitively priced,” Paige said, but still without time to promote, things happen more by word of mouth, Paige said. And Paige also tends to use local food as additions to the menu. You definitely have to be flexible, he said. “Consistency, quantity and time” are Puskarich’s main challenges with sourcing locally, he said. Everyone involved wants to do the right thing, Puskarich said, but time and resources are issues. You can’t get there from here “He was great because he had everything I needed,” Puskarich said. Now Puskarich needs to go to three or four different farmers. Also, there are producers who show up at his doorstep, with fresh eggs to sell or local mushrooms, for instance. “It sort of does come down to time... I don’t have time to go to their farms, they don’t have time to come to me,” Puskarich said. That’s why distributors are involved, but in the current distribution system, most local produce vendors go pick up in Boston markets. They won’t necessarily pick up at a New Hampshire farm unless maybe it’s apple season, he said. “I think it would be great if there was some way we could get farmers to deliver to one spot,” and either restaurants could pick it up or items would be delivered, said Matthew Provencher, now the executive chef at Richard’s Bistro at 36 Lowell St. in Manchester (www.richardsbistro.com). So far, Provencher has been in contact with two farms, three cheese producers, and a hog farmer to add local foods to the menu. Stuart Cameron, executive chef at Hanover Street Chophouse, 149 Hanover St., Manchester (www.hanoverstreetchophouse.com, 644-2467), said another reason to try to coordinate deliveries to Manchester is to try to boost economic efficiency for farmers as well as trying to keep the carbon footprint small, by consolidating trips, rather than each farmer delivering separately. Burke thinks the initial answer in Manchester will be “kind of cobbled together.” “We’re looking at a bunch of different models right now,” McWilliam Jellie said. One current suggestion, which may not materialize but is just an example, is looking at apple orchards with storage that is no longer in use as a hub for product. Other ideas are to identify farmers with trucks on the road who might be willing to deliver others’ goods as well, and to find some kind of wholesaler in Manchester to work with. Things do seem to be done by word of mouth. Z restaurant asked farmer Romeo Danais of Nottingham about getting 30 dozen eggs per week — which Danais can’t meet, but he’s looking around to see who can. Suzanne Brown is the executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in North Conway and a board member of the New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection. What’s been happening in the North Country somewhat mirrors what’s happening with Manchester restaurants, she said. The White Mountain area has a group called Valley Originals (thevalleyoriginals.com) of locally owned restaurants, with members interested in sourcing locally, which creates larger-volume buying. There are fields of top-quality soil along the Saco River, mostly being hayed now. The Institute is putting together an agricultural business incubator to grow new farmers. The farmers can take a tractor out of a barn, “like you take a book out of library,” Brown said. They are working on incentives for distribution to use biofuels, and the incubator will be using 100 percent renewable energy to run growing four-seasons, Brown said. Farms online The New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection is under the umbrella of the nonprofit NH Made — and currently interested parties are pooling grants to build a commerce site accessed through www.nhmade.com, although the final result will probably take several more months. Brown, who comes from a tech and military background, doesn’t think this idea of being able to sell NH Made products, both perishable and non, through one shopping experience, has been done in any other state or region, she said. Staying local “First and foremost, we’re a Mediterranean restaurant,” Aloise said. The concept is ingredient-based — you use the freshest ingredients and the ingredients are supposed to speak for themselves, he said. “Everyone has choices to make,” Aloise said. “You can choose to get a cheaper product” that’s trucked from far away, or you can choose to get something more expensive and use it differently so you don’t have to use as much of it, he said. Aloise personally knows who is making the cheese and yogurt, raising the cows and raising the lambs he serves. The local focus also means money stays local, and the carbon footprint stays lighter. And, of course, the food tastes better, Aloise said. The beef Republic uses from Miles Smith Farm is grass-fed and slaughtered about a week before it’s on the grill at Republic. They use fresh, pasture-raised chickens. There’s local and regional spring produce to look forward to like ramps, fiddleheads and squash blossoms, he