Buthcher Guild Retreat 2012

I hardly know where to begin......

Since meeting the co-founders & many members of the Butcher's Guild back in August 2010 we have kept up with them thru Facebook, blogs, websites & emails.

When Lee saw that they were hosting The Butcher's Guild Retreat in San Francisco we knew we had to go!

For those of you who are saying 'What is the Butcher's Guild'? 

 This is what their website says:

The Butcher's Guild is a fraternity of meat professionals bound to create a support system for our industry.

We focus on education and camaraderie to achieve a communal goal: a network of successful, skilled, independent butchers all across the country! We also need courageous carnivorous consumers to insist on Good Meat!    

We spent our mornings in workshops learning about branding, HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point), profitability & handling publicity.  We had a lot of great speakers & we all learned a lot.

 

In the afternoons we all headed to the California Culinary Institute where Dr. Gregg Rentfrow (University of Kentucky) talked to us about Meat Science & Adam Tiberio demonstrated his skills using beef, pork & lamb.                                                  Marissa Guggiana, co-founder Butcher's guild

                                                                  Beef demonstration

 
                                                                          Adam Tiberio

                                                               Lamb demonstration

                                                                   Tying techniques

                                                                     Pork demonstration

                                          Bruce Aidells- Sausage maker & Cook Book Writer

                                                      Old Oakland Farmer's Market



WTF News- September 28th

Wild Turkey Farms News- Sept 28

Got to say that San Francisco was AWESOME!!!  Not only did we eat our way through San Francisco, Berkley, and Oakland but we got to see old friends and make many new ones from around the country.  Go to our Facebook page and check out some of the pics when you get time.  

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BEEF and LAMB and PORK - OH MY!!!!

That's right, if everything goes as planned I'll be reloading on our delicious grass fed beef and lamb as you are reading this email.  I know you have all waited patiently for the past 2 months so THANK YOU.  Come on out to the market tomorrow and stock up!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Davidson Farmers Market-   (8-noon) Come load up on yummy WTF meats and fresh free range eggs!!!  

Salisbury Farmers Market- Domisty will be back at Salisbury this week so email us your orders or come on out and see her!

Don't Forget-  
Sunday October 7 - THIS IS THE FINAL WEEK  To get your tickets for the WTF 2nd Annual Farm Dinner on the Back Forty- Join us for an evening of local drinks, local music, and great local food. Tickets are $65 each and will be available at the markets.

Don't forget to check out our Wild Turkey Farms Facebook page and "like" us to get the most up to date info.

    

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.

Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte

Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM

300 East Restaurant- Charlotte

Whiskey Warehouse- Charlotte

Pure Pizza (at 7th St Market) - Charlotte

The Bradford Store- Davidson

Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain

Salisbury Wine Shop- Salisbury

The Bread Riot- Salisbury

Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie

Wild Turkey Farms LLC

China Grove, NC

WTF News- September 21st

Wild Turkey Farms News- Sept 21

Some of you may remember from prior newsletters that two years ago Domisty and I got the chance to participate in Protein University at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.  At this event some of the best whole animal chefs from around the country came in for 3 days of breaking down and preparing whole animals.  From this event came the concept of The Butcher's Guild, a membership association that promotes craft butchery and purchasing locally raised animals from local farms.  The Butcher's Guild movement has been gaining steam ever since and now has members all over the country.  So it was only natural that when we found out they we're hosting a 2 day training in nearby San Francisco we decided to go!!!  The agenda looks great with 2 very full days of classes with master butchers, sausage grinders, and salami makers teaching us the ends and out of the specialty meat business.  Of course this crew has a knack for preparing some awesome food so I'm sure we're in for a real culinary treat as well.  We hope to get some great ideas for future WTF products and possibly spread WTF stickers all over the west coast.  Who knows what other crazy business ideas we might get out of this???????

Davidson Farmers Market-   (8-noon) Come load up on yummy WTF meats and fresh free range eggs!!!   Sorry but no preorders this week.

Salisbury Farmers Market- WE WILL NOT BE AT SALISBURY THIS WEEKEND


Don't Forget-  
Sunday October 7 - WTF 2nd Annual Farm Dinner on the Back Forty- Join us for an evening of local drinks, local music, and great local food. Tickets are $65 each and will be available at the markets.

Don't forget to check out our Wild Turkey Farms Facebook page and "like" us to get the most up to date info.

    

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.

Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte

Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM

300 East Restaurant- Charlotte

Whiskey Warehouse- Charlotte

Pure Pizza (at 7th St Market) - Charlotte

The Bradford Store- Davidson

Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain

Salisbury Wine Shop- Salisbury

The Bread Riot- Salisbury

Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie

Wild Turkey Farms LLC

China Grove, NC

Know Your Farms tour 2012

I THOUGHT THIS POSTED LAST WEEK BUT IT DIDN'T....SO HERE YOU GO!!

