Brian will be live at Boulette’s Larder this Saturday, December 19, offering tastes of single-estate 2008 honey from Salmond Ranch, Little Porcupine Creek, and Acorn Flats. If you’re in San Francisco for Saturday farmer’s market at the Ferry Building, stop in and see us. (And if you’ve never been, it’s worth the trip.)
In lieu of breakfast and lunch service on Saturdays, Amaryll and Lori offer their signature pastries and larder items, as well as rich hot chocolate to cut the chill while browsing the market. Boulette’s is now devoting their communal table to artisan honey–including our limited edition Shaker gift boxes, filled with two jars of 2009 single-estate honey and lovingly tied with butterscotch satin ribbon. All our profits from the boxes go toward rebuilding the beehives that were stolen this past summer.
Hope to meet you there!
Summer brought some unimaginable blows to Big Sky Honey Farm. Namely, the theft of Brian’s hives–all of them, minus four. Plus equipment–an all-terrain forklift and trailer, hundreds of supers, and the loss of the 2009 honey crop, save two buckets. Many thousands of dollars and countless hours of work, gone in the blink of an eye. The culprit–a fellow beekeeper (yes, really) has evaded prosecution via the old-boy network. Ah well, karma.
On to the good news! The sweet, shall we say.
Single-estate honey from 2008 (six different ranches–count ‘em) is now available online at Foodzie, the online source for artisan food products, and in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, at Boulette’s Larder, tucked in among finds like aceto balsamico and caneles de Bordeaux.
For the holidays, we’ve teamed up with master Shaker box craftsman Brent Rourke to offer 100 custom birds-eye maple boxes, hand-tied with butterscotch satin ribbon. Inside, two jars of the very limited quantity 2009 honey–a jar each from Vassau Ranch and Sarpy Creek. It’s an extraordinary gift, available exclusively through Boulette’s Larder beginning December 3. Profits will go toward purchasing new beehives (so we can continue to sweeten your life).
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the
receiving of pleasure are a need and an ecstasy.
- Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
Charles Phan’s Slanted Door is one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants–despite the fact one has to plan way too far ahead to land a reservation. We decided instead to check out his newest venture, Heaven’s Dog, which has garnered raves for their Chinese-inspired menu and their vintage-y cocktails.
We discovered many intriguing cocktails on their list, some with local honey—like the rum-based Bumblebee with honey and egg white, and the Cap Haitian Rum & Honey, a smooth concoction of 15 year Barbancourt Rhum and honey over a hand-cut, height-of-cool ice cube. The mixologists are working it old school here, to great success.
Did I mention the dumplings?
The Food Section published this post today, announcing that Florida is establishing standards of purity for honey made or sold in the state. Notable because it’s the first regulation of its kind in the country—maybe even the world. The ruling allows “no additives, chemicals or adulterants.” In other words, nothing in the honey that’s not honey.
This ruling is a pro-active response to the FDA’s bitch slap; They shot down a petition to establish such a purity standard after countless tons of tainted honey from foreign lands entered the food supply a few years back. (Does chloramphenicol sound like something you want on your toast?)
Good news, right? But don’t you also find this measure troubling? I mean, had it ever occurred to you that your honey would NOT be pure and unadulterated? It’s sort of like sitting down in a restaurant and seeing a sign that says, “Our pledge to you: No rats.” It’s like, why would there be? It raises more questions than it answers.
Reassuring to know, perhaps, that the honey from Big Sky Honey Farm is always free from chemicals, additives and adulterants. It’s produced on the open range in Montana—where, let one L.A. girl assure you, there is nothing around for miles. If you want to know more, check out Our Bees(ness). We’re an open book.
Kudos to Florida lawmakers. Now if they could just do something about that new Bravo show set in South Beach. Talk about adulterants…
I had this idea about a year ago. A honey CSA. Community supported agriculture—or apiculture, in this case. And let’s just say it took me reading about another honey CSA to kick me into gear. We’ve taken part in CSA culture—a farm partnership which helped us weather winter with weekly boxes of organic veggies, from the familiar (cabbage) to the exotic (kohlrabi).
Here’s how the Big Sky Honey Farm CSA is going to work. One share provides 12 pounds of honey (4 one-quart jars) for $150. Or you can “buy out” a hive for $1200. This option provides you with a minimum of 96 pounds of honey (32 one-quart jars)—plus any additional honey the hive produces gratis. A deal if you can share with family, or get friends together to go in on a hive.
Let us know if you need a sign-up form.
(That other honey CSA, by the way, is through Meg Woltz out of Long Island.)
www.cryingwhileeating.com
Brian flew back to Montana to take care of his “girls,” all million or so of them. (Isn’t it amazing that, in the beehive, the girls do all the work?) And so, with time to head back to my budding screenplay, it feels like the right moment for a bowl of rice pudding. I came across this recipe for Exotic rice pudding on demand on the LA Times website, which is attributed to Deborah Madison’s book “What We Eat When We Eat Alone.” (Does a hankering for sweet starch make me that transparent?)
This one looks especially inviting, punched up with Middle Eastern flavors—cardamom, saffron, pistachio, and honey. Fortunately I have a very good one on my kitchen counter, produced by a beekeeper I know and love.
We had a great couple of days in San Francisco. One of the highlights –meeting up with Susie and Rob of Foodzie, a new online marketplace for lovers of artisan food. We got to check out their brick loft digs and taste goodies like Terra Verde meyer lemon jam and Effie’s oatcakes. (Plus we met Bentley, who may just be the sweetest rescue dog ever.) We’ll soon be joining forces to make our honey available online. Brian was frankly just really proud that they loved it, and I was happy to make new friends. Can’t wait to attend one of their upcoming tastings and meet other folks who live for the next good meal.
Labor Day weekend in SF we joined the festivities at Slow Food Nation, a whirlwind four-day event celebrating slow food and the people who produce it. Brian’s honey was featured in the Tasting Hall, where we divided our time between Honey & Preserves and Cocktails (best bang for the buck, definitely), decorated with hundreds of paper umbrellas. Too clever.
Also made it to a dinner at Greens which benefitted MALT, Marin Agricultural Land Trust. Fabulous ladies, fabulous organization that has saved acres and acres of farmland in Marin County. We took in a lecture with Alice Waters, among others, as well as a too-quick trip through the market—although we did manage to snap up some elephant heart plum jam from the “I Love Jam” guys. And one well-chosen workshop—a coffee and chocolate tasting with the owners of Blue Bottle and Bittersweet. (Yes, it was that good.)
Interested to see what shape this inaugural Slow Food event takes in coming years…
