Eat Local KC

Harvest Lark Creator Helps Others in Wake of Tornado

I did a post about the locally-created Harvest Lark bars some time back. Apparently, the last round of tornadoes in our area hit their town. Many homes were destroyed, one young mother died running for shelter, and others are left without their belongings and life in chaos. From the brief email, it sounds like Cheryl Zumbrum is busy with her family helping others in the community.

There is a need for assistance if anyone would like to lend a helping hand (or supplies or gift cards for those who lost everything). You should contact Harvest Lark at harvestlark@yahoo.com.

I'll post more details when I get them.

Kansas City Adopts 100 Mile Diet: Guide to Local Food inspires Local Eating

In Spring 2006, eight enthusiastic eaters banded together to eat local food grown or raised within 100 miles of Kansas City. As the KC 100 Mile Diet team, they wrote a ten-month series of articles published in PresentMagazine.com that described their discovery of abundant and numerous sources of local foods. The team compiled their research onto a CD and created a “Users Guide to Local Food” that is available for sale to Kansas Citians interested in eating more food from local sources. In addition to the PresentMagazine.com articles, the CD also includes favorite recipes featuring local ingredients, the KC Food Circle’s 2007 Directory of Local Organic and Free Range Food Producers, and an extensive list of websites and publications about local, organic foods.

Got Grass?

On my way home from work, I pass not just one, but two California “Happy Cows” billboards. Given that I live in the Midwest, and I can find a cow standing in pasture less than 20 minutes from my city in any direction, I’m not all too clear on why I should be seeing ads about the mental state of cows in California. I’m also not certain why someone spent $17 million in 2001 alone to tell me how happy the cows are.

I mean, many of the cows here look happy to me. Especially the ones that make my milk. They pretty much live on a pasture most of the time. They get milked only a couple times a day, no hormones or antibiotics. They eat grass, lie in the sun and basically do all the things happy cows should be doing. I even have a photo of the actual cows that make my milk posted here. So, see for yourself. Do they look happy to you?

What you need to know about buying eggs

Eggs can be found in several colors besides white or brown. The shells can be pink, speckled, blue or even green. The color of the eggshell has nothing to do with the flavor or the nutritional value of the egg. Both of these depend on the diet of the chicken, how it is raised and the freshness of the egg. There is a lot of confusion, however, with all the terms regarding eggs. Caged, Cage-free, Free Range, Pastured, Vegetarian-Fed, High-Omega-3 … what does it all mean?

Green Eggs and Lamb

Above: Beautiful green and brown eggs are dwarfed by the huge goose eggs. Both available through Pinwheel Farm in Lawrence.

Want some of the most beautifully colored eggs this Easter, but don’t have time to dye them? No problem, just stop by the Pinwheel Farm in Lawrence, Kansas where you can get a mixed dozen of colors from soft, warm brown to light sage, blue-green and olive. The best part? The chickens do all the work.

Local, On-the-Go: Harvest Lark Cereal Bars

As I roll my cart down the aisle of Whole Foods, I get a twinge of guilt every time something processed and non-local hits the metal grid of the cart bottom. I’m doing my best, but sometimes you need something, well, quick. In our anything but slow lives, Slow Food is not always an option, even if you want it to be.

Now, thanks to Harvest Lark, my grab-and-go snack moments can be local, too. Their products, Harvest Lark Cereal Bars and Lark Mix, were created in owner Cheryl Zumbrunn’s kitchen as a healthy snack for her hard-working farm family.

“I'm a farm-wife and a mother, and wanted to bring the wholesome whole grain goodness of what we raise on our grain farm to others.  So we built a small production kitchen on our farm, employ local women and are trying to share our fresh bakery product with others.”

The ingredient list reads more like a real recipe instead of a science experiment, and it contains several ingredients sourced locally to Zumbrunn’s farm in Chapman, KS, just 110 miles from Kansas City. Local ingredient make up one-quarter of the bars content and include; hard red winter wheat, hard white wheat, honey, and pecans.

The farm practices sustainable agriculture, says Zumbrunn. “No-till, water and soil conservation practices, management of livestock and crops to ensure a healthy product from a healthy environment for healthy people.”

“We are a family farm that has come from generations of farmers, and we recognize the importance of innovative ideas from our farm products that will allow us to continue farming into the next decade.  Yet our family traditions are constant:  Respect for the land and it's gifts, respect for our neighbors, respect for our talents, and respect for excellence and the gifts to perform it...these make up Harvest Lark Company's Core Values.”

While Zumbrunn’s kitchen has had to be replaced with a production kitchen, Harvest Lark products are still made on-site at the farm. The other things that have changed is the recipe for the bars which will change to replace corn syrup with brown rice syrup, and the product line has expanded.

The bars come in six flavors; Coco-Espresso, Cranberry Pecan, Raisin Currant, Peanut Butter, Ginger Date, and Chocolate Chip. A box of 8, 1.76 oz.each, costs $8.99.

The Lark Mix, a blend of the bar “trimmings” plus nuts and dried fruit, currently comes in one flavor only. An 8.25 oz. Bag costs $4.99. Six flavors of Lark Mix will be introduced in May of 2007.

Harvest Lark products are available at Dean and Deluca and To Your Healthy KS in Gardner, and soon, at Whole Foods in Overland Park. You can also purchase the products from the Harvest Lark web site: www.harvestlark.com.