said. Aloise hopes Republic will develop relationships with farmers in which the farmers will grow specific things for Republic. Logistics are more difficult for Rippee, who has taken on the job of purchasing, Aloise said. They learned a local egg distributor was driving by places with other local producers, and now he’s picking up cheeses. Republic’s suppliers aren’t necessarily used to the volume Aloise needs, and if a truck breaks down or other problems arise, the Republic may not have a menu item. Aloise tries to plan for that by stocking up on inventory. Rippee said Republic is only working through a couple of vendors right now to get cheese, meat and dairy, but that will change during the growing season. Provisions out of Vermont has a relationship with Miles Smith Farm, and sometimes Rippee will buy Vermont cheeses. Provisions also carries chickens raised at Misty Knoll Farm in Vermont. Ordering requires more planning and more than a day’s notice usually. The couple use Sysco for their conventionally run Milltown Grille, and Sysco has mentioned that they have distribution for New Hampshire cheeses available, Rippee said. Farmers to market “[The] vast majority of our farmers do direct-to-consumer marketing,” either through farmers markets, farm stands or pick-your-own, McWilliam Jellie said. “They need to make money like everybody else,” Paige said. Paige said one idea for Manchester is finding a distribution center, where produce not sold at a farmers market can go. In theory, if more than one farm is bringing in produce, then enough of each item might be available when a restaurant is ordering bulk carrots, for example. Farmers like to be able to sell hundreds of pounds of things in a delivery, which they can do when they go to a farmers market, said Elizabeth Obelenus, program coordinator for the New Hampshire chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. When distribution is involved, it means a middle person has to be paid — the restaurant and/or farm loses money. Obelenus said with money tight this year, people may be growing their own produce, so “we’ll see” what farmers markets look like, she said. Maps are becoming available highlighting local foods, Obelenus said, including the Seacoast Eat Local, and Merrimack Valley Area, and NOFA-NH’s statewide map, although theirs focuses on organics. Obelenus said to call or e-mail farmers in advance to arrange to buy at a farm. Lull Farm in Hollis farms 225 acres, 75 of which is fruit. They also have another 100 acres for hay. They have a farm stand in Hollis and one in Milford, a nursery for flowers and vegetable plants, pick-your-own apples and berries, a corn maze, and animals for children to visit behind the shop. Lull doesn’t really sell to local grocery stores but has wholesale accounts with other farms. They mainly sell through their retail stores, but also supply Michael Timothy’s and Surf in Nashua, and Buckley’s Great Steaks — all run by Michael and Sarah Buckley of Hollis. “We try and diversify as much as we can,” Kaitlyn Orde of Lull Farm in Hollis said. They grow 50 different kinds of tomatoes and a dozen different kinds of squash, for example, she said. For Lull, keeping the farm stand supplied is a main concern, so wholesale is not a primary interest. Although their Milford farm stand is closed in the winter, Lull’s Hollis store is open year-round, and they buy from Boston’s Chelsea produce market outside their own growing season. They sell local products and baked goods. In years past, a sign outside of Lull read something like, “Buy local, or watch the houses grow.” Orde said given the economy, development is less of a concern currently, but farming is expensive. “Basically if we didn’t have the support of the community, then it would be hard to stay in business,” Orde said. The sentiment applied to the other farms on the road as well, she said. “It’s a way of life a lot of people are not willing to live anymore because you work seven days a week, 12 hours per day,” yet farms supply many of the things we need, Orde said. She pointed out that decades ago, the Nashua Mall and Plaza at Exit 6 in Nashua was a dairy farm. “Those stores do serve a purpose but people forget how quickly land can change within a generation,” Orde said. The bottom line of what the New Hampshire Farm to Restaurant Connection does is to sustain New Hampshire farms — provide farmers with a reason not to sell to real estate brokers, Burke said. However, local foods are also safer, better and fresher, he said. Brookdale in Hollis has a farm stand, and sells plants and bakery as well as decorative and gift items, offers pick-your-own, and has an ice cream stand. Brookdale produce is often seen in area grocery stores. Diversifying is also a tactic of Larry Pletcher, whose Vegetable Ranch LLC is based in Warner, and he and his staff also farm fields in Concord and Boscawen. He’s planning to farm 14 acres this year and grows organic vegetables. Pletcher is