The hogs are slaughtered at Steving Meats in Kersey, and Wayne Yauk smokes the meat at his butcher shop in Windsor. “We use smoking and sea salt and that’s just about it,” says Haynes, warning that his bacon might taste different than expected. “It doesn’t have all the nitrites and nitrates in it.”Īnd because it lacks those preservatives that turn pork products pink, the bacon is brownish-red. It has a porkier flavor, closer to a pork chop than the typical grocery store bacon. Integral to the BLT, lettuce adds more than a pretty contrast to the tomatoes. While the classic BLT recipe calls for iceberg or romaine, we chose Colona Community Farm’s mikola butterhead for its red-flecked green leaves and almost bitter flavor.Īt this tiny plot along the Poudre River in LaPorte, just north of Fort Collins, Nicolas Theisen and Sara Rushlow are taking it small and slow. While Rushlow runs Cafe Ardour in Old Town Fort Collins, Theisen applies the sustainable farming techniques he learned at Pacha- mama (Longmont) and Guidestone (Loveland) farms to 2 acres of land that lay fallow for 20 years. With his wide-brimmed straw hat, jeans and overgrown mustache, the 30-year-old farmer looks like he strode out of the late 1800s, and farms like it too. He grows heirloom varieties of pole beans, broccoli, lettuce and other greens, and tiptoes through the rows to weed by hand. He has a tractor, but prefers not to drive it. “We want to work the land respectfully,” says Theisen, plucking a carrot out of the ground, brushing off the dirt, and snapping it in two with his teeth.Ĭolona is organic, but not certified, a process that costs too much, says Theisen. “We don’t need a sticker, we have much more than a sticker,” he says. “We know we have ethics and people can see that in our faces at the market.”Īfter 20 years under the fluorescent lights of an office at CSU, accountant Vickie Marlatt asked herself “what really made me happy as a kid.” The answer: “Gardening with my dad.” She decided to work under the sun in Frederick, just northeast of the intersection of county roads 15 and 52, where a sign announces the “Frederick Village Market, 90,000 square feet of retail” coming soon. On an organic half-acre surrounded by 165 acres of alfalfa, she grows funky heirloom tomatoes, along with green beans, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, okra, melons and some very spoiled chickens. Cracks extend in a starburst pattern from the stem end of the fruit, but Marlatt says “that’s how you know it was field-grown.” Marlatt shoos away a dark-feathered hen named Dusky who is sampling the tomatoes that dangle near the ground, and plucks a pinkish-red orb from a tall vine. The rock star of the heirloom tomato world, the Brandywine grows up to 1 pound, with deep red, dense flesh. Perfect to hold its own with bacon and hearty bread. Often overlooked as just the parentheses holding the good stuff together, the right bread can take your BLT to new heights. Make your own or look for an “artisan” loaf made with at least some whole wheat for more flavor and fiber. Much of the flour that makes its way into Whole Foods, King Soopers and Rudi’s Organic breads is processed at Rocky Mountain Milling, a certified organic mill in Platteville.
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