Hello Folks,

As luck would have it, I am munching on a Locavore carrot as I write this. Pulled just days ago from the damp soil of Chapel Farm, it is sweet and crunchy, having somwhow turned the scant North Berwick sunshine into plenty of orange brilliance. It is carrots to which I think we should turn our appreciative eye this week.

With carrots, it’s the colour. Root veg can be beautiful: beetroot’s jewel-toned purple, swede’s pastels, turnip’s white and purple palate, parsnip’s creamy white. But there is more joy in the colour of a carrot than anyone could imagine coming out of dark earth. Grated, seasoned, and dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, and a little sugar, it’s an instant salad. Finely chopped, it’s a third of an Italian sofrito, its best friends onion and celery keeping it company and rounding it out for a savoury base. In cakes, it is sweet and fresh; in stews, soft and comforting. Smoked, it mimicks salmon and suits soft, chewy bagels. I love carrots for crudites, or roasted and tossed in a salad with feta and cumin seeds. Carrots are so very rarely the feature of a dish; instead, they tend to take a back seat, lending their sweetness and crunch to other, stronger flavours. As with onions and potatoes, I encourage you this week to focus in on this underappreciated, miraculous, shining example of vegetable brilliance.

Flowers

I’m sure you’re aware that Valentine’s day is fast approaching. What better gift could you give someone (or yourself!) than a summer of local, seasonal, organically grown bouquets?

Luckily, we’re offering exactly this!

You can buy a voucher that entitles you (or your gift recipient) to 5 bouquets during the harvest season. These will be available for collection from our shop on Victoria Road once a month in June, July August September and October.

These are available in Small, Medium and Large varieties. Vouchers will be available in the online veg box shop for one week only. Visit the shop here. The vouchers are also available in our offline shop on Victoria Road, so collections customers, pick themup when you swing by!

These flowers are all grown by our resident flower grower Kim. You can follow their progress on Instagram at @locavoreflowers

Tell Us Your Journey

If you are a customer at our Victoria Road shop, whether to collect your veg box, to pop in for a coffee, or to pick up extras to top up your shopping, we’d love to hear from you about how you travel to us – we’re running a short survey about customer journeys as part of our wider project looking at the impacts we’re making.

So far we’ve heard about trips that range from just round the corner to the Outer Hebrides, as well as lots of feedback on how we’re helping people make positive changes to their diets and shopping habits (and how we could make that even easier).

 If you’ve got five minutes (or less, it’s a really short survey) then you can find the survey here, and we’ll be feeding back more of the results soon.

Events

Feb 11th, 730 – 930 pm

Campaign for a Healthy, Fair and Sustainable Food System – Tickets

run by Scottish Food Coalition

Food is at the heart of some of Scotland’s biggest challenges, from inequality to ill-health to ecological damage. Many people are priced out of a decent diet, reliant on food banks and suffering the consequences of poor nutrition. We are failing to adequately value the people who work to produce and process food, the farm animals, or the wildlife and resources that enable us to eat well.

Scottish Government is currently writing a new law on the food system – the Good Food Nation Bill. The Scottish Food Coalition is heading the Good Food Nation campaign to make sure the Bill promotes a fairer, healthier and more sustainable future for Scotland’s food system- and we would love to hear from you!

Join us for the evening- in this interactive workshop, you will have the opportunity to share your concerns about the food system, learn more about the Good Food Nation campaign and find out how you could get involved in the movement for a socially and environmentally just food system. No previous knowledge or experience is required.

Feb 18th, 6 – 7pm

Zero waste tour – Tickets

Shop tour

This event is for you if you are new to packaging free shopping or would like to feel more confident about buying loose goods and refills. We will show you how to shop without creating landfill waste.

You can find out how to use household and food refills, the milk machine, coffee grinder, scales used for loose goods and our recycling station. We will point out some packaging free items that might be new to you, even if you are a regular customer.

Free, but ticketed.

Veg Box Tips

This week, just a quick addendum to last week’s packaging round-up! One of our ingenious packers has started making reusable fruit bags out of vegetable sacks. These are a no-waste way of packaging our fruit bags while also upcycling our empty veg sacks. They are made by hand, so please return them to us!

Monthly Specials

This week, our cheese box and our vegan box go out. Our vegan boxes will be a Pancake Day special, with toppings and treats to make your shrove Tuesday full of flipping wonderful pancakes.

Next week, it’s our useful pasta, pulse, and grain boxes, so email now if you’d like to pack your cupboard with organic staples.

You can learn more about our monthly special boxes here.

Check out storage guidance here for helpful tips and tricks on how to prolong the life of your fresh produce. If you’re wondering where your veg comes from, have a look at these maps. You can also join your fellow subscribers over in the Facebook group for lots of tips, tricks, and recipe ideas.

To contact us, ring 0141 378 1672 or email us at subscribers@glasgowlocavore.org

In the veg boxes this week:

Subject to last minute changes

Small veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Mini Casperita Squash	Bedlam Farms, Cambridgeshire	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association

Standard veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Mini Casperita Squash	Bedlam Farms, Cambridgeshire	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cabbage	Chapel Farm	Soil Association

Large veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cabbage	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cauliflower	Sampson, Cornwall	Soil Association
White mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Association

Extra Large veg box	Farm	Organic Certifier
Potatoes (Carolus)	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Onions	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Carrots	Royal Oak, Scarisbrick	Soil Association
Mini Casperita Squash	Bedlam Farms, Cambridgeshire	Soil Association
Kale	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cabbage	Chapel Farm	Soil Association
Cauliflower	Sampson, Cornwall	Soil Association
White mushrooms	Orchard Organics, Armagh	Soil Association
Claytonia	Left Field, Locavore	Soil Association

Small fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Apples (gala)	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel oranges	Seville	Caae
Lemons	Spain	Caae

Medium fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Apples (gala)	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel oranges	Seville	Caae
Lemons	Spain	Caae
Conference pears	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association

Large fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Apples (gala)	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel oranges	Seville	Caae
Lemons	Spain	Caae
Conference pears	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association

Extra large fruit bag	Farm / Origin	Organic Certifier
Apples (gala)	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association
Navel oranges	Seville	Caae
Lemons	Spain	Caae
Conference pears	Mole End, East Sussex	Soil Association

Small supplementary veg	Origin	Organic Certifier
Courgettes	Spain	Caae
Fennel	Spain	Caae
Garlic	France	Ecocert

Standard supplementary veg	Origin	Organic Certifier
Courgettes	Spain	Caae
Fennel	Spain	Caae
Garlic	France	Ecocert
Salsify	Netherlands	EKO

Enjoy!

The Locavore Team