involved in a couple of CSAs, including a winter CSA, sells wholesale to A Market and the Concord Coop and retail at the Concord Farmers Market, and will have a farm stand in Warner this summer (on Kearsarge Mountain Road). A Market representatives said they work with growers pre-season on what and how much to grow for the store. Vegetable Ranch is distributing six days a week and harvesting seven, he said. The Vegetable Ranch self-distributes so the larger the volume, the better. A restaurant order might be one-sixth of what one trip to A Market would be, Pletcher estimated. Growing enough to supply restaurants, too, is another issue. “We sell every bit of what we grow,” Pletcher said. Pletcher has been selling at the Concord Farmers’ Market for about eight or nine years. He enjoys doing the one Saturday morning market per week. It’s like seeing old friends when customers come by each week, he said. Weekday afternoon markets can cause issues since summer heat can take a toll on greens during the 40-minute drive, he said. Pletcher has three greenhouses, and their winter CSA demand was “huge,” he said. They wanted to limit shares to 100, but ended up selling 106 with virtually no advertising, he said. Romeo Danais describes himself as a “gentleman farmer” in Nottingham who raises beef and chicken for eggs and meat, and has a good-sized vegetable garden. He moved back from Silicon Valley and bought a farm in July 2008. He’s supplying eggs to Zampa in Epping currently. He reports that the last three winter farmers markets he went to had good turnouts, with about 2,200 people coming through Rollinsford’s and 1,600 through Epping recently for example, he said. A difficulty with supplying a restaurant is providing a reliable, continued supply, he said. Grocery stores want the same reliability, he said. Farmers markets haven’t really worked out for the certified organic Red Manse Farm, which Earl Tuson and his family have run in Loudon since about 2006. They aren’t on a main road so a farm stand wouldn’t be ideal. They grow on about nine acres. Instead, Red Manse is focusing on building wholesale accounts. Tuson sells to a Roxbury business that produces about 6,000 meals daily for homebound seniors and school lunches mostly. Tuson sent about 800 pounds of squash to them every other week last summer. Tuson has also been talking with UNH. Because Tuson grows organically, using the resources he has and avoiding energy-intensive season-extending growing methods, most of his harvest lines up with the fall semester, not necessarily summer farmers markets, he explained. That’s why Thanksgiving, a harvest holiday, is in November, he pointed out. The growing style also clashes with restaurants that have fixed menus rather than those that change with the season. Tuson pointed out things like spinach doesn’t grow well in heat, so it’s tough to have good local spinach in August, for example. But some cooks do enjoy working seasonally. “It’s great when they understand that they can’t get good spinach in August,” Tuson said. But cooks who don’t understand can probably feel frustrated dealing with Tuson, he said. For example, lettuce in California is grown in a desert and is irrigated. So they don’t have things like mud, and the lettuce is very clean. It rains here, and it’s impossible for Tuson to send perfectly clean lettuce to a restaurant since mud has been splashing into the leaves while it’s been growing. That means a chef has to pay more in labor for washing local lettuce, he said. And it takes an awful lot of selling lettuce to pay a mortgage and expenses and earn a living. Tuson is concerned that there is an idea around that people can set up a viable farm on two or three acres. “Farms aren’t viable on that scale without … dramatically reducing lifestyles that Americans are currently enjoying,” Tuson said. Tuson pointed out that the farm land left in New Hampshire is best suited for planting so we have to hang on to it. “All the compost in the world” won’t turn rocky, bony soil into good farmland, he said. Also, planting for farmers markets can be inefficient because you have to plant a little of everything, Tuson said. Still, he won’t mono-crop, because for example, if it hails, the leafy greens will be hurt but the potatoes won’t care. Also, different growers have different capabilities, he said. Eating with the seasons If Republic can’t get the locally raised lamb or beef they need for a dish, “I have no problem putting a note on the blackboard saying a menu item is not available,” she said. Rippee said at Republic, they are trying to make sure that animals that end up as proteins on the plate have not come from factory farm situations. Republic also works with The Little Milkman, a vendor out of Portsmouth who delivers from Miles Smith Farm for beef, and carries Hatchland Dairy milk. Rippee said they don’t have refrigerated trucks, and the small farms that they source from don’t have the “massive capabilities of raising