Tag Archives: sustainably raised pork
Edible Institute- Andrew Fink
On March 16-17, Edible Communities hosted its Edible Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. The weekend was full of great speakers, panels and discussions, including an interview of our very own Paul Willis. The Institute touched on many aspects of our food system – from farming through consumption. Here are a few of the highlights of the two-day event:
Saturday morning started off with a bang with a presentation from the event’s keynote speaker, Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU Professor and best-selling author. A dynamic speaker and personality, Dr. Nestle spoke about the increase in the American population’s consumption habits since 1980 and how advertising can affect our perception. She mentioned that as a country, we are consuming more calories per day and our portion sizes have increased. Additionally, she spoke about how the deregulation of health claims has allowed advertisers to target children more effectively. Dr. Nestle advocates social responsibility and is currently writing a new book about the food system for kids.
Niman Ranch Fall Harvest- Exec. Chef Andrew Hunter
We’ve recently discovered a picturesque town east of LA in the San Bernardino foothills called Oak Glen where apple orchards and red barns line the curving mountain roads. Nestled next to cider presses and piles of fallen autumn leaves are patches with pumpkins still attached to their vines. Some gourds are striped green while others are white and the rest are Halloween orange. Allowing my two young boys to actually pick their favorite pumpkin from the vine is a good lesson in respecting crops and being certain about their choices.
I picked a few extra pumpkins for the soup I’ve been craving since the heat of this summer got the best of me. And since Halloween is the gateway to winter, I’m taking my first chance to make a velvety soup with Niman’s delicious smoky bacon. If roasting and pureeing your own pumpkins seems too daunting, don’t skip a beat, and substitute the canned version.
Niman Ranch Smoky Bacon Pumpkin Soup
2 pounds roasted pumpkin or 2 15-ounce cans pumpkin purée
Garlic cloves, as many as you want
1 thick sliced yellow onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, as desired
Paul Willis honored by Chefs Collaborative awarded the Pathfinder Sustainability Award
Paul Willis, Niman Ranch Pork Company founder and manager, was honored at the 2012 Chefs Collaborate Summit with the Pathfinder Sustainability Award. The award recognizes a visionary working in the greater food community who has been a catalyst for positive change within the food system through efforts that go beyond the kitchen.
Julia Stambules, Analon Corporation, Paul Willis and Michael Leviton, Board Chariman Chefs Collaborative
Willis, fourth generation hog farmer, was raising free-range hogs the way his family had for generations. He knew raising pigs traditionally resulted in higher quality and tastier pork but did not know how to get the pigs to market. In 1995, he was introduced to Niman Ranch and shipped 30 pigs to the Bay Area. A number of chefs in San Francisco tasted the pork and were impressed with the quality. With this chef interest, Willis realized there was a market for hogs raised using traditional farming methods and hoped this need would help revitalize sustainable hog farming methods in the Midwest.
In 1996, Willis started building a community of family hog farmers to raise hogs traditionally and humanely for Niman Ranch. Today, the network has grown to over 500 farmers raising hogs to the strictest protocols in the industry:
• Raised outdoors or in deeply bedded pens
• Never given antibiotics or hormones-ever
• No gestation crates or farrowing crates- ever
Sense of Place
Three generations, including Carolyn and Marty’s children Katie, Brett and Mollie.
At a recent event in New York, someone told me they had never met anyone with a stronger sense of place than my father, Paul Willis. I have been thinking about that comment for awhile and believe it is an attribute so many family farmers in the Midwest have in common. I began thinking about my own sense of place and feelings about being raised on a farm in Iowa. Having lived in other parts of the country – Iowa will always be home to me.
This brings me to my latest visit to a hog farming family who supply sustainably raised hogs to Niman Ranch. Richard and Delores Blackford have been selling pigs to Niman Ranch for well over 10 years. Now their daughter and son-in- law, Carolyn and Marty Osterman, are running the hog farming operations. Arriving on a bright summer
morning, Carolyn and Marty were busy doing chores. Their teenage daughters, Mollie and Katie, invited me inside. After visiting a bit, I was struck by how much these girls reminded me of myself when I was their age. Soon Carolyn arrived fresh from working outside, it was great to catch up with another farmer’s daughter and compare our experiences working with our fathers.
Reflecting on Spring Farm Activities
As we start summer, I am sitting here listening to the thunder roll through… a rare sound these days, and reflecting on the farm activity over the spring. It has been pretty dry and we were hoping for rain, it’s a welcome sound for sure. Here in Iowa we are ruled by the ever-changing weather. During spring we expect to get rain but we also hope that it stays dry long enough to get the crops planted and the pig field rotated.
Sow exploring the pasture at the Willis Family Farm
On our sustainable hog farm we annually rotate the pigs from one field to the next and plant corn where the pigs were the year before. This is a traditional farming practice that has been used for centuries, it harnesses natural fertilizer produced by the pigs to improve corn production, as well as decreases our reliance on chemical fertilizers. Moving all of the Porta-Huts- the pig houses- fencing, waterers, and feeders takes a lot of time and energy but it’s wonderful to work outside on a beautiful cool and sunny spring mornings.
Fall Fun on the Farm with Friends
A group of our friends from Minneapolis came for a visit this weekend taking in the beauty of the changing leaves of fall on their drive down. The children, Micah, and Ben were looking forward getting a farm tour from my daughter, Sophia. They are 6 and 3 years old and have always looked up to Sophia since she is a bit older at 10 years of age. They were especially excited to see the pigs and tractors. As a country girl it’s easy to forget the allure of the tractor. I made arrangements with my dad to make sure they would get a ride of some sort.
They arrived around lunch-time. Sophia, Steve and I made lunch using our favorite fresh seasonal ingredients. We oven roasted blue heirloom and fingerling potatoes and carrots and served them with rich homemade polenta and pork burger sliders garnished with fresh mixed greens It’s also apple season, we had picked buckets of apples off the tree and off the ground around the bottom of the trees and made a homemade apple pie for dessert. 
After lunch we headed to a local pumpkin patch and Halloween maze. Foraging for pumpkins in the crisp fall air was wonderful. I was so happy we did this, because sometimes it’s easy to put these things off t’il tomorrow and then forget and time slips away from you and it’s too late. It’s great to have your friends come and force you to get out there and do those things you’ve been meaning to do.
