CHEERY FO CHERRIES
Hello Chimacum Corner Community!
Summer looks to be just around the bend, after a proper spell of some “Juneuary.” However, time waits for no plant, and new Northwest fruits are rolling into the store on the daily. As Alice Cooper once decreed, “SCHOOLS OUT FOREVER,” or so we hope every summer when we are young. In celebration of the end of the scholastic year, and the beginning of lakeswimmin’, hay buckin’, fruit pickin’, et al., we’ve put together a little run-through of all of our current “summer loves,” with the “hot girl” being the Tonnemaker Hill Farm Red Cherry, at the screaming deal price of $4.99/lb! After summer solstice lands, there is something new to celebrate every week down here at the crossroads. Thank you so much for continuing to support our little fifteen-year-old experiment in providing good, local foods.
YOUR CHERRIOT AWAITS
Our first round of Tonnemaker cherries landed last Sunday, and we are already moving through our second delivery! The first round was a gorgeous early red cherry called “Carnival,” and our second delivery was a straight shot of the coveted “Lapin” type. Bings and Rainiers to follow! Check out the recipe for a Sugar Snap Pea, Pickled Cherry and Peanut Salad from Joshua McFadden’s “Six Seasons” cookbook for inspo on how to use up that five pound case you picked up! Good thing we have loads of great local snap peas from Midori and Red Dog, as well as tins of CB’s peanuts for ya too! Or perhaps you want to cork up some of your own house made Cherry Cordial? The world is your oyster, er, cherry!
It’s all about the Tonnemaker Hill Farm red cherries at the moment, so we thought we would throw together some case deals to give you even crazier prices on the little red orbs of glory. Five pound mini-flats of cherries are only $20 (you get one pound free basically!), and 20 lb cases are available by request for $74.99 (That’s a sub-four-dollar per pound price!). At that rate, you can pickle, can, brew, or bake the long evenings away! Ah, sweet cherry reveries…
BASQUE-ING IN THE GLORY
The Corner Kitchen has a new scratch-made slice of Basque-style cheesecake out on the shelf in the Deli Fridge now, and boy does it pack a delightful flavor punch! Creamy, tangy body with an expertly browned exterior and sumptuous crust leaves nothing to the imagination. It is the perfect grab and go dessert to pair with Tonnemaker cherries, or the first wave of NW-grown open pint berries, like Oregon blueberries, Spring Rain raspberries, or strawberries from new local go-getters Humbleberry Farm! Be sure to check out the dessert section in the Deli Fridge after sauntering in from the Produce Porch with early season local fruit bounties!
LOCAL FIZZIES
Nothing quenches the thirst like a local fizzed beverage. We have a bevy of high quality producers in this regard. An all-time classic is the honeybrew kombucha line from Iggy’s, particularly the Hawthorn Rose variety. We also have bottled sodas with locally foraged ingredients like Douglas Fir tips, Lemonbalm Lionsmane, and locally farmed botanicals from Goodness Tea Farm, aka Shaelee Evans. Check out their whole line of products, including Chocolate and Loose Leaf Tea, at the Port Townsend Farmer’s Market, or even here at the Corner store! Last but not least we have a great fizzy beverage from Propolis Brewing who is right here in town, a Hop water beverage they are calling “SPA H2O,” which also include spruce tips a la the S.P.A. (Spruce Pale Ale). We put all our support behind these three solid local companies, and hope you will support them when you are next out shopping at the crossroads!
HAVE DEER? NO FEAR!
We all know that one of the most intense pest pressures in our county is actually hooved mammals. The deer are an ever present anxiety, hassling folks in their range at every turn. Fortunately we have a nice stock of some Deer Resistant plant varieties out in the Corner Nursery that also provide a benevolent source of nectar/pollen in the later summer when the main native nectar flow dries out. We have fun coneflowers, like “Raspberry Truffle,” and “Margarita Bop” Purple Penstemon, as well as the very cool hybrid Echibeckia called “Sunchaser.” For the ultimate fragrant yet deer resistant plant, try some White or Purple Heliotrope, or some Spanish Lavender. For some beautiful sturdy “cut-flower” types that are also unappetizing to deer, try out “Amethyst Falls” Oregano or “Venice Blue” Veronica. And don’t forget Red Dog Farm stocks some deer resistant plant types, and all Red Dog plant starts are a dollar off at the moment!
ICE SCREAMS
We just changed to a fresh deal cycle, and this time ice cream is all on special deals, just in time for the first days of summer! We have some great bargains on Alden’s brand ice cream bars, as well as all of the popsicles from Jonnypops, of which the Mango flavored Cream Pop is a new staff favorite! Go wild at your next get together and beat the heat!
ALL COUNTY PREPAREDNESS
The Production Alliance in conjunction with Jefferson County are throwing the All County Preparedness Day on Saturday June 28th all day at Finnriver Cidery. With talks and lectures in the morning, as well as over thirty community org booths set up out on the lawn, it is an event designed to get people thinking about Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Resilience, and generally foster some neighborhood by neighborhood awareness of how to stay resilient in an uncertain future. It is a free event and there will even be free Strawberry Shortcake and fun group activity games like Sack Races and Tug of War! An interesting bottom line takeaway of the mission of this event: everyone in Jefferson County should be prepared to live within their neighborhoods without access to outside food, water, or medical supplies for short periods of time. Their metric: three days of supplies = good, two weeks = better, and 30 days = best! Check out the TPA web page for the full download on this event.
UNFI SUPPLY CHAIN UPDATE
You may have noticed some disruption to the local supply chain over the past few weeks. One of the major food distributors in our area, UNFI (United Natural Foods), experienced a major cyberattack on June 9. They are still in the process of rebuilding their software infrastructure, but have gotten back onto their delivery cycles, though not at full steam. Chimacum Corner is grateful that they rely on a different distributor for the majority of stuff (thank you KeHe), but it is a reminder that diversification of supply sources is imperative for the resilience of our community. More importantly, this massive cyberattack did nothing to harm the relationships the Corner has with all of our amazing local producers, particularly our farm-direct relationships with hyperlocal small farms, which is the origin point of the business and its “raison d’etre”.