animals and distributing like big players do. So we are out of product sometimes,” she said. “We really are committed to this new model and it’s absolutely more difficult and more expensive to put products on the plate,” probably by 25 percent more than traditional suppliers, she said. Meanwhile, they are trying to keep their menu prices moderate, “but I think in long run it’ll be right thing to do,” Rippee said. Richard’s Bistro prints menus in house, which makes things easier when it comes to using local products, Provencher said. At the Hanover Street Chophouse, Cameron composts kitchen scraps, and supplements from his own organic (not-certified) garden. That’s how he’s been doing things for about 15 or 20 years now, he said. Cameron drives around the countryside, visiting farmers markets. He points out places like the Farm and Flower Market in Manchester, which has been selling local summertime New Hampshire produce without getting credit for it. The Hanover Street Chophouse cheese plate has become almost completely New England cheeses. “I think New England is morphing into the cheese basket of America” and becoming competitive with anywhere in the world, Cameron said. Hanover Street Chophouse is periodically working with Miles Smith Farm. They already sell quite a bit of their supply through A Market in Manchester and the Concord Coop. Grass-fed beef is a coming trend, “better for the earth,” and it’s better for the carbon footprint to get the beef from a nearby source, but more people are used to corn-fed beef, and the tastes will always be different, Cameron said. Grass-fed beef is “leaner and more flavorful,” but with the leanness you don’t get the tenderness, he said. Also, farmers are educating restaurants and others that “you can eat from snout to tail.” Every bit of the animal needs to be sold to stay viable. Cameron credits Hanover Street Chophouse owner Chuck Rolecek for letting Cameron continue his organic, local practices, although it’s a steakhouse. Cameron said he hasn’t seen local foods as a big draw for customers currently, and he doesn’t trumpet it on the menu, “but I think we’re ahead of the curve,” he said. When you use local strawberries, and “people go, ‘Wow. What was that? That was amazing,’” that’s what it’s about, Cameron said. Local foods are about taste and experience — it’s not all altruistic, he said. “There’s got to be some kind of payoff,” he said. For him, the profit is making people say “Wow,” so they become repeat customers. “A lot of producers are really responding in very solid sustainable ways to increases in local demand,” Patterson said. People start discovering how in-tune bodies are with what is actually fresh and in season, Patterson said. “People are really awakening to what’s in their food supply and demanding higher-quality food,” Danais said. People are paying $5 per dozen for local free-range eggs, but even that doesn’t mean the farmer is making much profit. That’s because feed costs are high, and the farmers have to gather and wash the eggs by hand — something which is mechanized in corporate-scale chicken houses. “All those sort of things bring the American public cheap food. Unfortunately, it’s cheap food,” Danais said. Voice of experience Valley Food & Farm, a program of Vital Communities in White River Junction, Vt., seeks to increase community relationships around local agriculture, in the upper valley of Vermont and New Hampshire, said coordinator Melissa Zoerheide. They want to try to make it as easy as possible for people to develop relationships with farms in their area, whether it is through restaurants, farmers markets, CSAs, or farm stands for example, she said. To that end, they create user-friendly guides online (www.vitalcommunities.org/agriculture/onlineguide/index.cfm) and in print, work with large institutions like Dartmouth College to help arrange for direct sales, or on things like getting foods delivered to people’s workplaces as workplace wellness benefits. The Vermont Fresh Network (www.vermontfresh.net) has been around since 1996: “We connect farmers and chefs and we help to represent those connections to the public,” said Meghan Sheradin, executive director. “Distribution is definitely everybody’s Achilles’ heel ... but we try to facilitate some of that problem-solving,” Sheradin said. There are some farms that have a distribution and marketing cooperative. Some are small farmers who know each other and just consolidate drives. Some farmers pick up from others for a fee. Those are just partnerships, and it isn’t that there’s any kind of advertising about them, “it’s more just getting people in the room to talk to each other about what they’re doing,” Sheradin said. As a nonprofit with some infrastructure, the Intervale Center in Burlington, Vt., (www.intervale.org) is trying to set up a distribution hub where farmers could consolidate some food, and access an urban population. Vermont Fresh Network is statewide so it really is a network, without that kind of infrastructure, Sheradin explained. Vermont Fresh tries to connect chefs and farmers and has distributor members, but the issue of delivery is left up to the chef and farmer, she said. Future of New Hampshire food “I think we’re going to see some very big changes here in New Hampshire” in terms of bringing food security for the state above 4 to 6 percent, Brown said. If New Hampshire had to close its borders, everyone would get the equivalent of an apple a day, Brown said. But we can’t live on apples and maple syrup, she said.
