Burger Night Week 12: All the jams

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July 18, 2024

Hello from Together Farms!

Thank God it's week 12! Week 11 tried to kill us! 💀 It literally did kill our power...a lot! but I think all our equipment has finally been fixed and everything is working as it should!

We even went on an employee outing Monday night to recover and cool our cores back down and we were successful in our mission (except no one beat Andy at bowling, so he's still the reigning champ 🏆).

So now we're rolling into week 12 grateful for all the incredibly patient customers that showed up, for all the emergency repairmen both on and off-farm, all the helpful neighbors who ran to our aid, and for the weather that has calmed tf down. (see what I did there? 😄)

In fact, the weather almost seems like it's apologizing this week for all it's bad behavior this year! It's not even humid!

[quick checks forecast to make sure nothing's changed.]

Yep. The weather forecast still looks amazing for this weekend!!

I sure hope that's true wherever you are too and that you're able to get out and enjoy it!

If you are open to suggestions on what to do, then might I suggest some fun & food on the farm??

Burger of the Week: We Brie Jammin'

100% grassfed beef patty
uncured applewood smoked bacon
lemon-infused brie
AVEnue Orchard's blueberry-habanero JAM
toasted, buttery brioche bun

This burger was the jam last year so we are bringing it back! Along with AVEnue Orchard who will be here sampling jams and serving up apple cider slushies all Saturday night (3ish until you stop talking to them)!

Farm Store Sales

All of AVEnue Orchards products are 20% off! Both in-store and online!

In the farm store we will be running a buy 3 meats/breads get 1 FREE AVEnue jam! Perfect time to stock up!

Thursday, July 18

Save 20% on the Burger of the Week

Trivia at 7pm: Family Feud style

If you want to play trivia with us (what else can you do on a Thursday that's free AND you might win things?!) but don't want to feel like an idiot when it's all said and done (some of the people at last week's T Swift trivia can attest to this) then Family Feud night is when you want to be here!

Friday, July 19

LIVE MUSIC from Kaleb Woods, 6-9pm

Kaleb Woods is a Sauk County Wisconsin singer, guitarist, and songwriter. With multiple performances around the Midwest including The Rave, Crystal Grand Theatre, Pabst Theatre, Majestic Theatre, and Summerfest. Ryan specializes in bringing a fun, upbeat vibe for all to enjoy. 2022 Best of Madison finalist, Southeastern Wisconsin’s top streamed musician via Reverbnation, and March 2022’s featured new artist for 99.9 WJVL.
You can expect to hear a few originals and covers by artists like: Florida Georgia Line, Luke Combs, Sublime, Bob Marley, AC/DC, Hootie and the Blowfish, CCR, Eric Church, Ed Sheeran, and so much more

This will be Kaleb's first time at the farm! Help us give him a warm welcome!!

Saturday, July 20

Meet the Maker with AVEnue Orchard, 3-9ishpm
AVEnue Orchard will be here Saturday to sample all their jams! We don't have space to keep all their fabulous creations year-round so this is your opportunity to stock-up on any of their products - they'll all be 20% off. Plus they'll have their cider slushy machine on-farm for you to enjoy! So be sure to swing by the farm store and say hi!

LIVE MUSIC from Dwayne Thomas, 5:30-8:30pm

Dwayne Thomas is a singer/songwriter based out of the Midwest. Performing classic bar covers from the 1970’s-90’s. Along with upbeat and heartfelt original music. Genres include: Classic Rock, Alternative, Country, & Pop. You can expect to hear artist like “Tom Petty, Gin Blossoms, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Goo Goo Dolls, Bob Seger & Much More!

Sunday, July 21

Family Day! Buy one get one FREE kids meals all day!

Reminders & What's Coming

This nice weather and surviving a ridiculous amount of chaos thus far has reinvigorated my on-farm event planning optimism (is this some kind of weird coping mechanism? 😂) but I don't want to distract you from making your plans for Burger Night so I'll just say this:

The Mushroom Foray early bird pricing ends Saturday so grab tickets now, unless you hate saving money.
Cancel your plans on Wed, August 21st, 6-8pm and watch for an announcement email!! While waiting, see if you can find your old walkman.

