TILTH PRODUCERS OF WASHINGTON

Contact: Patty McManus-Huber, Nash’s Organic Produce FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Phone: 360/681-6274 Email: Date: April 28, 2011 NASH’S ORGANIC PRODUCE WINS SEATTLE WEEKLY’S PELLEGRINI AWARD On the evening of April 27, Nash Huber of Nash’s Organic Produce was awarded the Pellegrini Award for positive impact on the Seattle food scene. The event, called The Voracious Tasting, was held at the Paramount Theater in Seattle and was sponsored by the Seattle Weekly. It is named for Angelo Pellegrini, professor, philosopher, vintner, cook, avid gardener, author and aficionado of good food and real human relationships. Huber was unable to attend, but his wife Patty McManus and several of the staff of Nash’s Organic Produce, Kia Armstrong, Sid Maroney, and Chris Tipton, accepted the award on his behalf. Born in Italy, Angelo Pellegrini came to the U.S. in 1914, and his love of simple cooking using diverse, fresh ingredients made him a culinary guru in Seattle decades before it became fashionable. He believed in sharing his delicious garden-fresh meals with good friends, family, and colleagues from the University of Washington where he taught Shakespeare. At their request, he put his thoughts and some of his cooking methods into a culinary memoir called The Unprejudiced Palate. The book has influenced many famous people, such as M.F. K Fisher, Henry Miller, Alice Waters, Theodore Roethke and Robert Mondavi, who shipped grapes to Pellegrini every year to make wine. You can find The Unprejudiced Palate in the lending library at Nash’s Farm Store in Dungeness. Jon Rowley, the Pellegrini Award winner in 2006, nominated Nash Huber and Nash’s Organic Produce for the award this year. “Nash approaches life the way Pellegrini did-put honest, good food in front of people and relate to them. It’s a tremendously important component to a good life. Nash’s produce has helped Seattle change the way it eats.” The Pellegrini Award is given to individuals who live their lives and run their businesses close to Angelo Pellegrini’s philosophy, but also to those who affect the lives of those around them. For over 30 years, Nash Huber has striven to bring fresh, honest, organic produce to his community on the North Olympic Peninsula. He has also sold produce wholesale to the Puget Sound area, mostly through PCC Natural Markets, and for the past three years Nash’s Organic Produce has sold fresh, organic vegetables, fruit, grain and flour to two Seattle farmers markets-U-District and Ballard. “I am really honored by this award,” says Nash. “It’s about more than how we run the business, it’s about how we live and share what we produce.”

Hello Farm-to-School friends and colleagues!

We are thrilled to share with you the new Washington State Department of Agriculture Farm-to-School Toolkit!

A main feature of the toolkit is a WA Grown Food Kit for school food service, which features crops available from Washington growers, along with supporting recipes, menu plans and nutrition facts. This Food Kit will expand over time, with more food items, menus and recipes.  Additionally, we’ll be adding recipes for child care and senior meal programs, with their nutrition needs and serving sizes in mind, as well as more educational and promotional materials for the different foods.

The WSDA Farm-to-School Toolkit also gathers information from great sources in Washington and around the country.  The toolkit highlights farm-to-school and school garden projects around Washington; features a news digest to capture stories that feature or inform Washington farm-to-school work;  and provides resources for diverse stakeholders in farm-to-school, including farmers and foodservice directors,  garden coordinators and grantwriters,  parents, students, and community members.

Thank you for your farm-to-school work, and to so many of you for sharing photos, stories and resources with us as we have developed this toolkit.  The toolkit is designed to be very dynamic, so if you have more photos, projects and resources that you think would be valuable on the site, please send them our way.  Please let us know too, whether you are able to find resources easily, and if you’ve got suggestions generally about the site’s usability.

You can continue to access our program information and WSDA’s agency resources at www.agr.wa.gov/marketing/farmtoschool.  The agency site regularly links to the toolkit and the toolkit links back to the agency site keeping all the historic resources at your fingertips.

The toolkit development was funded through the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant program, and we have had essential and generous support from our partners at the Minnesota Farm-to-School program, on which we modeled our WA Grown Food Kit, including recipes, nutrition facts and sample menus for foods grown in both our regions.  The toolkit website and the WA Grown Food Kit were developed by Heycats! Web Solutions, Inc. in Spokane, WA.

Special thanks to our own Becky Elias, who has overseen the project from the outset, and brought her passion and creativity to it at every step.

Please do share this with your farm-to-school networks and colleagues.  We look forward to your feedback, and thank you again!

Tricia, Sue, Becky & Shoko

Whitney Pipkin | Skagit Valley Herald
April 12, 2011 – 09:15 AM

The number of organic producers and acres grown in the state declined in 2010 for the first time in at least five years as the fast-growing organic industry slowed pace, according to annual data from Washington State University.

Skagit County bucked the statewide trend a little by adding one organic producer last year, though organic acreage and at-the-farm sales in the county dipped slightly.

Skagit County also recorded the highest sales of organic produce in Western Washington in 2009 at just over $12 million. Sales data from the study by WSU’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources lags a year behind farm data.

Anne Schwartz, who runs Blue Heron Farm in Rockport with Michael Brondi, said while local producers may no longer see 20 percent growth each year, they do benefit from consumers who are increasingly committed to organic foods.

“I think that more people are becoming aware of the importance of buying local and supporting environmental farming practices. I don’t see us going back,” Schwartz said.

Learn more at goskagit.com.