Easter is coming up - and that means eggs, ham, lamb, chocolate, pascha, sauerkraut ... gosh this list goes on. I've taken on the delightful task of having J's immediate family over for Easter dinner. I am very excited! I love entertaining. I also want to make extra-sure J's family loves me to bits, so I had to plan the perfect menu. I decided on some of my favourites: bone-in leg of lamb roast, cold-smoked ham, mashed tubers, veggies, and some kind of pie (I have requests for apple and pumpkin) ...
Now, I grew up in the Big City, and relatively recently moved out to a lovely spot in rural Ontario. Not recently enough to be a "newbie," but enough to still not quite have the inside scoop on local farm products. Where on earth am I going to be able to buy some lamb from "the farm gate"? And even more head-scratching was my cold-smoked ham conundrum: How am I supposed to purchase a cold-smoked ham if all of the butchers I phoned don't even know what it is?! (Apparently they are more familiar with the term "smoked country ham" as I found out later.)
I spent days scouring lists of pork- and sheep-farms in my area. Not that there were many, but it was difficult to get phone numbers. What would a person do in my situation years ago, when they didn't have the glorious internet at their fingertips? I whittled my list down to a few in the area, and I got to phoning. The pork farmers only sold fresh meat, and none of them could tell me of a local smokehouse operation. The sheep farmers were all sold out of meat, except for two: Fairdale Farms, which was just too far a drive for me. However the owner, Kim, was very kind and helpful. She had just recently started her farm a few years ago, and was starting to advertise her organically-grown, all-natural lamb, beef, and chicken. Do call her if you are in the Orillia area, she just did a fresh lamb slaughter.
The other farm was one much closer, and I was referred to her by a good friend. She had the perfect bone-in leg of lamb: 6.5 lbs, organic, natural, frozen. Naturally, I decided that would be the lamb roast for me. Then my darling Dad went out and kindly bought me a lamb roast elsewhere - so I'll be cooking that one for Easter. But, at least now I know where to go when I need a piece of lamb, or half, or whole.
I then tap-a-typed in "cold smoked ham Ontario" into my trusty Google toolbar, and found a forum pointing me to The Trading Post in Port Perry. It's a longer drive than I had hoped, but it's worth it for the spectacular $2.99/lb price. And apparently, the ham is so good that they sell it year round. Hmmm. I had been there before, and was impressed by the size of the place. They have all kinds of neat preserves, meats, spices, and so on. They also take care to only sell very local, organic, free-run, natural meats. So I phoned in an order for a 10-pounder, and now all I have to do is wait!
While I was getting the meat ordeal sorted out, I was running desperately out of honey. You see, I put a spoonful into every cup of peppermint tea I drink - and I drink it often. My last tub was from the Giant Tiger, and I was pretty impressed that it wasn't imported from New Zealand or something - it was a modestly-distanced Quebec honey. But I know that bees can thrive just about anywhere - including the Big City - and produce lovely honey. So I called a friend and she referred me to a guy literally just down the road. He sold me a pint of his spectacular honey for $4, and showed me his bee hives, chickens, geese, emus, Highland steers, ducks, and Huskies. He then told me to call him a few days in advance if I ever needed chicken and duck eggs.
All in all, I think I'm doing a pretty good job sourcing out local farm products. Maybe one day, just maybe, I might never have to go to the grocery store again ...
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