So while CountryJam sounds great on paper, rumor has it, they STILL do not have ANY JAM! No Jam! You know who has jam? That's right. We do. Both kinds. Plus free parking & no tickets needed. In case this last week also brought chaos into your life and you could use some guidance on how to cope (answer: getting outside for some fun on the farm at Burger Night).

Hope to see you on the farm!

Your farmer & friend,

Steph

Celery in meat - more deception?

UPDATE, 12-19-2025: I just learned that synthetic nitrites, aka pink salt, are pink because red dye is added to it. But, since it's at such a low percentage it is not required to be labeled on the meat (more bs in my mind). So that would be a point for Team Celery; however, with red dyes being banned, all the red dyed pink curing salts are now being phased out. So point is nullified, Team Celery still loses. Today we're talking about something that really irks me, really gets my britches in a bunch, really makes my blood boil, really drives me up the wall....but I will do my best to not devolve into anger and name-calling, I am clearly a professional so we'll keep this educational and factual because that's what you're here for and I don't even know where to get knickers from to twist. I'm obviously in such a state of controlled rage because it's Easter and so up popsCELERY. 😡Obviously. The gist of it: My belief is that nitrates and nitrites in meat should be avoided due to the creation of nitrosamines and that this is created whether the nitrates/ites are from the chemically pure lab-created (aka synthetic) nitrate/ite or if they are from concentrated nitrates/ites derived from celery because the same reactions will occur and be treated by your body in exactly the same way and it's best avoided. To further confuse matters, "their [synthetic nitrate/ites compared to those derived from celery] chemical composition is absolutely the same, and so are the health effects," says Joseph Sebranek, Ph.D., Morrison Endowed Chair in meat science at Iowa State University. 1 Just like how my blood sugar will spike if I eat a spoonful of sugar or a hunk of sugar cane. 🥄🌿REGARDLESS of what the label on the raw sugar cane says - it could say "natural", it could say "organic", it could saw "raw", it could say "derived from natural locations".....my blood sugar will spike because my digestive system is 100% immune from marketing gimmicks or downright deceptions.A+ work digestive system....please teach the eyes. 👁👃👁 Finding smoked meats without any added nitrates/ites in ANY form from animals raised well and organically on a small farm and then processed by an animal-welfare approved butcher that cares about health is quite a feat! Congratulations! 🎺🎺🎺Pictured: our $99 March Bundle of the Month (not pictured: included recipe cards and all the transparency we offer, mostly because it's transparent).Now that it's Easter time, the SMALL FARMS I follow are out there telling their customers that their hams are "uncured" and contain NO nitrates/ites because they use "celery" and therefore it's healthy....either they are directly saying it's healthier or are very heavily implying it. But they are literally say "NO nitrates/ites included" in their emails and social posts.Which is actually 3 lies. ‼ Lie 1. It's not uncured. Celery-derived nitrates/ites are chemically the same BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. No literally. There's more. Since the USDA will not classify celery-derived nitrates/ites as being a curing agent (which makes zero science-sense) they will also not regulate it's use and so it's basically it's like the wild wild west.Not only that, but I have had butchers personally tell me that they then use MORE just to be "safe"!And the fact that nitrate/ite levels in meats using celery-derived nitrate/ite compounds is at least the same as synthetically sourced nitrate/ite was actually found to be true by researchers. So again, the chemical will behave the same, like a curing agent, regardless of how it came to be. Chemistry. Lie 2. It's just some celery - you know, the green leafy vegetable that is good for you. Well, yes but no. That's just like saying high-fructose corn syrup or glucose syrup is corn. 🌽Yes, but no. Yes it was derived from corn but after extensive further processing and concentration. If you told me "here's some corn for you to eat", I would imagine a cob of corn or perhaps a bag of frozen corn, I wouldn't think you were handing me a spoonful of glucose syrup. Same with the celery.They are not rubbing the meat with a stalk of celery, they are highly refining and processing the celery to extract out the naturally-occurring nitrates/ites and concentrate them which they then use as a substitute for pure synthetic nitate/ite curing salts. The entire point of adding the celery-derived nitrate/ites is for the nitrates/ites, not for flavor or nutrients or color or anything else. Nobody is even pretending there is any other reason for it's use except to act as a cure. Lie 3. It's healthier. I feel like we proved the point as far as celery nitrates/ites are the same chemically as synthetic ones and your intestinal tract also can't read, so just like my intestinal tract, it is what it is.The nitrosamines are created and probably cause colorectal cancer. But, wait, the celery option itself actually gets even a little bit worse. Okay, so it's true that nitrates/ites naturally occur in foods - especially leafy vegetables or any veggies with higher water content (because nitrates/ites occur in water) so then the veggies themselves concentrate that, some a little more than others, and we eat it, but that is seemingly okay. Kind of like how nicotine is naturally occurring in some veggies and actually might be good for you in small doses of that raw form, but I'm doing my best to stay focused here. Just remember, the problem seems to be the heating up of the nitrates/ites in a protein-rich environment, not necessarily the nitrates/ites themselves.Okay so what else are veggies that are full of water going to be full of? That's right - pesticides, herbicides and whatever else is floating around in or dissolved in all that water they are drinking or being splashed with. Celery currently ranks #16 on the EWG's pesticide contamination list (again, they don't look at any of the other -ides) and, here's the kicker! Non-organic celery is used to make celery-derived nitrates/ites even for organic products! 