Orchard Toot Sweet Photo
July 26, 2017

Not In My Back Forty – When Farmers and Neighbors Clash

A farmer I know, let’s call him John, is up late tonight in his orchard. As a Leelanau County farmer, his work requires vigilance. It’s been a wet…

June 30, 2017

Cherry Everything

When you step into Benjamin Twiggs, you are greeted with the most heavenly aroma… locally roasted Cherry Vanilla Coffee… the coffee of the day. Your eyes are drawn…

June 6, 2017

Farmer 2 Farmer : Land for the Next Generation

The average age of farm operators in the United States is 58. In the next 20 years, an estimated 70 percent of privately owned agricultural land is expected…

February 6, 2017

Come Together at the CTAC Artisans and Farmers Market

We’re more than a month into 2017, and even though temperatures are icy, the warmth of community collaboration keeps Crooked Tree Arts Center’s Artisans & Farmers Market a…

January 9, 2017

Cookbook or rule book? Amical Opts Local

Amical has been open since 1994, but I first became truly conscious of the local food availability in the late 90’s. Amical started to take off when we…

November 3, 2016

Serve a Local Turkey this Thanksgiving

There are plenty of local products to incorporate into your Thanksgiving meal like brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, homemade pies and more! Don’t forget, you can use the TLD…

June 6, 2016

The 2016 Guide to Local Food in NMI is here

Over the last year, Taste the Local Difference® has added a lot of new territory to our service area. For the first time ever we are including all…

February 16, 2016

Ending Food Waste – Feeding People

The amount of food wasted in our nation is stunning. “In the United States, 31 percent — or 133 billion pounds — of the 430 billion pounds of…

October 5, 2015

Embrace Imperfect Produce

The storm that tore across Leelanau and Grand Traverse counties last month uprooted trees and damaged homes. But it also beat up a lot of locally grown produce,…

May 19, 2015

Fresh, Local Produce is Worth the Wait

In northern Michigan we get through the long, cold winters by looking forward to spring.We appreciate each season because we’ve experienced its absence.To eat seasonally builds this same…