Wood Duck Farm

October 8th, 2010

This past Saturday we had over seventy guests attend our Farm dinner which was a real blast. Being our third dinner of the year, and the first of the fall season, we were blessed with miraculous weather, which allowed us to dine outside under the stars. Guest Chefs Justin Yu and Seth Gardner created five spectacular courses with my favorite being the Texas Gulf Coast Red Snapper. The Snapper was battered with a "mortar of sorts" comprised of salt, lavender and citrus leaves. When baked, this allowed the Snapper to remain so moist that I could have sworn that I was eating lobster. The Sweet Potato Cake was a real hit as well. For a look at some photos of this event please visit Oct, 2nd Farm Dinner Pics (Thanks Lesia for the photos.) Guest chef Justin Bayse of Stella Sola, will host our next dinner which is just two weeks away. Read below for more details.

The Fall CSA program begins next week with deliveries on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at various locations in Houston, Katy, West Chase, Fall Creek, Kingwood and the Woodlands. We still have a few opening, so let us know soon if you wish to participate. Visit CSA Pickup Locations for a pick up site near you. For those of you in already enrolled in our program, you will receive an updated email in the next few days. More details ? Visit www.woodduckfarm.com

Good news for those of you that work and/or live downtown as a Wednesday Farmer's Market is beginning next week. The location is at the reflecting pool park near City Hall. (Behind the Shell Building.) It will be from 10am till 2pm every Wednesday. Reports are that about 40 vendors, both farmers and prepared food folks, will be participating, so this may give some of you an alternative to "tunnel food." That's right! Get outside and absorb some vitamin E and eat some healthy greens at the same time. For more info, visit this link Wednesday City Hall Farmers Market

Outstanding in the Field? Hoping to see some of you tomorrow, Saturday, at Jolie Vue Farm in Brenham. Chef Paul Lewis, the Guest Chef, for this dinner event has been a long time friend and customer since his days at the Four Seasons Houston. Fortunately, Paul likes our arugula, so we got an invite to this coveted event. Please say Hi!

What's Growing? The dry weather is hurting some of our germination with carrots and beets and making us water "double time" everything else. Don't understand it as the weeds seem to germinate just fine. The greens are enjoying the cooler weather., but grow "thirsty" more frequently as well. The summer crops seem okay, but too are under a little weed pressure. The broccoli and cauliflower are getting munched a little from caterpillars; guessing they like their flavor too.

Next Guest Chef On Our All Star Chefs Line Up

Sunday October 24th: Chef Justin Bayse is Chef de Cuisine at Stella Sola and was named 2010 James Beard Award Semi-Finalist Rising Star Chef of the Year (FYI Deemed "the Oscars of the food world," by Time magazine, The James Beard Foundation Awards are the country's most coveted honor for chefs) Rumors abound that he will be appearing on the Food Network show Iron Chef this fall as well. Also a Houston native, Chef Bayse has worked locally with Executive Chef Chris Shepherd of Catalan and at the Hotel Icon restaurant Voice. Outside of Houston, he has worked at a farmhouse restaurant called Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York and was also at Restaurant August in New Orleans learning under Chef John Besh.

Dinner tickets can be purchased at our Urban Harvest Farmer's Market booth on Saturday morning or via PayPal on our website at Farm Dinner PayPal Purchase. Prices are $75 per person and the events will be BYOB. The Saturday dinner will begin with a reception around 3:30 or so and we will start our farm tour around 4 with dinner to follow around 5:00. The Sunday events will likely begin about an hour earlier. The dinner menus will focus on locally grown/raised food and will likely include five courses or so. For more info/photos about our earlier farm dinners visit WDF Spring Dinners.

Visiting the Urban Harvest Farmer's Market on Saturday morning? Please stop by and say hi!

Incidentally, a lot of our farm events and details can be found on Face Book as well.

All the best,