3So along with those celery nitrates/ites comes the concentration of whatever else was in that celery. I mean, at this point, if we didn't have this godsend of an option with our butcher of "D. None of the above".-------> we would choose synthetic over "celery". <------- Now at this point I should just leave well enough alone and send you on your merry way to digest all this info but I'm not really a professional like was indicated earlier so before we go, I'd like to show you this label and you tell me if it's telling you the truth and can be trusted or if it's deceiving you: It's hard to read but under the white banner it says "No Nitrates or Nitrites Added" and then in the asterisk at the very bottom in the white it says "except those naturally occurring in....celery powder" which you'll see below was added. 🤣 what?? so which is it? added or not added?That would be like if the Snickers or whatever candy bar said "no sugar added except for those naturally occurring in corn" instead of "high fructose corn syrup". 🤯And, of course, it says "uncured" in giant letters as part of the name, which it chemically is not Again, the back is hard to read though it does say you can have "peace of mind" eating this (more like, I'll give you a piece of my mind Applegate).A close-up of just the ingredients is included. Notice that the celery is not organic even though this is an organic product. It's not just celery. Some butchers will say "vegetable" or use carrots or beets or some other veggie or combo of veggies but it's all the same - a veggie being highly processed to extract and concentrate nitrates/ites to then be used as a better sounding cure. Could actually be worse depending on how much those other vegs concentrate bad stuff. Okay so they both said "no nitrates/ites added" but also then added the concentrated form of celery nitrates/ites which is chemically exactly the same as the synthetic nitrates/ites and behaves exactly the same way....as a cure.Okay and here's a picture of our label - what do you notice? The label says "uncured", the ingredient list does not include any vegetables or any asterisks that say "except for..." so it really is uncured and there really are no nitrates/ites added. Just good meat that was in a salt & sugar brine and then smoked the old-fashioned way using a smokehouse and hardwood chips! No water injections or reforming either. Just a smoked ham. That's right - actually no nitrates added. Congratulations! You have just unlocked a new set of decoder glasses complete with a ring! 👓💍This is a big deal, as the "Celery in Meat" ring + glasses are both are very hard to collect. This got much longer than I expected so I am going to save the butcher story for next week. I am also a little concerned I'm on the verge of starting a cult with all these secret super powers I am giving you so stay tuned for part 2 as to why and how we ended up here - clean meat, raised organically on our small farm and processed well. No way are we going to work so hard on raising the best meat we can (hand-fed pastured pigs!) only to have questionable ingredients added at the butcher! Hard pass. Of course if you want to eat meats with nitrates/ites in any form - great! If you aren't worried about nitrosamines, great! If you don't think I'm right or my references are not trustworthy, that's all fine. Of course, you probably shouldn't expect to be invited to present at the Annual Convention of Chemists, aka ChemCon, but that's fine, you've got better things to do anyway. 🧪 I just want you to be able to have the CORRECT and trustworthy information you need to make those decisions. And right now, "uncured" meats and "celery" are a huge pile of lies, deception and greenwashing. This really might be the worst example of greenwashing I can think of, specifically because we assume the word celery = better and we assume we can trust all these small farms. It's actually worse even than meat being able to be labelled "Product of USA" no matter where it's from because at least small farms aren't doing that to their blindly trusting customers. Ugh, it all just makes me so sad and frustrated. Also a small pro-tip, according to my chef friend, celery is best left out of broth making too as it brings some unpleasant flavors with it (nitrate is that you??). So keep celery in its place: Bloody Marys and we'll all be fine and live forever. Hmm, a drink actually sounds really good right now. Thanks for being a part of our little farm and I hope you really can trust us - I don't think we are self-deceived (although that's the thing about being self-deceived) and we do our best to be as transparent and honest as possible, but you'll never get the full story until our reality show becomes reality. ❤ Your farmer & founding-member-of-the-Church-of-the-Flying-Anticelery-Monster friend, Stephanie Schneider

