Five Finds on Friday: Stacy Miller
Today’s Five Finds on Friday come from Stacy Miller of Good Phyte Foods, the local producer of healthy and vegan foods that now offers locally grown superfood salads at the Wednesday Farmers in the Park, some City Market Saturdays, and by delivery for group lunches on the Downtown Mall. Email goodphytefoods@gmail.com to book your lunch delivery. Miller’s picks:
1) Fresh Basil from Twin Oaks Community Farm. “Their genoa basil is the BEST. Tom, their head flower grower and the one you’ll meet at City Market, will tell you it’s because the basil plot is right adjacent to an old cattle barn and the plants get lots of good nitrogen to fuel leaf growth, but I’ll tell you it’s just plain heaven to smell and that it makes our pesto crackers possible. I am also working on developing a new pesto proton (grain-free crouton), so will be getting a lot of their basil this summer!”
2) Warm-from-the-bush Blueberries at Seaman’s Orchard. “Spending a Sunday afternoon in July picking blueberries with my son is a treat I look forward to all year. I picked blueberries with my mom as a child at our local orchard, and I look forward to continuing the tradition by picking excessive quantities, gorging myself for weeks, eventually using them to make my son’s birthday cake, and then plaguing our freezer with plump ziploc bags through the winter.”
3) Fresh Jersey Milk from my milk share at Windy Hill Farm. “At the end of the day, I fill a coffee mug with granola and whatever chopped fruit I can find (Gold Rush Apples or the rarer Shizuka from Vintage Virginia Apples are my favorites) and granola (usually the “well-done” chunks of magnolia crunch), and sloppily pour from one of our half gallon ball jars until it overflows onto the counter. If I’m lucky, I get to open a fresh jar– one with 3-4 inches of cream at the top, and intentionally do a crappy job of shaking it up, so that I mostly get cream in my mug. There is no better comfort food than homemade granola and raw Jersey cow milk, in my book.”
4) Kombucha on Tap from Mountain Culture Kombucha. “The Ginger, Coconut Turmeric, or Blueberry Lemongrass are my favorites, especially at the end of a market day in the summer. We barter good phyte bars for their bucha at City Market, and I chug it sloppily before breaking down our booth after six hours standing on asphalt! I only wish it were available on tap at more bars in town!”
5) Monster Lacinato Kale from Whisper Hill Farm. “Their greens are absurdly large and are ideal for dehydrating for our bars since they lay so flat on the trays. Their kale and chard are great for getting creative with wraps or rolling and slicing to make long shreds in a salad. I am so impressed with certified organic farmers who manage to grow flawless vegetables with ease — I’ve never seen them sell a single leaf with flea beetle damage, which is hard to do!”