This is the 4th year that Wild Turkey Farms has participated in the Know Your Farms (KYF) farm tour.  We enjoy having everyone come out & visit, see the farm &; listen to us talk about the farm.

What you may not realize is all the work that goes into getting ready for the farm tour.  The week before was filled with the guys at the farm bush hogging to make sure there was a clear path to walk on, moving fences & animals around so they would be close enough to see (& they still hid under the trees out of the sun), moving equipment, and the list goes on......

We also worked both of our Farmer's Markets on Saturday so we had our usual Friday night getting ready for the Market party.  We were up before dawn on Saturday to get everything ready for the Markets & the tour and I'm sure we still forgot some stuff.

Trust me Lee & I could not do this by ourselves.

Thanks to Robbie, Matt & Adam for all the help during the week cleaning up & all the help on Saturday.

Thanks to Ben, Courtney & Joe for working the Market trailer at Davidson & the Farm Tour.

Thanks to Ashley & Judy for selling WTF t-shirts & aprons.  We almost sold completely out so we'll be placing another order soon.

Thanks to Becky for bringing the ice, helping answer questions & playing tour guide.

A great big THANK YOU to Lee because he always works so hard to make sure everything is ready!

We also had great volunteers with KYF helping us again this year.

And of course all of you that came out to visit THANK You!!  We hope you had a great time & come back to visit again.

I always have great intentions of taking pictures but things always seem to happen.....like not charging my camera battery & only getting a few pictures........
Again thanks to all who helped make the KYF farm tour a success this year.


                                                              Lee getting the tractor in place.
                                       This was a very popular place to get pictures made that day.

                                       Charlie even wanted to get his picture made on the tractor!

                               These are not all of our volunteers that day but they were the ones who were                         there while my camera battery was working!  Again thanks to ALL of our volunteers!!!

                                            Rosty likes to help show the animals off.  He is showing
                                                            off one of the little chickens.



WTF News- September 14th

Wild Turkey Farms News- Sept 14

Turkey season is just around the corner and I'm getting tons of calls and emails already about Thanksgiving birds.  For those of you new to our list here is how the ordering process works.  

• THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION TO RESERVE A TURKEY - it's only to let everyone know what the process will be. 

• We sell our turkeys through our email newsletter, usually in mid to late October.  We will send out plenty of emails to let you know when it's going to happen.
• Turkeys are odd creatures and can be prone to random acts of death so we don't take reservations until October because we want to make sure all of the birds we promise out will actually be there for Thanksgiving!  We try to be early enough that if we sale out there are still options available from other farms.  Once our list is full we will help refer to other farms that raise birds the way that we do. 
• We provide fresh turkeys (any fresher and you'd have to chase them into the oven) so it's impossible for us to guarantee you a specific size bird but we do our best to fulfill request.  We hope that you'll be flexible with us on this.  
• Our tradition has always been to give our previous years' customers first right of refusal so many have gotten birds every year just to make sure they get a bird

• Here's the way it will go down

1. We'll send out a couple emails letting you know when to expect the "the turkey email"
2. On that special day you'll receive "the turkey email" which will include details such as price, pick up sites & times, and size expectancy
3. You'll reply to "the turkey email" stating that you'd like to get a turkey-  the turkey list is filled on a first come first serve basis so being quick helps
4. You will receive a confirmation email letting you know if you made the list, been placed on the waitlist, or did not make it.  
5. After you've received confirmation you'll let us know if you have a size preference and which of the pick up options you'd like.
6. You'll have a week to mail in/ or pay a deposit at the farmers markets to hold your bird otherwise it may go to someone on the waitlist.  The balance will be due at the time of pick up
7. You'll pick up your bird at the scheduled time & place, take it home, cook it, and have a great Thanksgiving dinner!!!! 

Davidson Farmers Market-   (8-noon) Come load up on yummy WTF meats and fresh free range eggs!!! 

Salisbury Farmers Market-(7-10am)-     Domisty will be leaving at 10 am this week so email us your orders and she'll have them ready for you. We'll also be selling at our farm tour so come on by the farm if you can't make it to the market by 10am

          ****  DOMISTY WILL NOT BE AT THE SALISBURY MARKET SEPT 22 SO STOCK UP THIS WEEKEND****

Upcoming events
Saturday September 15 (1-5pm)- Annual Know Your Farms Piedmont Farm Tour and Wild Turkey Farms Open House- Come out to the farm, bring the kids, and check out all of the animals.  Come hungry - we'll have food available!  
You can either just come see us or you can buy a KYF weekend car pass and take in the whole 2 day tour.  There is NO CHARGE if you are only coming to Wild Turkey Farms- Just tell them at the check in desk.