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Food for the people Meet your meat Miles Smith is gaining new customers in its own store through word of mouth and Web searches. “We really push the fact that we want people to come up and see the farm, take a tour, see how [the animals are] raised...,” Chagnon said. One challenge is that restaurants need specific portion controls, while Miles Smith’s steaks will range from 6 to 8 ounces. That’s why some restaurants are asking for primal cuts, so they can control portions. Miles Smith Farm works with a St. Johnsbury, Vt., processor that does an “exceptional job” and is owned by a New Hampshire person, Chagnon said. The farm makes the run once per week. Although USDA inspections don’t really apply to vegetables and produce, all animals on the hoof must be processed at USDA-inspected facilities, Patterson said. New Hampshire only has one such slaughterhouse, but there are also a few in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont. Farmer Romeo Danais sells grass-fed beef — cattle were designed to eat grass, not corn or grain, he said. Growth hormones and antibiotics that are given to cows fed grain are transmitted through the animal, Danais said. Demand has become “unbelievable” for grass-fed beef, Danais said. However, the slaughterhouse Danais uses doesn’t offer the primal cuts of beef that some restaurants are asking for, he said. Currently, a federal exemption allows those who produce 1,000 birds or less to process them on their farms. The nearest USDA-inspected poultry processors are in western New York and Delaware. So processing New Hampshire birds at those facilities makes them no longer local, Patterson said. In Portsmouth, non-USDA-inspected poultry is not approved, Patterson said. It’s definitely a different point of view, though, when reports of food-borne illnesses are coming from USDA-inspected facilities, not locally processed poultry, Patterson said. “There’s no true standard across the country as to how the local farmer can fit into the commercial market,” Danais said. Local what? Circa 1906 serves Sweet Cierras tortes and cakes (sweetcierras.com, 644-8625). Lynn Dion moved her home-based business to a Manchester millyard bakery last May and supplies local restaurants, and creates wedding cakes, etc. She’s seeing restaurants wanting to do more locally but not always being able to afford to serve everything fresh. Her products are made from scratch and never frozen, she said. Ignite and Unwined are two of her other clients. Dion is a “single mom and one-woman show,” she said. She does the purchasing, accounting, office-work, delivering, dishes and more. Her mother and 16-year-old daughter have both started helping out, though, and it’s “very enjoyable” to own her own business and make her own hours, she said. Free Range Fish & Lobster (www.freerangefish.com, 518-5585) at 885 Second St. in Manchester, is the first satellite store for the Portland, Maine, business. Free Range Fish was already selling through a vendor to restaurants in New Hampshire before the Manchester store opened, said Herb Hartwell of the company. More restaurants have been buying from Free Range Fish, looking for fresh fish as local as possible, Hartwell said. Now they are doing some direct sales, and the store’s distributor is often able to deliver at the restaurants during the regular route from Maine to the Manchester store. There are also local coffee roasters, including A&E Custom Coffee Roastery in Amherst (www.aeroastery.com) and Cafe DuJour (www.javatree.com) of Manchester, which Lewko is bringing into Circa 1906. Lewko said he found many of the items at Circa 1906 through nhmade.com. More ways you can eat local Obelenus said the caveat is that it seems nonorganic farms are now running CSAs — “I’m talking about people who use pesticides...,” Obelenus said. People need to find out how they’re food is being produced, Obelenus said. CSAs in the state are not an easy model for farmers, though, Obelenus said. Food maps We’re not the only ones... The town in question is Hardwick, Vt., population 3,200, and it’s the subject of a new book, The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, by Ben Hewitt. Hewitt will speak at Gibson’s Bookstore, 27 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com, on Thursday, March 25, at 7 p.m. On the seacoast
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