What Does Floyd Taste Like in the Fall?
Maybe it is the first morning you need a jacket before heading outside. Maybe somebody hands you a bag of apples they had too many of. Maybe the oven starts getting used again after a long summer of trying not to heat up the kitchen. By late afternoon, something is roasting and the whole house smells like dinner before anyone has really decided what dinner is.
Fall here has a taste, and it is not just pumpkin spice.
It tastes like food that came from somewhere close enough to picture. A squash pulled from the ground. Greens that still look a little unruly. Bread with a real crust on it. Something from a jar that was made nearby. Meat raised by people you might actually run into around town.
That is one of the things we love most about this time of year at Deer Park Farm. A fall meal can come together from several places around Floyd without ever feeling like you planned it that hard.
Maybe it starts with carrots from Riverstone Organic Farm. Roast them until the edges start to caramelize, then toss them in Deer Park Farm Cowboy Candy glaze. The glaze gives them that sweet heat that works especially well once the carrots get a little browned and sticky. It is the kind of side dish people start picking at before it makes it to the table.
Then there is the meat. Floyd has no shortage of farms raising good beef and pork, and a simple roast, pork chop or sausage does not need much once the quality is there. A spoonful of Deer Park Farm fermented mustard on top of a Weathertop Farm’s pork chop it adds just enough sharpness to cut through the richness.
And then there is bread.
Big Indian Farm sourdough with Deer Park Farm blueberry jam might be one of the easiest ways to explain what we mean when we say Floyd has a taste of its own. Toast it thick, add butter if you want, spoon over the jam and call it breakfast, dessert or the thing you eat standing at the kitchen counter before dinner.
Fall slows everything down a little.
Roasting makes sense again. Soup starts sounding good. Root vegetables, greens, meat, herbs and pantry staples start finding their way into the same meal. It is less about one perfect ingredient and more about how everything ends up together.
“Local food” gets talked about like a movement, but in a place like Floyd, it can be much simpler than that. It is knowing where the carrots came from. Knowing who raised the meat. Recognizing the bakery on the bread bag. Opening a jar made a few miles down the road.
Some of the best fall meals start with, “We need to use this.” A few vegetables are hanging around. There is something good in the freezer. Somebody brought bread. There is a half-full jar in the fridge that suddenly becomes important.
That is often where the good stuff starts. So what does Floyd taste like in the fall?
Maybe it is Riverstone carrots glazed with Cowboy Candy. Maybe it is Floyd-raised meat with fermented mustard. Maybe it is Big Indian sourdough with blueberry jam melting into warm toast.
Or maybe it is something completely different at your house.
There is no official Floyd fall menu, and we kind of like it that way. There is just a lot of really good food being grown, raised, baked and made surprisingly close to home.