Holiday & Sale Updates & Deadlines

Since the weather refuses to co-operate I've been trying really hard to get all the products online but whooo boy! It's a big task. I've added a TON though and am actively working through all the candles. It's day 8 of the 12 days and today all candles, melts & diffusers are 20% off!! I love these new candles made from upcycled wine glasses, check them out here! I'm working through the milkhouse candles now - my success here will depend on my level of success in the physical farm store, if we are busy, you won't see much more added, if we are not, they should keep showing up! We have something for all the candle lovers out there:🐝100% beeswax only.🐝100% beeswax with essential oils.🕯️Diffusers with essential oils only.🕯️Soy-wax with high quality fragrance oils.🕯️Electric candles with built-in 6 hour timers, they are even dipped in and made from wax so they look really legit but without the fear of fire or forgetting to blow them out. And without the pain of turning them all on every day! I love them. We have every shape and size: taper, tealight, small and large pillars, toads, mushrooms, fox, corn and more! Even the DIY candles are on sale today! So no matter your candle preference, you'll want to stop by the farm store for some free sniffs today! Open 2-6pm Table Centerpieces Unfortunately, we are woefully low on holiday centerpieces for your table (you guys are learning from all of our selling out in past years!). We have some beautiful pork tenderloins that make a great centerpiece especially when wrapped with bacon (or use a pork roast and make the family-favorite (and easier-than-pie) Bacon-Wrapped Kalua Pork which will IMPRESS). We have hams, but we may need to combine a few smaller ones to get to your desired poundage. No whole beef tenderloins but we do have filets (again, bacon wrapping is pretty spectacular) pair them with a whole side of one of the wild Alaskan salmons and you'll have the perfect surf & turf! Deadlines Until Christmas, ignore the online default deadlines (every time I try to override them, I screw something up): we will ship non-meat orders ASAP until the 23rd (flat $9, free for orders over $179). To bypass the store's limitations, follow these steps. Order MEAT and we'll ship this week if you are ready with Monday the 22nd being our last ship day (and a risky one for some of you, especially since the meat will arrive frozen, so plan accordingly!). Thank you so much for shopping small! Ironically, it makes a WORLD of difference to not just our little farm family but to all the small businesses you buy from through us too. We have 100s in our little farm store that we'd love to show you. ✨ Holiday Sale

Day 4 of 12! Books & Jewelry Sale

It's day 4 of our 12 Days of Christmas Deals at TF! with ALL BOOKS & JEWELRY on sale today only!! Farm store is open 2-6pm, a few products are online too but if you see anything you'd like in the photos that you can't find online, reach out (steph@togetherfarms.com) and I'll add them for you. I have amassed quite a diverse book collection and I would LOVE to show them off to you today (or really, any day). And the jewelry is best described as eclectic. It ranges from classy to fun with statement pieces made from the most gorgeous feathers you've ever seen, spoon jewelry you didn't know was possible, clay art, copper bracelets, porcupine quills....all the way to silver cuffs featuring the periodic table for those science nerds that also like to be fancy sometimes. 🤓💃 (it's possible our niche is getting a little too narrow.) We'd love to see you at the farm today but if you need virtual, we can do that too! Farm store: Mon & Tue: By appointment. Wed: Closed. Thur, Fri & Sat: 10-6pmSun: 2-6pm. 📍 w93 Norden Rd, Mondovi, WI.