Sunday October 7 - WTF 2nd Annual Farm Dinner on the Back Forty- Join us for an evening of local drinks, local music, and great local food. Tickets are $65 each and will be available at the markets.

Don't forget to check out our Wild Turkey Farms Facebook page and "like" us to get the most up to date info.

    

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.

Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte

Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM

300 East Restaurant- Charlotte

Whiskey Warehouse- Charlotte

Pure Pizza (at 7th St Market) - Charlotte

The Bradford Store- Davidson

Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain

Salisbury Wine Shop- Salisbury

Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie

Wild Turkey Farms LLC

China Grove, NC

WTF News- Septemeber 7th

Wild Turkey Farms News- Sept 7

One of the cool things about having a farm full of animals for your kids to grow up on is that they have so many opportunities to learn life's lessons.  They get to see newborn babies, watch them grow up, help haul them to the butchers, and help cook them for supper when they come back.  Yeah it sounds questionable when put like that but at the end of the day it fosters a connection and appreciation for the supper on their plate.  While the majority of the animals have such a fate there are occasionally those that are fortunate enough to become part of the family and use their unique personalities to secure a lifelong position at Wild Turkey Farms.  Sheep like Cupcake, Ice Cream , and Poundcake have done such but no one has every been able to do it quite like Marti the Goose.  

For those that are new to our newsletter, Marti was a Chinese goose that we hatched and raised here.  At only a few months old Marti shunned his fowl family and decided to become a pig.  He never again was happy unless he was surrounded by a herd of pigs (regardless of their size) and he could always hold his own while fighting off 400lb pigs for dinner.  Marti was always the highlight of anyone's visit to WTF.  

Unfortunately Marti was found dead this week in one of the wallows.  At this point we haven't determined the circumstances surrounding his passing but an investigation is underway since we suspect fowl play.  It's possible that it may have been a hate crime since he was obviously so different, or perhaps he was a victim of mob rage.  We may never know for sure what happened in Marti's final moments but we are certain that is was some sort of Suey-cide.

As a tribute, here is a re-run of our most popular Marti newsletter (Dec 2011) - RIP Marti- you will be missed

I think at this point most of you are familiar with Marti the goose and how he has grown up thinking that he's a pig.  I've probably even mentioned how Marti has the ability of hold his own when fighting pigs to get his share of food.  Well this week I witnessed just how tough that goose really is.  For the past 2 weeks it's just been Marti and 2 sows in a pasture together until it came time to put the boar in with the sows.  Now I've never thought much about anyone getting hurt but I could tell that as soon as the boar stepped off the trailer that all hell was about to break loose.  For those that haven't been in the presence of an amorous boar, they start foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog and and start talking dirty with load guttural grunts.  Now I don't know if it was the slobber, grunts, or just the fact that there was a new face in the pasture but something set Marti off.  The boar was so busy trying to make new friends with the girls that I don't think he noticed the flapping, honking wad of feathers that was about to attack.  As Marti blindsided the boar he bit fast on his right ear and proceeded to flail him in the head and side with his wings.   Not knowing what was going on, the boar took off running across the pasture with Marti attached to the side of his head.  Marti would eventually let go and return to eat with the sows.  Once the boar would "shake it off" and head back to join the sows, Marti would repeat the scene.  It got to the point that I almost felt sorry for the boar as he would hide in the corner of the field.  Now this went on over a 2 day period but eventually the boar admitted that Marti was the boss and a truce was drawn for the time being.  It's hard to believe that 15lbs of honk & feathers can terrorize a 600lb boar to that extent. 

Davidson Farmers Market-   (8-noon) Come load up on yummy WTF meats and fresh free range eggs!!! 

Salisbury Farmers Market-(7-noon)-    Domisty will be back this weekend so email us your orders and she'll have them waiting for you.  

Upcoming events
Saturday September 15 (1-5pm)- Annual Know Your Farms Piedmont Farm Tour and Wild Turkey Farms Open House- Come out to the farm, bring the kids, and check out all of the animals.  Come hungry - we'll have food available!  
You can either just come see us or you can buy a KYF weekend car pass and take in the whole 2 day tour.

Sunday October 7 - WTF 2nd Annual Farm Dinner on the Back Forty- Join us for an evening of local drinks, local music, and great local food. Tickets are $65 each and will be available at the markets.

Don't forget to check out our Wild Turkey Farms Facebook page and "like" us to get the most up to date info.

    

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.

Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte

Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM

300 East Restaurant- Charlotte

Whiskey Warehouse- Charlotte

Pure Pizza (at 7th St Market) - Charlotte

The Bradford Store- Davidson

Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain

Salisbury Wine Shop- Salisbury

The Bread Riot- Salisbury

Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie

Wild Turkey Farms LLC

China Grove, NC