Cornucopia Institute posts Miami Herald article- Bee Heaven owner: Organic farming is good for the foodie — and the land

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via Bee Heaven Owner: Organic farming is good for the foodie — and the land.

RESULTS ARE IN: 4th of July – Ice Cream & Pie!

On Sunday we had approximately 75 folks who shared their 4th of July with us at Bee Heaven Farm. We got to sample ice creams and sorbets from 3 of our local ice cream producers  – ranging from commercial ice cream, to a custom small-batch goat’s milk ice cream, to a ‘homemade’ producer. Common to all is that they’re all Redland farmers, and they all use local ingredients (Redland-grown fruit) for their creations. However, they differ significantly in their techniques and their added ‘touches’, and it was great fun to sample and compare/contrast them.

Here’s the flavors we sampled.

Ratings and comment cards

from Gaby’s Farm:

•  Mamey Sapote Dearest 
•  Luscious Lychee Sorbet 
•  Me Gusta Guava 
•  Crème de Canistel

from Hani’s Mediterranean Organics, goat’s milk:

• Dreamy Mamey
• Spicy Limey
• Richie Litchi 

and from Robert at Possum Trot Tropical Fruit Nursery: 

• Lychee Ice Cream
• Ceylon Peach Ice Cream
• White Sapote Sorbet  

Flavors were rated on a scale from 1 to 10, wtih 1=bad, 4=mediocre, 7=good, 10=oustanding.  I added the points awarded to each flavor, and divided by the number of votes for that flavor.  Not everyone voted for everything, presumably because they didn’t taste those flavors.

The most popular and consistently liked ice cream was

First WWOOFers of the season

Jade and Mike cutting bananas for the dehydrator.

Jade and Mike arrived a couple of days ago from Kentucky/Indianapolis.  The morning of their first day, after a tour of the farm, we got ready to fill up the dehydrator.  First we picked all of the ripe Muntingia, also known as Cotton Candy fruit because they taste just like it.  Then we sat down to cut all the ripe fruit in the barn, which consisted of Carambolas, Bananas as well as Longans and arranged them on dehydrator trays.  Longans take an extra amount of patience.  First you have to peel off the out shell; then you rinse the “eyeball”; last, cut around the seed very carefully because they are super slippery and you end up with 2 little cup-shaped pieces of Longan flesh.  They are AMAZING dried!  In fact, I heard they are an aphrodisiac in Indonesia (or was it Thailand?).

Top to bottom: Carambolas, Longans, Bananas and Muntingia in the dehydrator.